The Bullroarer Atlas

No. MUS2026-132

The Voice of Vodun at Mitro

Benin · Mitro, Oueme Department · West Africa

Sacred / spirit

Yoruba eke from the Abomey region: a long, narrow, plain wooden blade with rounded ends and a small hole near one end.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. A Yoruba eke, a narrow blade with a terminal hole. Image source
Digitized MKB collection card for the Yoruba Mitro bullroarer III 12821, headed “Schwirrholz,” with typed notes on its wooden blade, cord and dimensions.
Plate II. Digitized MKB collection card for the Yoruba Mitro bullroarer III 12821. CC BY 4.0 · Image source

Source term: Schwirrholz

At Mitro, the bullroarer spoke as Vodun. Basel’s collection card calls it an “element of the OLO fetish”—the voice of the sacred power itself. Nine wooden blades came to the museum together; this one still has its doubled cotton cord fixed to the narrow, notched end.

Element du fetiche OLO (voix du Vodun).

Element of the OLO fetish (voice of Vodun).

Museum der Kulturen Basel, digitized collection card for III 12821.

Particulars

Object
Long lanceolate wooden bullroarer, 30 × 2.2 × 0.9 cm, pierced and notched at one end and notched at the other, with doubled cotton cord.
Function
Sacred instrument of OLO, sounded as the voice of Vodun.

Source

Museum der Kulturen Basel public collection records III 12821-12829: Schwirrholz, Yoruba, Mitro, Republic of Benin

View the source · archived

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.