The Bullroarer Atlas

No. TALBOT1926-002

Bakundu Eboku bull-roarer

Southwest Cameroon · Meme Division (Bakundu) · Central Africa

Restricted

Tessmann's 1919 diagram of two tall ancestor forms flanking a notched bullroarer with a cord; the right-hand Bafia form has a face between two pointed projections.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. Tessmann's 1919 drawing of Bafia blades Public domain · Image source

Eboku

Source term: bull-roarer

Eboku: Talbot's transcription of the Bakundu (Oroko / Lukundu) name for the bull-roarer.

Forest farmers of the Meme country, behind Mount Cameroon, the Bakundu bound their men into a stack of secret associations — and the roarer that served them, Eboku, was taken by outsiders for the very voice of the juju. Talbot found it feared most by those shut out of the societies: a booming out of the dark meant the men's business was abroad, and the uninitiated did best to keep clear. One Bakundu roarer had already reached a European collector before 1903, catalogued only as a "power object"; Talbot's page gives it the name and the dread the museum tag left blank.

The bull-roarer, called Eboku by Bakundu, is used by many of the associations and is much feared, especially by non-members, who believe it to be the voice of the juju.

Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, vol. 3 (1926), p. 794.

Particulars

Object
Bull-roarer.
Function
Sounded by many of the Bakundu secret associations.

Source

P. Amaury Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1926), p. 794

View the source

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.