{"id":"HAYS1986-002","label":"Auyana bullroarer old-man spirit voice","people_or_site":"Auyana","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Eastern Highlands / Anga-Eastern Highlands men's cult zone","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Auyana bullroarers, whose sound was the voice of an old-man spirit.","function_summary":"Revealed, with the sacred flutes, to boys of ten to sixteen at their initiation.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"hays1986_sacred_flutes","source_type":"ethnographic_article","source_url":"https://digitalcollections.ric.edu/record/1736/files/Sacred_Flutes2.pdf","page_or_plate":"Anthropos p. 440","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Approximate area point for Auyana territory east of Kainantu, Eastern Highlands; not a village location.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Auyana of the Eastern Highlands, the bullroarer carried the voice of an \"old man\" spirit, while the men's paired flutes were heard as a middle-aged woman with a child — a woman who, in the version Sterling Robbins recorded, was made to sound the way she did \"because the men were holding her and doing things with her, not good things either.\" Women and children were kept from ever seeing the instruments: for the Auyana, as for the neighboring Kamano, Gahuku, and Asaro, those who saw the men's sacred instruments \"would die\" or \"would be killed.\"","pull_quote":"the Auyana, whose bullroarers emitted the voice of an \"old man\" spirit","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Hays 1986:440 (Anthropos 81), citing Chenoweth 1976:43 and Robbins 1982:46","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation","women_taboo","women_special","female_priority_myth"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":true,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Terence E. Hays, 'Sacred Flutes, Fertility, and Growth in the Papua New Guinea Highlands,' Anthropos 81 (1986): 435-453, p. 440","url":"https://digitalcollections.ric.edu/record/1736/files/Sacred_Flutes2.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250526055207/https://digitalcollections.ric.edu/record/1736/files/Sacred_Flutes2.pdf"},{"citation":"Vida Chenoweth, Musical Instruments of Papua New Guinea (Ukarumpa: SIL, 1976), p. 43, cited in Hays (1986), p. 440"},{"citation":"Robbins (1982), p. 46, cited in Hays (1986), p. 440"}],"source_citations":"Terence E. Hays, 'Sacred Flutes, Fertility, and Growth in the Papua New Guinea Highlands,' Anthropos 81 (1986): 435-453, p. 440; Vida Chenoweth, Musical Instruments of Papua New Guinea (Ukarumpa: SIL, 1976), p. 43, cited in Hays (1986), p. 440; Robbins (1982), p. 46, cited in Hays (1986), p. 440","source_display":"Terence E. Hays, 'Sacred Flutes, Fertility, and Growth in the Papua New Guinea Highlands,' Anthropos 81 (1986): 435-453, p. 440; Vida Chenoweth, Musical Instruments of Papua New Guinea (Ukarumpa: SIL, 1976), p. 43, cited in Hays (1986), p. 440; Robbins (1982), p. 46, cited in Hays (1986), p. 440","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Auyana bullroarers, whose sound was the voice of an old-man spirit.","function_display":"Revealed, with the sacred flutes, to boys of ten to sixteen at their initiation.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"auyana","display_name":"Auyana bullroarer old-man spirit voice","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 New Guinea bull-roarer."},"slug":"hays1986-002-auyana"}