{"id":"DEACON1934-005","label":"Mewun Nalawan Ambar secret sound","people_or_site":"Mewun district (Nalawan Ambar grade)","country_current":"Vanuatu","historic_region":"Mewun district, south-west Malekula","macroregion":"Oceania / Melanesia","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A bullroarer whose sound was the secret of one grade of the Mewun Nalawan society; form not recorded.","function_summary":"Its sound was the secret sound belonging to Nalawan Ambar, a grade of the Mewun Nalawan society; members of the grade also went about in a leaf disguise of the same name, beating women and children they met.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"deacon1934_mewun_nalawan_ambar","source_type":"ethnographic_monograph","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/malekulavanishin0000arth","page_or_plate":"pp. 432-433","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Approximate anchor for Mewun district, the district of south-west Malekula north of the Seniang shore of South West Bay (Deacon places Melpmes \"in Mewun district in the south\"); district-level, no village recorded.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In Mewun the voice of the bullroarer was a secret, and it belonged to one grade: Nalawan Ambar, a rank within the district's Nalawan society. In neighbouring Seniang the secret voices came from hollow wooden cylinders blown through a bamboo tube; in Mewun the whirled blade did the work. The grade lent its name to a disguise as well. Members covered themselves in leaves, carried branches of orange, and beat any women and children they met. The Nalawan held the dead, too: a man's skull was kept until the next Nalawan was performed, and only then carried to his clan's charnel house in a sacred place.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"A. Bernard Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides (London, 1934), pp. 432-433","url":"https://archive.org/details/malekulavanishin0000arth"}],"source_citations":"A. Bernard Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides (London, 1934), pp. 432-433","source_display":"A. Bernard Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides (London, 1934), pp. 432-433","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A bullroarer whose sound was the secret of one grade of the Mewun Nalawan society; form not recorded.","function_display":"Its sound was the secret sound belonging to Nalawan Ambar, a grade of the Mewun Nalawan society; members of the grade also went about in a leaf disguise of the same name, beating women and children they met.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"mewun","display_name":"Mewun Nalawan Ambar secret sound","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest2/MUS2026-275_mimo_MIR1284.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest2/thumbs/MUS2026-275_mimo_MIR1284_thumb.jpg","credit":"Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg (MIR 1283/1284) — via MIMO","license":"License unstated — via MIMO; rehosted for non-commercial research","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Its mate MIR 1284, a cross-carved head above red-banded engraving","pool_id":"auto-museum_harvest2--MUS2026-275_mimo_MIR1284","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"deacon1934-005-mewun-district-nalawan-ambar-grade"}