The Bullroarer Atlas

SUBSAH-001 - museum specimen

Baule and Guro

Cote dIvoire - Baule Guro country - West Africa

Restricted

Bonu amuin helmet mask, Baule, Côte d’Ivoire, 20th century — the sacred mask danced to the sound of the bull-roarer that warns women and...
Bonu amuin helmet mask, Baule, Côte d’Ivoire, 20th century — the sacred mask danced to the sound of the bull-roarer that warns women and children away. Cultic-context image; the instrument itself is not figured. Smithsonian NMNH, Department of Anthropology, E435357 (gift of Allen and Barbara Davis) Image source

bonu amuin English

Source term: bull-roarer or two-membrane drum

bonu amuin (bo nun amuin) = "gods in/of the bush," a powerful bush spirit men may see but women may not

Etymology. Baule bonu amuin, "gods in/of the bush"; an alternative name is amuin yasua, "men's gods." (high confidence)

Among the Baule and Guro of Côte d'Ivoire, the helmet mask called bonu amuin — "gods of the bush" — is one of the most dangerous things a man can summon. Carved into a snarling, toothy beast that suggests buffalo and crocodile without being either, it embodies a wild bush spirit, and only men may set eyes on it. When the masker comes into the village at night in his costume of raffia, never cloth, his arrival is announced by a vibrating roar — the sound of either a bull-roarer or a two-membrane drum — and the men say this sound is the voice of the spirit itself. Women and children must shut themselves inside while the gods are abroad; to glimpse the mask, Baule belief holds, can sicken or kill a woman, an anger traced in story to a woman who long ago refused the god a drink. Whether that roaring voice is a bull-roarer or a drum is left open, so this belongs among the ritual sound-contexts rather than the firmly attested bullroarers.

When the mask enters the village at night it is accompanied by the vibrato sounds of a bull-roarer or a two-membrane drum that announces the spirit's presence. Men describe these sounds as the spirits' voices.

When the mask enters the village at night it is accompanied by the vibrato sounds of a bull-roarer or a two-membrane drum that announces the spirit's presence. Men describe these sounds as the spirits' voices.

Penn State "African Brilliance" catalogue no. 28 (Palmer Museum of Art)
Object
The vibrating roar that announces the mask — a bull-roarer or a two-membrane drum, left unspecified.
Function
Announces the bush spirit presence when mask enters village at night
Map confidence
medium - Baule Guro country regional anchor not museum
Source location
Penn State African Brilliance catalogue 28

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