The Bullroarer Atlas

SERVIER1970-002 - ethnographic attestation

Bambara

Mali - Bambara - West Africa

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N’Tomo (N’Domo) society mask, Bamana, Mali, late 19th–early 20th century — the initiation society that Servier’s account ties to the first...
N’Tomo (N’Domo) society mask, Bamana, Mali, late 19th–early 20th century — the initiation society that Servier’s account ties to the first rhombe. Cultic-context image; the bull-roarer itself is not figured. Brooklyn Museum, N’Tomo Mask, Bamana, 61.91.3 (gift of E. R. Squibb & Sons) CC BY 3.0 Image source

N'Domo / Lion Spanish translation of French original

Source term: rombo

N'Domo (also N'tomo): the first of the Bambara graded initiation societies, for uncircumcised boys; "Lion" (León) names both the founding bullroarer and the first of the society's ranks.

Etymology. "Lion" (León) names the founding bullroarer for its buzz, said to resemble a lion's roar, and is the first of the N'Domo society's five grades. (high confidence)

The Bambara trace the bullroarer's birth to the hands of the first blacksmith. As a boy, he was carving a mask from sacred acacia when a splinter of the wood broke free and flew off, droning with a sound like the roar of a lion. He called over two companions, took up the fragment, bored a hole through one end, ran a cord through it, and spun it. The three of them became the first N'Domo society, which took its name from that first bullroarer: the Lion. In the Bambara mind, as Servier reports it, the bullroarer was born in the same moment as the first mask, cut like it from the wood of the sacred tree. The Lion later stood as the first of the N'Domo's graded ranks — Lions, Toads, Birds, Guinea-fowl, Dogs — drawn by Servier from Dominique Zahan's study of the society's initiations.

Una esquirla de madera de acacia se desprendió y saltó lejos produciendo un zumbido semejante al rugido del león. El niño llamó a dos de sus camaradas, tomó el fragmento de madera, abrió un agujero en una de sus extremidades, pasó por allí una cuerda y la hizo girar.

A splinter of acacia wood broke off and flew far away, producing a droning sound like the roar of a lion. The boy called two of his companions, took the fragment of wood, opened a hole in one of its ends, ran a cord through it, and made it spin.

Jean Servier, El hombre y lo invisible (Spanish trans. of L'homme et l'invisible), pp. 136-137, citing D. Zahan, Sociétés d'Initiation Bambara, p. 55
Object
Servier says the Bambara explain the first rhombe as an acacia splinter from the first mask, forming the first N'Domo society named the Lion.
Function
Initiation-society origin instrument linked with mask making, sacred acacia wood, and the Lion name of the first N'Domo society.
Map confidence
low_medium - representative Bambara/Segou-region coordinate; source is regional, not village-specific
Source location
pp. 136-137

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