Sarikin Pawa

Overview

Sarikin Pawa, also called Sarikin Yanka or King of Slaughter, is Chief Butcher of Jan Gari and father of Yar-Maso. Tremearne records a difference in classification: the daughter is listed among the Mohammedan spirits, while most accounts describe the father as still pagan. Their relationship therefore does not erase the collection’s competing categories or require that the two share every action.

Immediately after an animal is sacrificed, his representation stands, brings a knife toward the throat and calls for blood. If a bull has been killed, he is said to sit across its neck. He is then lifted into the ring, moves to and fro and repeats the throat-cutting gesture and call. The brief song names him as flayer. These are described performance expectations attached to the chief butcher, not a claim that the human mount actually dies in the enacted sequence.

Origins & earliest records

A. J. N. Tremearne combines interviews and descriptions of bori performances with comparative interpretation. These selected notices do not consistently name individual speakers; printed attributes are distinguished from his conjectures.

Records & interpretation

Complete selected notice in chapter XXIV, printed pp. 353; chapter read through its ending.

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

   Chapter XXIV, printed pp. 353; complete attributed spirit notice and representation.

Family, evolution & connections

Sarikin Pawa and Yar-Maso

Tremearne’s selected 1914 historical Bori notices, pp. 325–326, 353.

Two separate notices explicitly identify this father–daughter relationship. No mother or children of Yar-Maso are supplied. The collector’s differing religious classifications remain source qualifications. These are attributed historical religious relationships, not biological phylogeny or a universal contemporary doctrine.

References

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

1. Digitized historical ethnographic accountTremearne — Sarikin PawaResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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