The Ngomba name that cannot be given

Source term: bullroarer

bullroarer; secret vernacular name withheld

Ngomba, or Nda'a, is spoken in the highlands southeast of Mbouda, in the Bamboutos massif of Cameroon's western grassfields. When the lexicon's compilers reached the bullroarer they did the opposite of what a dictionary does: they entered the instrument and withheld the word. The definition reads simply that the secret name cannot be given. No rite, no material, no cord — only the fact that among Ngomba speakers this instrument's name is not something an outsider gets to write down.

bullroarer. Secret name cannot be given

SIL Cameroon, Ngomba – French – English lexicon (2003), English index, online line 686.

Particulars

Object

A bullroarer recorded in a Ngomba–French–English lexicon from the Bamboutos highlands of western Cameroon; no material, dimensions or cord are described.

Function

Not recorded; the lexicon states only that the instrument's name is secret.