MUS2026-337 - museum specimen
Bamana blood-crusted cult Boli
Mali - French Sudan collection context - West Africa
Sacred / spirit
Boli
Source term: Rhombe
boli (pl. boliw): a Bamana power object, built up by repeated sacrificial offerings so as to accumulate and control nyama, the life force.
Layer on layer of sacrificial blood has all but swallowed this blade. A boli is made that way on purpose: a form built up by repeated offerings until the crust accumulates and directs nyama, the life force that acts on the world, and the original contours vanish under it. This one began as thirty-two centimetres of whirled wood, and the Bamana men's societies of Ndomo, Korè and Komo kept it. What the offerings gave it in power they may well have taken from it in voice.
Rhombe recouvert d'une patine crouteuse de sang coagulé.
Bullroarer covered with a crusty patina of coagulated blood.
Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac, object record 71.1902.12.14
- Object
- A 32-centimetre wooden rhombus almost covered by a crust of coagulated sacrificial blood.
- Function
- A protective cult object associated with the Ndomo, Korè and Komo societies; repeated blood offerings transformed its surface and may have ended its use as a sounding instrument.
- Source
- MQB 71.1902.12.14; wood and blood; 32 × 7.7 × 1.9 cm
- Source location
- 71.1902.12.14
- Source confidence
- low Broad Mali anchor; the record does not identify a collection village.