{"id":"HAD1898-025","label":"Merlav Banks Islands mourning bullroarer","people_or_site":"Merlav / Merelava, Banks Islands","country_current":"Vanuatu","historic_region":"","macroregion":"Oceania / Vanuatu","local_name":"worung-tamb","source_term":"worung-tamb","source_language":"English","object_description":"","function_summary":"Bullroarer used to make a moaning sound the night after death.","attestation_type":"secondary_catalog","source_key":"codrington1891melanesians","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/melanesiansstudi00codruoft","page_or_plate":"p. 342 (ch. XVII \"Dances. Music. Games.\", Toys section)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"representative anchor on Gaua (Santa Maria), the main southern Banks island; Merelava is a small island in the same group","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On Merlav in the Banks Islands the bull-roarer was swung the night after a death, and was called worung-tamb, \"a wailer.\" Codrington, who recorded it firsthand, was emphatic that the instrument held no mystery in these islands: on neighbouring Mota the same whirling slat was the nanamatea, \"death-maker,\" sounded to drive a ghost away, while on Vanua Lava, Maewo and Araga it was an open plaything with names like \"pig\" and \"a bit of bamboo.\" Only in Florida, he wrote, did it carry any secret weight. In Merlav its work was not to frighten the dead off but to mourn them, a wailing made through the night after a death.","pull_quote":"There is no mystery about it when it is used in the Banks' Islands to drive away a ghost, as in Mota, where it is called nanamatea, death-maker, or to make a mourning sound, as in Merlav, where it is called worung-tamb, a wailer, and used the night after a death.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Codrington, The Melanesians (1891), ch. XVII","term_gloss":"worung-tamb: Merlav (Banks Islands) name for the bull-roarer, glossed by Codrington as \"a wailer,\" from its use to make a mourning sound the night after a death. naborbor — the modern Merelava name for the coconut-leaf bullroarer recorded at Tesmet in 2005 (Francois & Stern), beside Codrington's worung-tamb.","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["death_rebirth"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"etymology":"The source ties worung-tamb to the moaning or wailing sound made after a death.","literal_gloss":"a wailer","semantic_cluster":"mourning; lament_sound","etymology_confidence":"high","sources":[{"citation":"Codrington, R. H., The Melanesians: Studies in their Anthropology and Folk-lore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891)","url":"https://archive.org/details/melanesiansstudi00codruoft"}],"source_citations":"Codrington, R. H., The Melanesians: Studies in their Anthropology and Folk-lore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891)","source_display":"Codrington, R. H., The Melanesians: Studies in their Anthropology and Folk-lore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Bullroarer used to make a moaning sound the night after death.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"secondary catalog","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"merlav","display_name":"Merlav Banks Islands mourning bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/bm_E_Oc1906-1013-1451.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/thumbs/bm_E_Oc1906-1013-1451_thumb.jpg","alt":"Plain Island Melanesian wooden bullroarer with a broad rounded blade, a long narrow neck and a small hole in its terminal end.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum (E/Oc1906-1013-1451)","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1906-1013-1451","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Plain paddle-shaped Melanesian bullroarer with a rounded blade and slender stem."},"slug":"had1898-025-merlav-merelava-banks-islands"}