{"id":"MUS2026-023","label":"Rirangode, the Masingara Sosom","people_or_site":"Masingara (Bine)","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Western Province (near Daru)","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"rirangode / erapisa-pisa","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bull-roarer of the Masingara (Bine), British Museum Oc1906,1013.152.a; its sibling Oc1906,1013.153 is a tapering plate of ground turtleshell, 30 x 4.5 x 1 cm, pierced at the narrow end and strung with twisted plant-fibre cord, with an incised line below the hole. The Bine dictionary of Irukupi village names the bullroarer wagra and a children's coconut-leaf roarer buebue.","function_summary":"The bullroarer shares its myth-name, Sosom, with a monster of the bush said to eat children at the annual initiation festival, and its coming belongs to the origin story of Ua-ogrere, a woman who taught the Masingara their houses, weapons and ceremonies. Its working names, rirangode and erapisa-pisa, are also clan totems. Bine children swing a toy roarer of their own, the buebue, cut from a coconut leaf.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"british_museum","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1906-1013-152-a","page_or_plate":"BM Oc1906,1013.152.a | British Museum Oc1906,1013.153; Landtman 1917:77; Riesenfeld 1950; Williams 1936; Cambridge Reports vol. I (1935); Döhler 2020 PDF pp. 20 (buebue), 52 (wagra)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate culture/locality centroid","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At Masingara, a bush village behind Mawata in the Bine country of the Trans-Fly, the bullroarer had two working names, rirangode and erapisa-pisa, both also clan totems, and a myth-name, Sosom, shared with a monster of the forest said to eat children at the annual initiation festival. Its coming belongs to the story of Ua-ogrere, a woman who had always existed, never born, who taught the Masingara their houses, their weapons and their ceremonies; in her story the instrument's arrival carries a sodomy-and-growth motif, echoed almost word for word in a neighbouring telling of Kambel and his son Gufa, a wretched, undersized boy who grew to full stature by the same practice. Elsewhere among the Bine the men's roarer is wagra, and children cut a roarer of their own, the buebue, from a coconut leaf and swing it for play.","pull_quote":"the bullroarer has the same name (sosom) as that of a mythical monster in the bush... there seems to be a reminiscence of a monster who eats children","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"A. C. Haddon and C. G. Seligman, reviewing Gunnar Landtman's Masingara fieldwork, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 50 (1920)","term_gloss":"rirangode / erapisa-pisa: Masingara names for the bullroarer itself, also clan totems; Sosom: its myth-name, shared with a child-eating bush monster of the Masingara initiation festival and with the Marind-anim bullroarer-god to the west; wagra: the general Bine word for the bullroarer; buebue: a children's toy bullroarer made from a coconut leaf.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation","toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"British Museum, Oc1906,1013.152.a","url":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1906-1013-152-a"},{"citation":"British Museum, Oc1906,1013.153"},{"citation":"Gunnar Landtman, The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans (1917), p. 77"},{"citation":"Gunnar Landtman, The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea (1927)"},{"citation":"A. C. Haddon and C. G. Seligman, review of Landtman, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 50 (1920)"},{"citation":"Nature 108 (1921), account of Landtman’s Masingara material"},{"citation":"Alexander Riesenfeld, The Megalithic Culture of Melanesia (1950)"},{"citation":"F. E. Williams, Papuans of the Trans-Fly (1936)"},{"citation":"Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. I: General Ethnography (1935)"},{"citation":"Christian Döhler, A dictionary of Bine (draft, 2020), Endangered Languages Archive deposit bine-doehler-0471, PDF pp. 20, 52, s.v. buebue and wagra"}],"source_citations":"British Museum, Oc1906,1013.152.a; British Museum, Oc1906,1013.153; Gunnar Landtman, The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans (1917), p. 77; Gunnar Landtman, The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea (1927); A. C. Haddon and C. G. Seligman, review of Landtman, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 50 (1920); Nature 108 (1921), account of Landtman’s Masingara material; Alexander Riesenfeld, The Megalithic Culture of Melanesia (1950); F. E. Williams, Papuans of the Trans-Fly (1936); Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. I: General Ethnography (1935); Christian Döhler, A dictionary of Bine (draft, 2020), Endangered Languages Archive deposit bine-doehler-0471, PDF pp. 20, 52, s.v. buebue and wagra","source_display":"British Museum, Oc1906,1013.152.a; British Museum, Oc1906,1013.153; Gunnar Landtman, The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans (1917), p. 77; Gunnar Landtman, The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea (1927); A. C. Haddon and C. G. Seligman, review of Landtman, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 50 (1920); Nature 108 (1921), account of Landtman’s…","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bull-roarer of the Masingara (Bine), British Museum Oc1906,1013.152.a; its sibling Oc1906,1013.153 is a tapering plate of ground turtleshell, 30 x 4.5 x 1 cm, pierced at the narrow end and strung with twisted plant-fibre cord, with an incised line below the hole. The Bine dictionary of Irukupi village names the bullroarer wagra and a children's coconut-leaf roarer buebue.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"masingara","display_name":"Rirangode, the Masingara Sosom","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-023.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-023_thumb.jpg","alt":"A dark-brown spatulate Masingara bullroarer with a broad rounded blade, narrow neck and long cord looped from its end.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum, Oc1906,1013.152.a","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1906-1013-152-a","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Masingara spatulate bull-roarer, Western Province, collected by the Daniels Expedition; British Museum.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_15/MUS2026-023_bm_oc1906_1013_153.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_15/thumbs/MUS2026-023_bm_oc1906_1013_153_thumb.jpg","alt":"Masingara turtleshell bullroarer Oc1906,1013.153.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum (Oc1906,1013.153)","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1906-1013-153","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Masingara turtleshell bullroarer with its twisted plant-fibre cord; British Museum."}]},"slug":"mus2026-023-masingara-bine-gizra"}