No. SCHWAB1947-003
Gio boys "make bull-roarer talk"
Liberia · Central Province · Nimba (Gio country) · West Africa
Restricted
Source term: bull-roarer
Gio boys were cut in the Bush, and three devils ran the school: the ge zo who led it, a cutting devil for the operation, and a zo who made the medicine. The ge zo went naked in the Bush with the boys. When he came out only initiates might see him, and they cried "Ke yu! Ke yu!", the warning that the devil was coming, so that women and children could run and hide. His crier talked with a bull-roarer. And in the evening, when the newly cut boys walked home, they too would "make bull-roarer talk" to warn people away. Until the Bush released them, it was the boys who must not see women and children.
When a big person or a chief dies, the ge zo comes to officiate and help the Bɔ members with the funeral rites. No women may be present.
George Schwab, Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland (Peabody Museum Papers 31, 1947), pp. 280–281.
Particulars
- Object
- Not described.
- Function
- The voice of the circumcision devil's crier, and of the newly cut boys walking home in the evening, warning women and children to hide.
Source
George Schwab, Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland, ed. George W. Harley, Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology 31 (Cambridge, Mass., 1947), p. 280