The Bullroarer Atlas

SUBSAH-038 - ethnographic attestation

Lala (baLala), Chibale chiefdom, Serenje District

Zambia - Chibale chiefdom, southwest Serenje District, Central Province - South-Central Africa

Sacred / spirit

Haddon's engraving of two Yoruba bull-roarers used to sound the 'voice of Oro': mottled, leaf-shaped blades on long looping cords, one...
Representative image. Haddon's engraving of two Yoruba bull-roarers used to sound the 'voice of Oro': mottled, leaf-shaped blades on long looping cords, one considerably longer than the other. Shown for the general West African type; the Lala's cimwimwi, or 'lion-roarer,' recorded at Chibale in Zambia, is otherwise undescribed beyond its name. A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898) Public domain

cimwimwi Lala (Cilala)

Source term: cimwimwi (also cimwimwi ca musowa wa nkalamo, "lion-roarer")

cimwimwi: the Lala name for the bull-roarer; its expanded form cimwimwi ca musowa wa nkalamo means "lion-roarer." The same onomatopoeic word can also be applied to a friction drum in the district.

Etymology. `cimwimwi` is the Lala name for the bullroarer; expanded `cimwimwi ca musowa wa nkalamo` means lion-roarer. (high confidence)

Among the Lala of Chibale, in the hill country of southwest Serenje, a bull-roarer called cimwimwi — "lion-roarer," cimwimwi ca musowa wa nkalamo, in its fuller name — was one of three roaring noisemakers the district remembered. A local field study sets it apart from a wound spinning top and a rubbed friction drum. By the 1980s it had drifted toward play: children sounded it, and now and then someone used it to startle people for fun. Older memories placed its voice at the chief's Cililo, the mortuary rite, where every kind of sound-producing instrument was let loose at once.

The cimwimwi is a bull-roarer. Another name was cimwimwi ca musowa wa nkalamo: 'lion-roarer'. ... In the 1980s, children played it sometimes or someone used it to scare people for fun. Some remember that it sounded at the chief's Cililo at which all kinds of sound producing instruments played.

Jan J. IJzermans, Amalimba (amalimba.org), "Roarers" page.
Object
A bull-roarer named cimwimwi by the Lala of Chibale. The local field study identifies it explicitly as "a bull-roarer," with an alternative name cimwimwi ca musowa wa nkalamo, "lion-roarer," and sets it apart from two other roaring noisemakers used in the same district: a wound spinning top (lindya / ntandangoma) and a friction drum (cimwimwi ca ku kaole). The source does not quote the cimwimwi's own construction or whirling mechanism; the only "twirled on a string" wording on the page belongs to a comparative note on the Lamba lendya (a gladiolus bulb spun on a cord).
Function
A noisemaker children played and that was used to scare people for fun; also remembered sounding at the chief's Cililo (mortuary rite) amid many sound-producing instruments.
Map confidence
medium - approximate territory centroid for Chibale chiefdom (~3,000 km2 in the southwest of Serenje District); anchored southwest of Serenje town (-13.23, 30.23)
Source location
"Roarers" page (amalimba.org/musical-instruments-roarers/); people-identity at "Chibale Zambia: introduction" page

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