Tiriki masobi, giants in the confession hut

masobi

Source term: bull roarers (masobi)

masobi: bullroarers. manani: giants, whose roaring the uninitiated were told the bullroarers were. idumi: the Tiriki initiation cycle, from the Terik-Nandi word tum, "ceremony".

Before the knife, the giants roared. On the evening before circumcision, Tiriki elders led each boy alone into an unlit hut and questioned him about theft, forbidden killings and sexual misdeeds. Outside sounded the masobi, and the boys were told it was the roaring of giants, the manani. An oath threatened disease to a liar, and a boy who held anything back was warned he would bleed to death under the knife. If he still refused, elders crouched together beneath a great skin at the back of the hut rushed out and seized him: a giant had him now. Once he had confessed he promised a chicken or a goat, was absolved, and was told to leave childish ways behind and not to cry out when he was cut. The Tiriki shared this initiation, idumi, with their Terik neighbours, and both peoples said it was the same as the initiation of the Nandi and the Kipsigis.

The sound of bull roarers ... which the uninitiated are told is the roaring of giants

Walter H. Sangree, Age, Prayer and Politics in Tiriki, Kenya (1966), p. 53

Particulars

Object

Bullroarers; their form is not recorded.

Function

Sounded on the night before circumcision while each initiate confessed his forbidden acts alone to the initiation elders in an unlit hut; the uninitiated were told the sound was the roaring of giants (manani). With an oath and the threat of bleeding to death at circumcision, it was used to frighten the boy into a full confession.