SCHWAB1947-002 - ethnographic attestation
Ge (Dan), Mano-Ge border country, Poro Bush
Liberia - Central Province - Nimba (Mano country) - West Africa
Restricted
vu ni English
Source term: bull-roarer
vu ni (Ge): Schwab's glossary gives "bull-roarer, voice of Bush devil" — the same name serves for the instrument and for the devil who owns it.
Vu ni is a devil of the Ge Poro, and his only function is frightfulness. He plays inside the Bush and nowhere else, speaks in a heavy voice, and uses a bull-roarer — the roarer being not merely his instrument but his name, since *vu ni* is the spirit and the sound at once. When the boys under instruction move about after dark he is sounded loudly, so that everyone within earshot hears and gets off the path: a moving exclusion zone drawn in noise around children who, for the length of their seclusion, are not supposed to exist. They do not see him either, not until they are ready to come out.
Vu ni. This devil "plays" only in the Poro Bush. He talks in a heavy voice. He uses a bull-roarer. His only function is frightfulness.
George Schwab, Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland (Peabody Museum Papers 31, 1947), p. 272.
- Object
- Not described. The name vu ni belongs to the spirit and the instrument at once: the bull-roarer is the voice of the Bush devil, and the devil's name is the instrument's.
- Function
- Sounded only inside the Poro Bush. Vu ni's stated office is fear: when the boys under instruction move about after dark he is heard so that everyone else gets off the path. He is not seen by the uninitiated, nor even by the boys in the Bush until they are ready to come out.
- Map confidence
- medium - Ganta (Gompa City), Nimba County, Liberia (OSM/Nominatim 7.2334773, -8.9860990). Territory anchor for the named people; not a use site.
- Source location
Page references
p. 272; glossary s.v. vu ni, Appendix B
- Spirit voice
- Initiation rite
- Forbidden to women