A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

Sambo, also called Sarikin Filani, looks after herders in Tremearne’s account. Most of his contributors call him a younger son of Kuri and Doguwa-Na-Daji, but others make him the latter’s husband. His representation uses a leather loin-covering, sometimes a covered face, a stick and a single whip. The attributed bodily troubles are referred to those of his mother or wife, preserving the source’s unresolved kinship.

At the dance the representative strikes over each shoulder three times and searches for imaginary herds of phantom cattle. The song describes tending cattle and drinking fresh and sour milk, with a herding call included. Tremearne distinguishes his single whip from the two used by Mai-Bulala. Sambo is the named spirit figure of this witness, not a profile treating actual Fulani people as supernatural or assigning these actions to all members of a community.

Herding patronPhantom cattleLeather loin-coveringStick and single whipDisputed kinship
01

Origins & earliest records

A. J. N. Tremearne reports interviews and ritual performances during four months in North Africa, alongside comparisons to Nigeria. His foreword credits local assistance and photography but these passages do not identify an individual speaker for every statement.

02

Records & interpretation

The Ban of the Bori, chapters XXI–XXII, complete selected account pp. 317–318; foreword pp. 13–14 and catalog publication date checked.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    The Ban of the Bori: Demons and Demon-Dancing in West and North Africa

    A. J. N. Tremearne, collector and colonial-era interpreter · 1914

    Chapters XXI–XXII, pp. 317–318; role descriptions, performed representation and attributed explanations.

Family, evolution & connections

Attributed sons of Kuri and the forest Doguwa aspect

Tremearne’s distinct informant qualifications in the 1914 notices, pp. 316–318.

Mai-Aska is a son of Kuri/Uwar-Dowa according to some; Sambo is a younger son of Kuri/Doguwa Na Daji according to most. Joint root groups two named parents. The labels preserve different attribution strengths. Some instead call Sambo the forest aspect’s husband; this contradictory marital version is recorded separately in prose, not drawn simultaneously as descent. The two son reports do not independently state full brotherhood or a shared universal pantheon. House and forest aspects are not silently interchangeable. This is textual religious genealogy, not biological evolution.

Tremearne, The Ban of the Bori (1914), pp. 316–318, 333
Documented · canonical kinship

Kuri

Tremearne says most informants call Sambo a younger son of Kuri and Doguwa Na Daji. Others call Sambo the forest aspect’s husband instead; the majority parentage witness is recorded with that explicit competing relationship.

Tremearne, The Ban of the Bori (1914), pp. 317–318

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Digitized historical ethnographic account with interviews and performance descriptionsTremearne — SamboResearch access: 2026-10-05
  2. Library catalog metadataInternet Archive catalog — The Ban of the BoriResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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