Batwa urübügübugu, bamboo for play

urübügübugu

Source term: Schwirrholz

urübügübugu: the Eastern Batwa name for the bullroarer, in Schumacher's spelling; no meaning is given. ’ndaro: the small branch huts in which the ancestors (bazimu) receive offerings.

A split of bamboo on a cord was all it took. Eastern Batwa children in the hills east of Lake Kivu whirled the urübügübugu for their own amusement; their elders knew it well and never brought it into a rite. Batwa worship lived elsewhere, in the ’ndaro: little domes of branches about a metre high where the ancestors received beer, meat and millet porridge. Nobody fenced them off. Children romped there and hens wandered in and out, so long as no one wrecked a shrine. The head of the family, building one, would say: “See, here is a house, grandfather — be content.”

Es besteht aus einem Bambusscheit und einer Schnur und dient den Kindern als Spielzeug.

It consists of a split of bamboo and a cord, and serves the children as a toy.

Peter Schumacher, Die Kivu-Pygmäen (1950), p. 317

Particulars

Object

A piece of split bamboo on a cord.

Function

A children's toy; Schumacher states that it was known but not used in any ritual act.