SUBSAH-041 - ethnographic attestation
Bembe (Babembe), South Kivu
Democratic Republic of the Congo - South Kivu (Fizi), mountains above Lake Tanganyika - Central Africa
Restricted
Tembwe French
Tembwe — the Bembe god-rhombe whose voice is the leopard's snarl; a distinct people from the Congo-Brazzaville Bembe.
In the mountains above Lake Tanganyika the Bembe bullroarer is a god. Tembwe, the god-rhombe, speaks with the snarl of the leopard — the animal at the heart of Bembe cult life — and his voice sets the rhythm of the community's collective existence. He belongs above all to the Butende, the circumcision by which boys die a symbolic death and are reborn; the leopard's cry over the camps is the sound of that passage happening.
Tembwe, le dieu-rhombe aux feulements de leopard, rythme l'univers collectif de la culture.
Tembwe, the god-bullroarer with the leopard's snarl, sets the rhythm of the culture's collective universe.
Gossiaux, Le Bwame du Leopard des Babembe, p. 33
- Function
- The god-rhombe with leopard roars: Tembwe sets the rhythm of the collective universe of Bembe culture, bound to the Butende / Etumba circumcision — a symbolic death and rebirth.
- Map confidence
- low_medium - Fizi-territory anchor for Bembe country, South Kivu.
- Source location
- Gossiaux, Bwame du Leopard, pp. 10, 33
- Spirit voice
- Initiation rite
- Death and rebirth