{"id":"GUIART1952-001","label":"Nayoo incantation masters","people_or_site":"Nayoo (Nayòo), Varas; the Namèl nevèxmòo clan","country_current":"Vanuatu","historic_region":"Tènmaru and Varas, north-west Malekula (Big Nambas region)","macroregion":"Oceania / Melanesia","local_name":"","source_term":"rhombe","source_language":"French","object_description":"A bullroarer; form and material not recorded.","function_summary":"Its use was inaugurated by the Namèl nevèxmòo clan of Nayoo, masters of the bullroarer's incantation.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"guiart1952_nayoo_rhombe","source_type":"ethnographic_article","source_url":"https://doi.org/10.3406/jso.1952.1740","page_or_plate":"JSO 8 p. 239; p. 153; typed report p. 98","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Approximate position of Nayoo from Guiart's sketch map: a small village a little inland from Wenema on the north-west coast of Malekula, south of Karoo and inland from Rambek; not a surveyed village point.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At Nayoo the bullroarer could not simply be swung. Its use had to be opened with words, and the words belonged to one clan, the Namèl nevèxmòo, \"masters of the incantation of the bullroarer,\" who inaugurated its use. Nayoo stood in the north-west of Malekula, in the Big Nambas country, a small village a little inland from the coast. It was a new place: the people of the old villages of Tènmaru and Varas had scattered and regrouped, most of them in the big coastal village of Wenema and the rest in Nayoo and Karoo, carrying their clans and their offices with them.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Jean Guiart, \"L'organisation sociale et politique du Nord Malekula,\" Journal de la Société des Océanistes 8 (1952): 149-259, pp. 153, 239","url":"https://doi.org/10.3406/jso.1952.1740"}],"source_citations":"Jean Guiart, \"L'organisation sociale et politique du Nord Malekula,\" Journal de la Société des Océanistes 8 (1952): 149-259, pp. 153, 239","source_display":"Jean Guiart, \"L'organisation sociale et politique du Nord Malekula,\" Journal de la Société des Océanistes 8 (1952): 149-259, pp. 153, 239","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A bullroarer; form and material not recorded.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"nayoo","display_name":"Nayoo incantation masters","image":{"full":"assets/objects/mqb/mqb_71-1936-40-52.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/mqb/thumbs/mqb_71-1936-40-52_thumb.jpg","alt":"An ovoid brown seed pierced by a large opening, with a long twisted fibre cord threaded through it and tangled above.","credit":"© musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac","license":"© musée du quai Branly — rehosted for non-commercial research","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Its mate 71.1936.40.52, the cord threaded through the seed's eye","pool_id":"auto-mqb--mqb_71-1936-40-52","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"guiart1952-001-nayoo-nayoo-varas-the-namel-nevexmoo-clan"}