The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-159 - museum specimen

Garoua site; catalog culture Kirdi and Peul, unresolved

Garoua - Bénoué Department - Northern Cameroon - Africa

Restricted

Representative—not this record’s object: Fang bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet.
Representative—not this record’s object: Fang bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (III C 32708), coll. Gunter Tessmann CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

Source term: Rhombe

In February 1932, while the Dakar-Djibouti mission's musicologist recorded reed pipes and drums around Garoua, a man named Maunde made this bullroarer for the collectors: blade, plant-fibre cord, and wooden hand grip, still together. The card gives its purpose in four words: for circumcision. Garoua was a Fulani river port on the Bénoué, a crossroads of Kirdi and Fulbe worlds; which of them Maunde cut the blade for went unrecorded.

Pour la circoncision

For circumcision.

Quai Branly object 71.1931.74.2654
Object
Wooden blade, 27.5 x 7 x 2 cm and 52 g, with a long plant-fiber cord and separate wooden hand grip preserved together in the exact photograph.
Function
Made by Maunde for circumcision.
Map confidence
high - Approximate Garoua municipal anchor; the catalog records the city but not a collection address or rite location.
Source location
object 71.1931.74.2654; acquired 30 January 1932

View source Open this point on the interactive map