1861 E. Casalis Basutos ii. xiii. 248 Every being, to whom the natives render adoration, is called Molimo... It is evidently composed of the prefix mo, which belongs to almost all those words representing intelligent beings, and of the root holimo—above, in the sky. Moholimo, or the abbreviation Molimo, therefore, signifies, He who is in the sky.

1886 Encycl. Brit. XX. 362/2 Among the Abantu or Kaffrarians..the four tribes give him [sc. their god] different names—the Ghost (Mukuro), the very High (Mo-limo), the Great-great (Unkulunkulu) or grandfather.

1897 J. Bryce Impressions S. Afr. xiv. 268 The Molimo, or prophet,..had told them that it was by the road through this pass that the white strangers would quit the country for ever.

1918 H. Moore Land of Good Hope 117 Tixo bears other names, as Qamata, or Molimo.

1953 ‘P. Lanham’ & A. S. Mopeli-Paulus Blanket Boy's Moon iii. i. 152 Molimo! Molimo! What a sin! Naked men and naked women bathing together!

1957 A. A. Murray Blanket 125 Somewhere, in the blue outer space beyond this world, there was a molimo, a God, who cared for him, Lepotane, closely and personally.

1982 M. Mzamane Children of Soweto 118 Molimo! It doesn't seem as if there's any public buildings they haven't set on fire.

1957 P. Schebesta in Man 57 63/1 Among the Pygmies themselves tusumba primarily means the huge trumpet used in their secret society... Its proper name, however, is molino in this region where the Bambuti speak Bira.

1960 C. Turnbull in Zaïre 14 309 The term molimo is also used by both negroes and pygmies to refer to a musical instrument.

1961 Listener 30 Nov. 937/1 The extraordinary music of the molimo, the secret male musical instrument which no woman or child is meant to know about or see.

1961 C. M. Turnbull Forest People xv. 250 The molimo trumpet..took up the song.

1984 New Grove Dict. Musical Instruments Molimo, wooden trumpet of the Mbuti pygmies of Zaire, used for signalling.

1998 J. Cutler Song of Molimo xv. 81 At the St. Louis World's Fair [of 1904], a tube covered with animal skins and called ‘molimo’ is used by the Pygmy, Autobank, to make what he thinks is music.

1960 C. Turnbull in Man 60 39/1 The singing ritual, if it can be called that, the molimo, is never performed when there are Negroes visiting the camp.

1963 C. Turnbull in Sci. Amer. Jan. 31/3 In the crisis festival of the molimo, the closest approximation to a ritual in the unformalized life of the BaMbuti, the men of the band will sing, night after night, through the night until dawn.

1999 J. Kenrick in K. Biesbrouck et al. Central Afr. Hunter-gatherers in Multidisciplinary Perspective 162 The degree to which people throw themselves into the molimo..enables co-operation and hence success.