MUS2026-334 - museum specimen
Fork-ended Oshogbo Yoruba blade
Oshogbo, Nigeria - West Africa
Sacred / spirit
Source term: Bullroarer
A deep fork splits the lower end of this thirty-centimetre blade from Oshogbo — an odd finish on an instrument usually cut as a plain slat tapering to a point at both ends. Across Yoruba country the whirring of such a blade was the voice of Oro, god of terror and vengeance: when Oro was abroad the women shut themselves indoors, and the men handed over to his grove were not seen again. Which rite this particular forked blade served, nobody wrote down.
- Object
- A fork-ended wooden bullroarer measuring 308 × 56 mm.
- Function
- Ritual and status object; no named ceremony recorded.
- Source
- Prm 1931 3 2, 1931.3.2
- Source location
- 1931.3.2
- Source confidence
- medium Oshogbo city anchor from the exact museum record.