Bobo, the hornbill's gifts

aliwe

A great hornbill perched on a baobab and ate the village's children. A blacksmith hid in a thatched pit and shot it. Wounded, the bird conjured a bow, quiver, arrows, rhombe and the head of the molo mask. Then one of its children put on the mask and passed three times over its body while its wives wept all night. The mask was Dwo, the bird said: children could not see it until they had paid. It tried to burn the smith alive; he sealed himself inside the pit. After the bird died, he returned with his father. They sacrificed animals, put on the mask and repeated the scene, passing three times over the body; they danced, buried the bird, then carried the sacra home. Le Moal read the bird's rehearsal of its own funeral as the act that made death sacred. Kwele belongs to the smiths' Dwo triad alongside the female Dwosa, whose rites admit women. At the funeral reception Le Moal photographed, women joined men in bowing before molo, with the hornbill's gifts laid at its feet. The rhombe was heavy metal: its vibrating sound made people shudder.

Actionné et tournoyant dans l'air, il produit un son vibratoire qui fait frémir.

Set in motion and whirling through the air, it produces a vibrating sound that makes one shudder.

Le Moal, Masques bobo: vie, formes et couleurs (2008:103)

Particulars

Object

Metal rhombe attached to a cord, one of the Dwo cult objects revealed with the Kwele Dwo mask.

Function

Kwele Dwo cult object revealed with the bow, quiver, arrows, and molo mask; sounded in sibe Dwo funerary reception and tied to initiation/restriction from children or unpaid initiates.