The Bullroarer Atlas

VANGELUWE1957-001 - ethnographic attestation

Lombi rhombe, cry of the masasa bird

Democratic Republic of the Congo - Bafwasende territory, Tshopo (former Province Orientale) - Central Africa

Restricted

Representative—not this record’s object: Fang evuntere, a leaf-shaped wooden blade with cord, Gabon
Representative — not this record’s object. · Fang evuntere, a leaf-shaped wooden blade with cord, Gabon Image source

Source term: rhombe

masasa: the bird whose cry the rhombe imitates, and whose claws, the women are told, made the initiates' scars.

Lombi boys went to their circumcision through a gauntlet: two rows of old men lashing them with switches three metres long. In the bush the operator cut patterns into their bellies and chests, traced beforehand in white clay by the elders, and dressed the wounds with palm oil and rush sap. Meanwhile a bullroarer drove off the women and children with the cry of the masasa bird. Five weeks later, after going without salt so that the cuts would scar, the boys came home. The women were told the bird's claws had made the marks. The boys had sworn, on pain of death, to say nothing.

Aux femmes, on explique que les tatouages sont le résultat des griffes de l'oiseau masasa.

The women are told that the tattoos are the work of the masasa bird's claws.

H. Van Geluwe, Les Bira et les peuplades limitrophes (1957), circumcision chapter, section 'Lombi'
Object
A bullroarer swung in the bush during the boys' circumcision and scarification.
Function
Swung to drive women and children away while the circumcised boys were cut in the bush; its sound was the cry of the masasa bird.
Source
H. Van Geluwe, Les Bira et les peuplades limitrophes, Ethnographic Survey of Africa, Central Africa, Belgian Congo, Part II (Tervuren: Musée Royal du Congo Belge; London: International African Institute, 1957), chapter on circumcision, section 'Lombi'
Source location
Page references

Van Geluwe 1957, circumcision chapter, section 'Lombi (8)' (printed page unpinned; Routledge 2017 ebook PT151-153)

Source confidence
medium to high
Location note
Glottolog point for the Lombi language (lomb1254), at the southern edge of Bafwasende territory, where Van Geluwe places the Lombi.

Regions: Africa · Central Africa

View source Open this point on the interactive map