MUS2026-157 - museum specimen
Dogon / Songo
Mali - Songo - Bandiagara escarpment - Mopti region - French Sudan - Africa
Function not recorded
Veni French / Dogon term
Source term: Rhombe / bull-roarer
Veni: Dogon vernacular name catalogued for this bullroarer; no literal gloss recovered
Halfway up the escarpment east of Songo, in a rock shelter Dogon families still use for circumcision, the Dakar-Djibouti mission found wooden bullroarers 'in quantity' on 21 November 1931. This 23-centimetre blade, called Veni, was one of them. The shelter's graffiti stones are repainted red, white, and black after every ceremony; what this particular blade did there, the expedition never thought to ask.
auvents à graffiti et bull-roarers de bois en masse
rock shelters with graffiti and wooden bullroarers in quantity
Leiris field journal, 21 November 1931, quoted in Quai Branly object 71.1931.74.2072
- Object
- Waye-wood slat, 23.2 x 4 x 1 cm and 44 g; elongated rounded blade with one terminal perforation and a small notched tip. No cord survives in the photograph.
- Function
- Catalogued as a rhombe; function not recorded. Leiris's same-day journal says wooden bullroarers were present in quantity at Songo.
- Map confidence
- high - UNESCO Songo Village coordinate; the exact gallery east of the village is not mapped.
- Source location
- object 71.1931.74.2072; collected 21 November 1931