{"id":"MUS2026-071","label":"Bian, twirled so women hide","people_or_site":"Asmat","country_current":"Indonesia","historic_region":"Northwest Asmat, South Papua","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"bian","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bull-roarer of the Asmat, Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. WM-72118).","function_summary":"Asmat bian bull-roarer belongs to initiation contexts; men twirl it so women hide and it impersonates spirit voices.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"wereldmuseum","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/1110130","page_or_plate":"WM-72118; Pouwer 2010 pp. 145–147, 153","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate culture/locality centroid","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Asmat of the south Papuan coast, boys live for months in the Emak Cem ceremonial house while carvers make a spirit canoe for the dead. In the account given to Fleischhacker and Schneebaum in 1976, a sick boy goes toward the men’s house and living quarters behind men twirling bullroarers, so women run and hide. The rite also brings forth Yisbermerat, a snake spirit and teacher of its proper songs. Impersonated by a man, he cuts wavy scars into the boys’ shoulders, backs and buttocks with a mussel shell. The following morning the initiates and their younger sisters lie alternately in a row to receive chest scars. Banana-stalk blows are intended to promote boys’ growth and the girls’ fertility and mother’s milk. A separate account published in 1995 ends with spirit voices, including bullroarers, sounding until the canoe is sent toward safan, the dead’s underworld abode; the men on the riverbank weep. This blade, from northwest Asmat, is held by the Wereldmuseum in the Netherlands.","pull_quote":"Boys who fall ill go to the men's house and the living quarters, preceded by men who twirl bullroarers (bian), so the women will run and hide.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Pouwer 2010, Gender, ritual and social formation in West Papua:145","term_gloss":"bian: Asmat word for the bullroarer, twirled during the Emak Cem initiation so that women flee and hide, its whirring taken for the voices of spirits (Asmat, south Papua). Pouwer 2010:145.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","snake","initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"Wereldmuseum / NMVW, object WM-72118","url":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/1110130"},{"citation":"Jan Pouwer, Gender, Ritual and Social Formation in West Papua (2010), pp. 145–147, 153","url":"https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/document/31815/1/ssoar-2010-pouwer-Gender_ritual_and_social_formation.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Wereldmuseum / NMVW, object WM-72118; Jan Pouwer, Gender, Ritual and Social Formation in West Papua (2010), pp. 145–147, 153","source_display":"Wereldmuseum / NMVW, object WM-72118; Jan Pouwer, Gender, Ritual and Social Formation in West Papua (2010), pp. 145–147, 153","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bull-roarer of the Asmat, Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. WM-72118).","function_display":"Asmat bian bull-roarer belongs to initiation contexts; men twirl it so women hide and it impersonates spirit voices.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"asmat","display_name":"Bian, twirled so women hide","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-071_nmvw_wm72118.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-071_nmvw_wm72118_thumb.jpg","credit":"Collectie Wereldmuseum (Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen), WM-72118","license":"CC BY-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/1110130","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Asmat bian with a rounded carved face above a blade painted in bold black, red and pale geometric bands."},"slug":"mus2026-071-asmat"}