Era Kohor
Toubou · numen · Toubou traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Era Kohor is the enormous natron crater plunging some hundreds of metres into the western flank of Emi Koussi, its pale floor encrusted with salt and natron and known to French geographers as the Trou au Natron. In Teda regard it is a place of dread, held to be the haunt of dangerous spirits and shunned by travellers who pass along its rim. The crater's abyssal depth, its trapped heat and its glaring white bed set it apart as one of the most forbidding features of the range. Its name is variously reported, Era Kohor and Doon among them, and its exact etymology is not settled in the ethnographic record.
Domains
- death and danger
- natron and salt
Powers
- harbours dangerous spirits and repels the intruder
Sources
- Era Kohor, the great natron crater sunk into the flank of Emi Koussi and known to the French as the Trou au Natron, is a feared, spirit-haunted depression avoided by the Teda.: Jean Chapelle, Nomades noirs du Sahara: les Toubous (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1982 [1957]) (secondary); Marius Dalloni, Mission au Tibesti (1930-1931), Memoires de l'Academie des Sciences (Paris, 1934-1936) (secondary)