MUS2026-158 - museum specimen
Yoruba / Abomey region
Benin - Abomey region - Zou Department - Dahomey - Africa
Function not recorded
Eke French / Yoruba term
Source term: Rhombe
Eke: Yoruba vernacular name catalogued for this bullroarer; no literal gloss recovered
A single terminal hole is the only clue to how this spare, narrow blade from the Abomey region once hung and swung. The Musée de l'Homme catalogued it in 1949 simply as Eke, a musical instrument — brought back by a traveling photographer named Pierre Verger, whose West African journeys would end three years later in his own initiation at Ketu as Fatumbi, a priest of Ifa.
Instrument de musique.
Musical instrument.
Quai Branly object 71.1949.93.4
- Object
- Long narrow flat wooden blade, 37 x 3.4 x 1 cm and 52 g, with one terminal suspension hole. No cord survives in the photograph.
- Function
- The catalog records only that it is a musical instrument.
- Map confidence
- medium_high - Abomey city anchor because the museum records only Abomey region.
- Source location
- object 71.1949.93.4; entered 19 December 1949