SUBSAH-031 - museum specimen
Timne, Mabum (Sierra Leone)
Sierra Leone - Northern Province - Mabum - West Africa
Function not recorded
Ausif ketokodu English
Source term: Bull roarer
leopard of katokodu [society] (Thomas's gloss)
A bullroarer cut from a length of cane, 63 centimetres long, the natural surface still showing on the back, with a fibre string tied to a small handle at one end. Northcote Whitridge Thomas collected it at Mabum, in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone, among the Timne in 1914. Two of his labels survive. One, in plain English, reads "Bull roarer / Timne (Mabum)." The other, a luggage tag he signed and stamped February 1915, gives the Timne name "Ausif ketokodu," which Thomas glossed as "leopard of katokodu [society]." How it was sounded, and by whom, he did not write down.
Ausif ketokodu (leopard of katokodu [society]) Mabum (Timne)
N. W. Thomas luggage tag (signed NWT, stamped Feb. 1915), Cambridge MAA Z 14512; transcribed by Katrina Dring in the museum record.
- Object
- Long cane bullroarer with a small handle and fibre string; Thomas label reads 'Bull roarer / Timne (Mabum)'.
- Function
- Function not recorded.
- Map confidence
- medium - Representative Mabum / Northern Province anchor; exact modern village coordinate not locked.
- Source location
- MAA Z 14512