Bonu amuin, the bush gods' roar

bonu amuin

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."

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.

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)

Particulars

Object

The vibrating roar that announces the mask — a bull-roarer or a two-membrane drum, left unspecified.

Function

Announces the bush spirit's presence when the mask enters the village at night.