SA-Z1953-038 - secondary catalog
Maleku (Guatuso) Jafara divinatory bullroarer
Rio Frio basin - northern Costa Rica - Mesoamerica - Central America
Sacred / spirit
Jafara / Lhafara; sabara Spanish
Source term: bramadera / bramador (bullroarer)
Jafara / Lhafara — the name shared by the bullroarer and the female deity whose messages it carried; lh is pronounced like Spanish j. sabara — an earlier recorded Maleku name.
Among the Maleku of Costa Rica’s Río Frío basin, the Jafara was cut from pejibaye wood and tied to a cord of burio fibre. When a seer turned it, its strong voice carried sacred messages from Lhafara, the female deity associated with the waters of Caño Negro.
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