{"id":"HARAHA2007-001","label":"Horu, the sorcerer's sticks","people_or_site":"Orokolo (Hopaiku and Kavava villages)","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Hopaiku village, Orokolo area (Ihu District), Gulf Province","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"horu","source_term":"bullroarers","source_language":"English; Orokolo terms","object_description":"Two bullroarers, each paired with a marupai: a misshapen coconut shell carved with a face.","function_summary":"Sorcery: each bullroarer was paired with a marupai charm, its \"messenger\", and used to kill by sorcery or to cure its victims; the owner said spirits lived in them and let him travel as a fish, underground or through the air.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"haraha2007_future_indigenous_museums","source_type":"published_account","source_url":"https://doi.org/10.3167/9781845451882","page_or_plate":"pp. 146–147 (section \"The Knowledge Associated with Certain Objects\")","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Hopaiku village, Gulf Province (OpenStreetMap); the owner's home village before he fled.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In 1996 an old man from Hopaiku, in the Orokolo country of the Papuan Gulf, came to the National Museum in Port Moresby with two bullroarers. He called them horu, \"sorcerer's sticks\". Each was paired with a marupai, a misshapen coconut shell carved with a face, which he also called meu haela, the sticks' messengers. Together they could kill by sorcery or cure its victims. He had got them from a famous sorcerer at Kavava, and ever since, rival sorcerers had hunted him for their power, driving him to Meii, then to Port Moresby and Lae. Spirits lived in them, he said: with them he could turn into a fish and travel through water, go under the ground, or fly. One pair was weaker. A Harevavo man had tried it, took fright and jumped into the river, and the water had made its magic cold.","pull_quote":"two bullroarers, which he called horu (literally, ‘a sorcerer’s stick’)","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Sebastian Haraha, \"The National Museum as a Haus Tumbuna\" (2007), p. 146.","term_gloss":"horu: \"a sorcerer's stick\", the bullroarer. marupai: charm, a carved coconut shell. meu haela: \"messengers\" to the sticks.","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":"Sebastian Haraha, \"The National Museum as a Haus Tumbuna,\" in Nick Stanley (ed.), The Future of Indigenous Museums (Berghahn, 2007), pp. 146–147","url":"https://doi.org/10.3167/9781845451882"}],"source_citations":"Sebastian Haraha, \"The National Museum as a Haus Tumbuna,\" in Nick Stanley (ed.), The Future of Indigenous Museums (Berghahn, 2007), pp. 146–147","source_display":"Sebastian Haraha, \"The National Museum as a Haus Tumbuna,\" in Nick Stanley (ed.), The Future of Indigenous Museums (Berghahn, 2007), pp. 146–147","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Two bullroarers, each paired with a marupai: a misshapen coconut shell carved with a face.","function_display":"Sorcery: each bullroarer was paired with a marupai charm, its \"messenger\", and used to kill by sorcery or to cure its victims; the owner said spirits lived in them and let him travel as a fish, underground or through the air.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"orokolo hopaiku","display_name":"Horu, the sorcerer's sticks","image":{"full":"assets/objects/PNG17_reche1913_taf65_fig1.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PNG17_reche1913_taf65_fig1_thumb.jpg","alt":"A long narrow bullroarer from Mụåńgêm village, with pale paired-circle, elongated face and geometric motifs arranged along its face.","credit":"O. Reche, Der Kaiserin-Augusta-Fluss (Hamburg, 1913), Taf. LXV fig. 1","license":"Public domain (published 1913)","source_page":"https://books.google.com/books?id=I9g4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA350","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Richly carved bullroarer from Mụåńgêm village","pool_id":"auto-PNG17_reche1913_taf65_fig1","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"haraha2007-001-orokolo-hopaiku-and-kavava-villages"}