{"id":"MUS2026-055","label":"Akwi-ó of the nose-piercing rite","people_or_site":"Anga (Angu)","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Morobe–Gulf fringe (Anga)","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"akwi-ó","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"Anga (Kukukuku; Angan family, Morobe Province, PNG)","object_description":"An undecorated Anga bull-roarer of light-coloured wood, 247 millimetres long and 13 wide, shaped to a point at one end and slightly tapered at the hole end; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1938.36.787.","function_summary":"Sounded over Anga boys at their nose-piercing initiation.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"pitt_rivers","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39727","page_or_plate":"1938.36.787","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate culture/locality centroid","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Anga, or Kukukuku, of the Upper Watut, Beatrice Blackwood photographed the bull-roarer swung from the high seat during a boy's nose-piercing initiation, the novice waiting and the piercer beside him. She collected this plain wooden example, tapered to a point and undecorated, on the same 1936-37 expedition into the then-unadministered country above the Papuan Gulf - one of more than two thousand objects that became the basis of her monograph The Kukukuku of the Upper Watut. The rite itself she set down in photograph after photograph.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"The Anga (Kukukuku) word for the bullroarer, recorded by Blackwood in the Upper Watut.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1938.36.787; comparative vernacular term at 1938.36.784.1–.4","url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39727","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260917174840/https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39663"},{"citation":"B. Blackwood, The Kukukuku of the Upper Watut, ed. C. R. Hallpike (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 1978), “Initiation and mortuary rites” section"}],"source_citations":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1938.36.787; comparative vernacular term at 1938.36.784.1–.4; B. Blackwood, The Kukukuku of the Upper Watut, ed. C. R. Hallpike (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 1978), “Initiation and mortuary rites” section","source_display":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1938.36.787; comparative vernacular term at 1938.36.784.1–.4; B. Blackwood, The Kukukuku of the Upper Watut, ed. C. R. Hallpike (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 1978), “Initiation and mortuary rites” section","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"An undecorated Anga bull-roarer of light-coloured wood, 247 millimetres long and 13 wide, shaped to a point at one end and slightly tapered at the hole end; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1938.36.787.","function_display":"Sounded over Anga boys at their nose-piercing initiation.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"anga","display_name":"Akwi-ó of the nose-piercing rite","image":{"full":"assets/objects/prm/prm_39727.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/prm/thumbs/prm_39727_thumb.jpg","credit":"© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1938.36.787)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum — non-commercial/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39727","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The plain Anga blade: a sliver of light wood, pointed at one end."},"slug":"mus2026-055-anga-angu"}