{"id":"HAYS1986-010","label":"Waffa flutes and roarer together","people_or_site":"Waffa","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Eastern Family language region","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A bullroarer used alongside transverse flutes in Waffa initiation; no size, form or local name is recorded.","function_summary":"Recorded in initiation, sounding with the transverse flutes as a sacred men's instrument.","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":"p. 436 table","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Glottolog Waffa language anchor; regional, not a performance site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Waffa country lies at the eastern end of the belt where two sacred men's instruments overlapped rather than replaced each other: paired transverse flutes and the bullroarer. Across that belt, Hays found, wherever both occurred both were revealed together at initiation, in ceremonies everywhere forbidden for women or children to observe. Of the Waffa instrument itself that is all there is — flutes and bullroarer, in initiation — with no name for it recorded and nothing of its shape.","pull_quote":"women and children were almost universally forbidden even to see the object","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Hays 1986:439 (Anthropos 81)","term_gloss":"No Waffa term securely attached to the bullroarer.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"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), pp. 436, 439, 443","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), pp. 436, 439, 443","source_display":"Terence E. Hays, 'Sacred Flutes, Fertility, and Growth in the Papua New Guinea Highlands,' Anthropos 81 (1986), pp. 436, 439, 443","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A bullroarer used alongside transverse flutes in Waffa initiation; no size, form or local name is recorded.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"waffa","display_name":"Waffa flutes and roarer together","image":{"full":"assets/objects/PNG135_meg_ethoc_029196.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PNG135_meg_ethoc_029196_thumb.jpg","alt":"A 36.5 cm Barbey Kainantu rhombe from the Eastern Highlands: a pale narrow wooden blade with a cord tied at one end and trailing in a loose loop.","credit":"Musée d'ethnographie de Genève (MEG), ETHOC 029196 (coll. Georges Barbey, 1960)","license":"© Musée d'ethnographie de Genève — reproduction rights apply; rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://collections.geneve.ch/meg/catalogue/musinfo_public.php?id=029196","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A Barbey Kainantu rhombe, 36.5 cm.","pool_id":"auto-PNG135_meg_ethoc_029196","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-09-03"},"slug":"hays1986-010-waffa"}