{"id":"MUS2026-041","label":"Luana murup of the Lower Ramu","people_or_site":"Bosman","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Melanesia, Papua New Guinea","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"luana murup","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"Bosman (Papua New Guinea; language unspecified in source)","object_description":"Bull-roarer of the Bosmun, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (acc. 1938.36.1562).","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"pitt_rivers","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39723","page_or_plate":"1938.36.1562","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Bosman (Bosngun) village on the lower Ramu River, Madang (GeoNames 2099077), standing for the Bosngun people of the Lower Ramu; the collecting village is not recorded.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Luana murup, the Bosmun of the Lower Ramu called this carved and incised blade, more than half a metre long. Murup was a word with reach in their villages. When Beatrice Blackwood collected among them before 1937, the same name went on two red-painted carved masks and on a carved figure hung up in the houses, and a white-painted mask was murup pungum. Among the Bosmun the voice of the spirits belongs to the paired sacred bamboo flutes of male initiation.","pull_quote":"She worked in New Guinea and New Britain for nearly 18 months. As a result of this trip well over 2,000 objects were accessioned into the collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Beatrice Blackwood biography (prm.ox.ac.uk/b-blackwood.html)","term_gloss":"luana murup: the local name. Blackwood's Bosmun labels give murup also to two carved masks and a carved figure hung in houses, and murup pungum to a painted mask (PRM 1938.36.1396, .1397, .1517, .1518). Across Madang and much of New Guinea murup is glossed as spirit, or the soul of the dead.","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, acc. 1938.36.1562, collected by Beatrice Blackwood on the Lower Ramu River by 1937; companion Blackwood/Bosngun accessions sharing the name murup: PRM 1938.36.1396 and 1938.36.1397 (red masks), 1938.36.1517 (figure hung in houses), 1938.36.1518 (murup pungum mask); B. Blackwood, \"Some arts and industries of the Bosmun, Ramu River, New Guinea,\" Südseestudien (Gedenkschrift Felix Speiser), Basel, 1951","url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39723","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260917174840/https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39663"}],"source_citations":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, acc. 1938.36.1562, collected by Beatrice Blackwood on the Lower Ramu River by 1937; companion Blackwood/Bosngun accessions sharing the name murup: PRM 1938.36.1396 and 1938.36.1397 (red masks), 1938.36.1517 (figure hung in houses), 1938.36.1518 (murup pungum mask); B. Blackwood, \"Some arts and industries of the Bosmun, Ramu River, New Guinea,\" Südseestudien (Gedenkschrift Felix Speiser), Basel, 1951","source_display":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, acc. 1938.36.1562, collected by Beatrice Blackwood on the Lower Ramu River by 1937; companion Blackwood/Bosngun accessions sharing the name murup: PRM 1938.36.1396 and 1938.36.1397 (red masks), 1938.36.1517 (figure hung in houses), 1938.36.1518 (murup pungum mask); B. Blackwood, \"Some arts and industries of the Bosmun, Ramu…","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bull-roarer of the Bosmun, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (acc. 1938.36.1562).","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"bosman","display_name":"Luana murup of the Lower Ramu","image":{"full":"assets/objects/prm/prm_39723.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/prm/thumbs/prm_39723_thumb.jpg","alt":"Bosmun luana murup bullroarer, Pitt Rivers Museum: a long pale wooden blade with an incised geometric panel near its corded end.","credit":"© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1938.36.1562)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum — non-commercial/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39723","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Bosmun bull-roarer ‘luana murup’, Pitt Rivers Museum."},"slug":"mus2026-041-bosman"}