{"id":"HAYS1986-006","label":"Angaataha ancestral-presence bullroarer","people_or_site":"Angaataha","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Angan language region","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A bullroarer swung in Angaataha male initiation; no size, form, material or local name is recorded.","function_summary":"Sounded in male initiation, where its voice signalled that ancestral spirits were present.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"hays1986_sacred_flutes","source_type":"scholarly_article","source_url":"https://digitalcollections.ric.edu/record/1736/files/Sacred_Flutes2.pdf","page_or_plate":"pp. 436, 439–440","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Glottolog Angaataha language anchor; regional, not an object or performance site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Angan speakers of the rough borderland where the Eastern Highlands falls away toward the Morobe and Gulf watersheds, the Angaataha ran their male initiations without the sacred flutes that dominated men's cults to their north and west. The bullroarer carried that weight alone, and its sound was read neither as a bird nor as a monster but as company: when it was heard, ancestral spirits were present.","pull_quote":"Among the Anga-speakers who did not possess sacred flutes were the Angaataha, for whom the sound of the bullroarer indicated the presence of ancestral spirits","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Hays 1986:439–440 (Anthropos 81), citing James 1983","term_gloss":"No Angaataha term recorded by Hays.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Terence E. Hays, Sacred Flutes, Fertility, and Growth in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, Anthropos 81 (1986):435–453, pp. 436, 439–440; citing James (1983)","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"}],"source_citations":"Terence E. Hays, Sacred Flutes, Fertility, and Growth in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, Anthropos 81 (1986):435–453, pp. 436, 439–440; citing James (1983)","source_display":"Terence E. Hays, Sacred Flutes, Fertility, and Growth in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, Anthropos 81 (1986):435–453, pp. 436, 439–440; citing James (1983)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A bullroarer swung in Angaataha male initiation; no size, form, material or local name is recorded.","function_display":"Sounded in male initiation, where its voice signalled that ancestral spirits were present.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"angaataha","display_name":"Angaataha ancestral-presence bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/prm/prm_217166.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/prm/thumbs/prm_217166_thumb.jpg","alt":"The Upper Watut Anga bullroarer, a dark wooden blade with bark-fibre cord wound around it and Blackwood’s 1937 tag attached.","credit":"© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 2006.87.1)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum — non-commercial/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-217166","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Anga bullroarer with bark-fibre cord, collected on the Upper Watut in 1937.","pool_id":"auto-prm--prm_217166","last_modified":"2026-09-06"},"slug":"hays1986-006-angaataha"}