{"id":"DEACON1934-004","label":"Big Nambas bullroarer, Malekula","people_or_site":"Big Nambas, northwest Malekula plateau","country_current":"Vanuatu","historic_region":"Northwest Malekula / Big Nambas plateau","macroregion":"Oceania / Melanesia","local_name":"","source_term":"","source_language":"English","object_description":"","function_summary":"Sounded during the circumcision seclusion: men move about the area sounding the roarer to frighten the women and keep them from approaching. Deacon's unpublished field note records the instrument but not its use.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"deacon_ms98_big_nambas","source_type":"ethnographic_monograph","source_url":"https://therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/manuscript-contents/0098-deacon-arthur-bernard-collection-ms-98/","page_or_plate":"RAI MS 98/7/2; Corlette & Leenhardt 1947, JSO 3: 57-91, at p. 76","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Big Nambas plateau anchor (Amok area), the group's traditional interior stronghold in northwest Malekula.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"When Arthur Bernard Deacon died of blackwater fever on Malekula in 1927, aged twenty-four, his field papers went home without him. Camilla Wedgwood sorted them in London into the book that made his name — and into files of loose ends, among them a single typed page headed 'Bull-roarer, Big Nambas.' The people of the high northwest plateau, whom outsiders then knew hardly at all, had shown or told him something about the instrument; that one page, still unpublished in the Royal Anthropological Institute's archive, is the only trace of what.","pull_quote":"Les hommes vont de ci de là en faisant résonner le rhombre pour effrayer les femmes en les empêchant d'approcher.","pull_quote_translation":"The men go here and there sounding the bullroarer to frighten the women and prevent them approaching.","pull_quote_cite":"Corlette & Leenhardt, 'Langue des Big Nambas', Journal de la Société des Océanistes 3 (1947), p. 76","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Royal Anthropological Institute, A. B. Deacon collection, MS 98/7/2: 'Bull-roarer, Big Nambas. 1 p. 25.5 x 20 cm. CHW', in Deacon's bull-roarer file MS 98/7","url":"https://therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/manuscript-contents/0098-deacon-arthur-bernard-collection-ms-98/","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260210211021/https://therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/manuscript-contents/0098-deacon-arthur-bernard-collection-ms-98/"},{"citation":"L. A. C. Corlette & M. Leenhardt, 'Langue des Big Nambas. Le Mallicolo (Nouvelles-Hebrides)', Journal de la Societe des Oceanistes 3 (1947): 57-91, at p. 76","url":"https://www.persee.fr/doc/jso_0300-953x_1947_num_3_3_1563","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240905071939/https://www.persee.fr/doc/jso_0300-953x_1947_num_3_3_1563"}],"source_citations":"Royal Anthropological Institute, A. B. Deacon collection, MS 98/7/2: 'Bull-roarer, Big Nambas. 1 p. 25.5 x 20 cm. CHW', in Deacon's bull-roarer file MS 98/7; L. A. C. Corlette & M. Leenhardt, 'Langue des Big Nambas. Le Mallicolo (Nouvelles-Hebrides)', Journal de la Societe des Oceanistes 3 (1947): 57-91, at p. 76","source_display":"Royal Anthropological Institute, A. B. Deacon collection, MS 98/7/2: 'Bull-roarer, Big Nambas. 1 p. 25.5 x 20 cm. CHW', in Deacon's bull-roarer file MS 98/7; L. A. C. Corlette & M. Leenhardt, 'Langue des Big Nambas. Le Mallicolo (Nouvelles-Hebrides)', Journal de la Societe des Oceanistes 3 (1947): 57-91, at p. 76","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Sounded during the circumcision seclusion: men move about the area sounding the roarer to frighten the women and keep them from approaching. Deacon's unpublished field note records the instrument but not its use.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"big nambas","display_name":"Big Nambas bullroarer, Malekula","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/bm_E_Oc1906-1013-1450.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/thumbs/bm_E_Oc1906-1013-1450_thumb.jpg","alt":"A long, plain New Guinea wooden bull-roarer blade with a round hole near its squared end.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum (E/Oc1906-1013-1450)","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1906-1013-1450","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A plain, unengraved New Guinea bull-roarer blade with a drilled hole.","pool_id":"auto-museum_harvest--bm_E_Oc1906-1013-1450"},"slug":"deacon1934-004-big-nambas-northwest-malekula-plateau"}