{"id":"GERRITS1973-001","label":"Five slides of the bullroarer's swing","people_or_site":"Wosera Abelam (Serangwandu village)","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"East Sepik / Wosera","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"","source_term":"","source_language":"","object_description":"Painted wooden blade on a cord, swung at high speed in circles around the initiator inside a palm-frond initiation enclosure.","function_summary":"Sounded in male initiation: Gerrits's January 1973 slide sequence at Serangwandu shows an initiator preparing the bullroarer and then swinging it at high speed around himself.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"review2026","source_type":"photographic_ritual_catalogue","source_url":"https://collections.quaibranly.fr/?action=search&field=/Record/ObjectNumber2&label=N%C2%B0%20de%20gestion&value=PF0153088","page_or_plate":"PF0153088-PF0153092","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Wosera (southern Abelam) area anchor; Serangwandu village is not in reachable gazetteers - caption-level locality.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"During an initiation at Serangwandu in the Wosera, the southern country of the Abelam, an initiator showed how the bullroarer makes its voice: he readied the blade inside the palm-frond enclosure, then swung it at high speed in circles around his own body. Fred Gerrits caught the whole sequence on five slides in January 1973 — the preparation, then the blur of the orbiting blade. Photographs of the swing itself, rather than the finished object in a case, are among the rarest documents the instrument has.","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":"Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, fonds Fred Gerrits (1933-2022), colour slides PF0153088-PF0153092 (cliches 6614-6618), January 1973: 'Initiation in Serangwandu village (Wosera): demonstrating the use of bullroarer'; frame captions 'Initiator preparing to demonstrate how the bullroarer is producing its sound' and 'The bullroarer being swung at high speed around the initiator'","url":"https://collections.quaibranly.fr/?action=search&field=/Record/ObjectNumber2&label=N%C2%B0%20de%20gestion&value=PF0153088","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013125420/https://collections.quaibranly.fr/?action=search&field=/Record/ObjectNumber2&label=N%C2%B0%20de%20gestion&value=PF0153088"}],"source_citations":"Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, fonds Fred Gerrits (1933-2022), colour slides PF0153088-PF0153092 (cliches 6614-6618), January 1973: 'Initiation in Serangwandu village (Wosera): demonstrating the use of bullroarer'; frame captions 'Initiator preparing to demonstrate how the bullroarer is producing its sound' and 'The bullroarer being swung at high speed around the initiator'","source_display":"Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, fonds Fred Gerrits (1933-2022), colour slides PF0153088-PF0153092 (cliches 6614-6618), January 1973: 'Initiation in Serangwandu village (Wosera): demonstrating the use of bullroarer'; frame captions 'Initiator preparing to demonstrate how the bullroarer is producing its sound' and 'The bullroarer being swung at high…","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Painted wooden blade on a cord, swung at high speed in circles around the initiator inside a palm-frond initiation enclosure.","function_display":"Sounded in male initiation: Gerrits's January 1973 slide sequence at Serangwandu shows an initiator preparing the bullroarer and then swinging it at high speed around himself.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"wosera abelam","display_name":"Five slides of the bullroarer's swing","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/bm_E_Oc1987-05-121.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/thumbs/bm_E_Oc1987-05-121_thumb.jpg","alt":"A plain Wosera wooden blade with a forked end and fibre cord wound around it and coiled beside it, British Museum.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum (E/Oc1987-05-121)","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1987-05-121","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A plain Wosera blade with its fibre cord, British Museum.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_08/GERRITS1973-001_qb_PF0153091.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_08/thumbs/GERRITS1973-001_qb_PF0153091_thumb.jpg","credit":"Fred Gerrits, January 1973. Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, PF0153091","license":"© Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac; rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://collections.quaibranly.fr/","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"An initiator swings the bullroarer inside the palm-frond enclosure at Serangwandu, Wosera, 1973."}]},"slug":"gerrits1973-001-wosera-abelam-serangwandu-village"}