{"id":"HAD1898-031","label":"Mer / Murray Island boys' toy bullroarer","people_or_site":"Mer / Murray Island, Torres Strait","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"","macroregion":"Oceania / Torres Strait","local_name":"bigo","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"","function_summary":"Small boys from Saibai were playing with similar bullroarers at the mission school.","attestation_type":"secondary_catalog","source_key":"haddon1898study","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/b21444584","page_or_plate":"p. 308; Fig. 40 no. 14","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"representative coordinate for named people, place, or region in Haddon","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On Christianized Mer (Murray Island), about 120 miles from Muralug at the eastern end of Torres Strait, Alfred Haddon was startled to see a number of small boys playing with bull-roarers. The boys were scholars in the Mission School, brought from Saibai, a low island near the New Guinea coast at the far end of the Straits. Only a few weeks earlier, on Muralug (Prince of Wales Island), Haddon had been given the same kind of instrument in secret: an old chief, after satisfying himself no one could overhear, whispered its name — waness — and the next morning led Haddon and his son into the bush, took precautions not to be followed, and produced the bull-roarer, giving it over only on the promise that it never be shown to a woman. Haddon set the two encounters side by side.","pull_quote":"A few weeks afterwards I was in Christianized Mer (Murray Island)... and to my great surprise I saw a number of small boys playing with similar bull-roarers. These boys were scholars in the Mission School, and had been brought from Saibai... In one island a bull-roarer was too sacred to be shown to a woman; in another it was a plaything!","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Haddon 1898, The Study of Man, pp. 307–308","term_gloss":"bigo: Meriam (Mer/Murray Island) word for the bullroarer, a small lanceolate hardwood whirled in rain-making and tied as the 'dressing' of the doiom rain-stone; the corresponding Western Torres Strait word is bigu, no literal meaning recorded (Meriam Mir, Eastern Torres Strait; Haddon 1908, Reports vi:196-198).","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Haddon 1898, The Study of Man, Chapter X: The Bull-Roarer","url":"https://archive.org/details/b21444584"}],"source_citations":"Haddon 1898, The Study of Man, Chapter X: The Bull-Roarer","source_display":"Haddon 1898, The Study of Man, Chapter X: The Bull-Roarer","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Small boys from Saibai were playing with similar bullroarers at the mission school.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"secondary catalog","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"mer","display_name":"Mer / Murray Island boys' toy bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/HAD1898-031.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/HAD1898-031_thumb.jpg","alt":"Haddon’s figs. 235–236: five Mer bigo model blades suspended by cords from long sticks, with three narrow blades at left and two broader oval blades at right.","credit":"Haddon (ed.), Reports Cambridge Anthr. Exped. Torres Straits, vol. IV, 1912, figs. 235 & 236","license":"Public domain (published 1912)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/reports191204cambuoft","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Figs. 235 & 236: models of the lanceolate bull-roarer (bigo) of Mer."},"slug":"had1898-031-mer-murray-island-torres-strait"}