SUBSAH-014 - secondary catalog
Fang (Pangwe)
Rio Muni - N Gabon - S Kamerun - Central Africa
Sacred / spirit
edibo'ngo (Kinderfresser / child-eater)
edibo'ngo — literally "child-eater"; the Fang name for the bullroarer, shared with the devouring bogey (Edschibongo) of children's tales.
Etymology. `edibo'ngo` is literally child-eater; the Fang name for the bullroarer is shared with the devouring bogey of children's tales. (high confidence)
Among the Fang of Rio Muni, northern Gabon, and southern Cameroon, the bullroarer was called edibö'ngo, the child-eater. Günter Tessmann, who recorded it during the 1907-1909 Lübeck Pangwe expedition, placed it in his chapter on raising children, among the Schreckmittel — things to frighten the small ones. Its uncanny droning, he wrote, was an even more effective fright-device than the stamping, clapper-struck noise-stick: men and older boys used it to terrify the younger ones. The same name belonged to a devouring bogey, the Edschibongo of the tales mothers told, which kept children in fear and instructed them at once. Tessmann's plate (Abb. 86) shows two forms — one mounted on a stick, the other a bare slat with the cord wound around the wood.
Ein noch wirksameres Schreckmittel für Kinder ist der unheimliche Ton des Schwirrholzes (edibö'ngo = Kinderfresser, Abb. 86), dessen sich oft Männer und ältere Knaben bedienen, um die jüngeren zu schrecken.
An even more effective means of frightening children is the uncanny sound of the bullroarer (edibö'ngo = child-eater, fig. 86), which men and older boys often use to scare the younger ones.
Tessmann, Die Pangwe, Bd. II (1913):288
- Object
- A flat whirled slat of wood on a cord (Schwirrholz; Tessmann Abb. 86).
- Function
- Its uncanny booming is used by men and older boys to terrify younger children (and women) as the dreaded child-eater bogey.
- Map confidence
- high - approximate territory centroid (mining 2026)
- Source location
- p. 288, Abb. 86
- Spirit voice
- Toy / secular survival