The Bullroarer Atlas

SAFR-003 - ethnographic attestation

Ju|'hoansi / !Kung

Namibia - Tsintsabis - Oshivelo and wider Kalahari source chain - Southern Africa

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San 'thunder stick' (Schwirrholz) with leather thong wound around the board and a wooden toggle handle — Omaheke/Oas, Kalahari, Namibia; the...
San 'thunder stick' (Schwirrholz) with leather thong wound around the board and a wooden toggle handle — Omaheke/Oas, Kalahari, Namibia; the same regional San tradition as the Ju|'hoansi. Weltmuseum Wien (VO 85396) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

!xoe; n≠ àbí; !goin !goin English

Source term: bullroarer

San names for the bullroarer across groups: !xoe (!Kung), n≠àbí, and !goin !goin (|Xam) — the |Xam whirring being identified with the buzzing of bees.

Among the Ju|'hoansi of the Namibian Kalahari, elderly men play the bullroarer in secret during male initiation and burn it when the rite is over; its sound is associated with the mythical creators. Among the !Kung the instrument is the !xoe, and when an old man sounds it at an initiation it indicates the presence of god. Further south the |Xam knew the bullroarer as the !goin !goin and put it to a more practical end: they beat it to drive bees, so that swarms would go to other people's places and honey could be cut and stored. These uses come down through a chain of ethnographers — England's 1995 fieldwork, reported by Mans and Olivier and summarized by Kumbani and colleagues — who caution that ritual practice among San groups varies greatly from region to region, so the link between the bullroarer and god or mythical beings does not hold everywhere.

The people beat the !goiŋ!goiŋ in order that the bees may become abundant for the people, in order that the bees may go into the other people's places, that the people may eat honey.

Bleek and Lloyd 1911, Specimens of Bushman Folklore: 354–355 (transcribed in Kirby, Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of South Africa)
Object
Kumbani et al. summarize Namibian/Kalahari ethnographic records in which Ju|'hoansi and !Kung bullroarers are secret male-initiation instruments tied to mythical creators or divine presence.
Function
Elderly Ju|'hoansi men play a secret bullroarer during initiation and burn it afterwards; among the !Kung, !xoe at initiations marks divine presence.
Map confidence
medium - representative coordinate; archaeological/ethnographic source does not warrant a precise ritual locality
Source location
JASR 24:695, 708

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