{"id":"DEACON1934-002","label":"Lambumbu and Uerik Malekula sacred bullroarer","people_or_site":"Lambumbu / Vinmavis district","country_current":"Vanuatu","historic_region":"Central-west Malekula / Lambumbu","macroregion":"Oceania / Melanesia","local_name":"navurvur ndalang (Lambumbu); nangamgar nrlalinge (Uerik)","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Two instruments used together, named as kin. ‘The Mother’ (s’nen) is a 2 ft 6 in to 3 ft blade whirled horizontally at about head height for a continuous hum. ‘The Child’ (natn) is a sharply pointed blade about eight inches long, attached like a fish on a line to a stout stake and swept from side to side for a shrill, pulsing whirr. The big one is also nitemah tokhtokh, ‘the ghost that abides’ or ‘the ghost that waits’; the small one is sometimes murvaal, ‘The Warrior.’","function_summary":"In Lambumbu, sounded from hidden places within and outside the seclusion house while each novice runs a gauntlet of whipping men in the dark, immediately after the incision operation; the novices are told one story about whose voice it is and the women a different one, and the real nature of the sound is revealed to the lads only on the last day of their seclusion.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"deacon1934_lambumbu_bullroarer","source_type":"ethnographic_monograph","source_url":"https://www.odsas.net/object/86306","page_or_plate":"pp. 250-253, esp. p. 252 and Pl. XVIIB; also p. 244; RAI MS 98 files 6/8 and 7/4","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Named Lambumbu inlet anchor on the central-west Malekula coast; a district/coast proxy rather than a village point.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In Lambumbu, incision made puberty public: after seclusion, a boy’s altered body announced his new standing. The bullroarer was the transition rite’s “principal sacred instrument”—the defining sound of a passage cut into the body.\r\n\r\nIn neighbouring Uerik, novices were finally shown the nangamgar nrlalinge during incision and taught to swing it themselves: guarded sound became knowledge they could now produce.","pull_quote":"The bullroarer in this part of the country is called navurvur ndalang, which means \"the ear-slitter\", or, perhaps, \"the slit ear\". There are two varieties of these: a long one measuring from about 2 ft. 6 in. to 3 feet, called \"The Mother\" (s'nen), and a small sharply pointed one some eight inches long, called \"The Child\" (natn).","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"A. B. Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides (1934), p. 252","term_gloss":"navurvur ndalang (Lambumbu) — “ear-slitter” or “slit ear”; s’nen — “The Mother”; natn — “The Child”; nitemah tokhtokh — “the ghost that abides” or “the ghost that waits”; murvaal — “The Warrior.” nangamgar nrlalinge is the Uerik name; its literal meaning is unrecorded.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"A. B. Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides (1934), pp. 244 and 250-253, esp. p. 252 and pl. XVIIB; Royal Anthropological Institute MS 98, files 6/8 and 7/4","url":"https://www.odsas.net/object/86306","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013004228/https://www.odsas.net/object/86306"}],"source_citations":"A. B. Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides (1934), pp. 244 and 250-253, esp. p. 252 and pl. XVIIB; Royal Anthropological Institute MS 98, files 6/8 and 7/4","source_display":"A. B. Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides (1934), pp. 244 and 250-253, esp. p. 252 and pl. XVIIB; Royal Anthropological Institute MS 98, files 6/8 and 7/4","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Two instruments used together, named as kin. ‘The Mother’ (s’nen) is a 2 ft 6 in to 3 ft blade whirled horizontally at about head height for a continuous hum. ‘The Child’ (natn) is a sharply pointed blade about eight inches long, attached like a fish on a line to a stout stake and swept from side to side for a shrill, pulsing whirr. The big one is also nitemah tokhtokh, ‘the ghost that abides’ or ‘the ghost that waits’; the small one is sometimes murvaal, ‘The Warrior.’","function_display":"In Lambumbu, sounded from hidden places within and outside the seclusion house while each novice runs a gauntlet of whipping men in the dark, immediately after the incision operation; the novices are told one story about whose voice it is and the women a different one, and the real nature of the sound is revealed to the lads only on the last day of their seclusion.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"lambumbu","display_name":"Lambumbu and Uerik Malekula sacred bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/local_review/DEACON1934-002_deacon1934_plate_xvii_b.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/local_review/DEACON1934-002_deacon1934_plate_xvii_b_thumb.jpg","alt":"Plate B shows the long Lambumbu “Mother” bullroarer below the shorter “Child” blade, with a bound bundle of panpipes at upper right.","credit":"A. B. Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People (1934), Plate XVII, section B","license":"","source_page":"https://www.odsas.net/object/86574","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Lambumbu ‘Mother’ and ‘Child’ bullroarers, Deacon Plate XVII section B."},"slug":"deacon1934-002-lambumbu-vinmavis-district"}