SA-Z1953-038 - secondary catalog
Maleku (Guatuso), Rio Frio basin
Rio Frio basin - northern Costa Rica - Mesoamerica - Central America
Sacred / spirit
Jafara / Lhafara; sabara (Sapper 1899) Spanish
Source term: bramadera / bramador (bullroarer)
Jafara / Lhafara - a Maleku name shared by the female deity Lhafara and the bramador through which her messages are heard; the source notes that lh is pronounced like Spanish j.
Among the Maleku of Costa Rica's Rio Frio basin, the Jafara was a bullroarer cut from pejibaye wood and tied to a cord of burio fibre. When a seer turned it, it made a strong sound through the air, from which the seer decoded sacred messages. The voice belonged to Lhafara, the female deity associated with the Caño Negro waters; the instrument served divination, not a weather rite. Older German-language reporting called the Maleku Guatuso and recorded the related bullroarer name sabara. This row keeps that older source chain as support, but the current description rests on the source that explains the object itself.
Bramadera o hablador llamado jafara ... un trozo de madera de pejibaye sujetado por una cuerda de fibras de burio, que al girarse provocaba un fuerte sonido mientras cortaba el aire, permitiendole al vidente decodificar mensajes sagrados.
A bullroarer or speaker called jafara: a piece of pejibaye wood tied with a burio-fibre cord which, when turned, made a strong sound through the air, allowing the seer to decode sacred messages.
Solis Aguilar, Territorialidades del pueblo originario maleku en Costa Rica (2021), p. 69.
- Object
- A piece of pejibaye wood tied with a burio-fibre cord; when turned, it makes a loud sound through the air.
- Function
- Divinatory bullroarer: a seer decoded sacred messages from Lhafara/Jafara through its sound.
- Map confidence
- high - Rio Frio-basin Maleku territory anchor; sources describe sacred riverheads and Caño Negro rather than one performance site.
- Source location
- pp. 15, 69, 84
- Spirit voice