SUBSAH-039 - ethnographic attestation
Malinke / Bambara (Bamana) secret societies — Komo (Komang/Koma), Nama and allied cults
Mali - Guinea - Upper Niger between the upper Senegal and the Bani ("Central Mandingo" country) - West Africa
Restricted
Source term: Schwirrholz
Inside the Komo, Nama, and allied societies of the upper Niger, the bullroarer belonged to the guarded machinery of circumcision and masked power. Frobenius’s report is terse but absolute: it was “a sacred, carefully hidden implement.”
Das Schwirrholz ist ein heiliges, sorgfältig verborgenes Gerät.
The bull-roarer is a sacred, carefully hidden implement.
Frobenius, "Reisebericht," Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 40 (1908), p. 801
- Object
- Sacred bullroarer concealed within the Komo/Nama men’s-society complex.
- Function
- Carefully hidden sacred instrument associated with men’s secret societies and the circumcision-festival complex.
- Map confidence
- medium - Mande heartland regional anchor, upper Niger; Frobenius names a region, not a village
- Source location
- ZE 40 (1908), p. 801
- Initiation rite