The Bullroarer Atlas

SUBSAH-026 - secondary catalog

Senufo (Senoufo)

Korhogo-Boundiali, northern Cote d'Ivoire - SE Mali - West Africa

Restricted

A tapering wooden slat bull-roarer with cord wound at the broad end, collected from the Egba of southwestern Nigeria; the Senufo rhombes played...
Representative image. A tapering wooden slat bull-roarer with cord wound at the broad end, collected from the Egba of southwestern Nigeria; the Senufo rhombes played alongside Poro horns at a Djimini funeral in Kongobanadougou have not been photographed. © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1917.14.43) Image source

rhombe(s) French

rhombe: French term for bullroarer; the CREM note names joueurs de trompes et de rhombes.

When a Poro man is buried, the men of the initiation society file out of the sacred grove carrying its hidden instruments. Hugo Zemp taped the scene at Kongobanadougou in 1965: a friction drum growls the voice of the Kluklo mask, and players swinging rhombes and blowing antelope-horn megaphones stride one after another over the cloth-wrapped body, while the women press close, weeping, folding pieces of yam into the dead man's hand.

Joueurs de trompes et de rhombes marchent en enjambant le corps.

Horn and rhombe players walk while stepping over the body.

Hugo Zemp, Musique du Poro, CREM-CNRS item CNRSMH_I_2001_003_005_21
Object
Rhombes played with Poro horns in a Senoufo Djimini funeral for a Poro member at Kongobanadougou.
Function
Poro men come out of the sacred grove with Poro instruments for a member burial; horn and rhombe players step over the wrapped body while women mourn and place yam pieces in the dead man's hand.
Map confidence
high - approximate territory centroid (mining 2026)
Source location
CREM item CNRSMH_I_2001_003_005_21, text

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