{"id":"MUS2026-093","label":"Iari slats that could not roar","people_or_site":"Iari","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Purari Delta, Gulf","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"imunu viki","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"French","object_description":"Carved wooden slat, 72 × 11 × 2.5 cm; chevron zigzags and a face with ringed eyes and a toothed mouth fill its narrow half, the broad half left plain.","function_summary":"Secret-cult boards associated with initiation; sounding Purari variants represented kaiaimunu voices and lamented an amua after burial.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"europe_direct","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://collections.quaibranly.fr/?action=search&field=/Record/ObjectNumber&label=N%C2%B0%20de%20gestion&value=71.1930.29.206","page_or_plate":"object record 7801 (Quai Branly API); PRM 1976.23.8; Williams1924 printed131,165–166,168–171","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate culture/locality centroid","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Swung elsewhere in the Purari Delta, these blades roared with the voice of the kaiaimunu, the wicker monsters of the men's house. The Iari cut theirs without a string-hole, some with only a button or mark near the tip of the nose where the hole should be: bullroarers that could not roar, kept by the sheaf in plaited sago-leaf bags in the men's houses. Silence did not make them safe. Upura held the imunu quality, the sacred charge, in the highest degree; entry into their secret cost a pig, and many grown men stayed outside it. Where the blades did sound, they were imunu viki, 'the weeping imunu,' swung after the burial of an amua to mourn him.","pull_quote":"Whenever the name is even mentioned, there follows an immediate and hurried retreat of a large number of the listeners. The younger boys will fairly run out of ear-shot.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"F. E. Williams, The Natives of the Purari Delta (1924), p. 167","term_gloss":"imunu viki: 'weeping spirit' (imunu 'spirit / vital force'), the Namau/Purari-Delta name for the bull-roarer, whose whir is heard as a spirit lamenting a dead man; its sound is also the voice of the kaiaimunu wickerwork monster of the men's house. F. E. Williams, JRAI 53 (1923): 363 (upura imunu / imunu-viki, 'the weeping imunu'); Smidt 1975: 10.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation","death_rebirth","women_special"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":true,"f_snake":false,"etymology":"In the Purari (Namau) delta the bull-roarer is called imunu viki, 'weeping spirit' — imunu being the Purari word for a spirit or vital force — because its whir is heard as a spirit's cry lamenting a dead man; the I'ai (Iari) are one of the Namau tribes. Its sound is also taken to be the voice of the kaiaimunu, the wickerwork monster kept in the men's house.","literal_gloss":"weeping spirit","semantic_cluster":"spirit_voice; ghost; death; secret_term","etymology_confidence":"medium","sources":[{"citation":"Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris, 71.1930.29.206; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1976.23.8; F. E. Williams, The Natives of the Purari Delta, Territory of Papua Anthropology Report 5 (Port Moresby, 1924), pp. 131, 165–171; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1979.206.1545","url":"https://collections.quaibranly.fr/?action=search&field=/Record/ObjectNumber&label=N%C2%B0%20de%20gestion&value=71.1930.29.206","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013130156/https://collections.quaibranly.fr/?action=search&field=/Record/ObjectNumber&label=N%C2%B0%20de%20gestion&value=71.1930.29.206"}],"source_citations":"Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris, 71.1930.29.206; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1976.23.8; F. E. Williams, The Natives of the Purari Delta, Territory of Papua Anthropology Report 5 (Port Moresby, 1924), pp. 131, 165–171; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1979.206.1545","source_display":"Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris, 71.1930.29.206; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1976.23.8; F. E. Williams, The Natives of the Purari Delta, Territory of Papua Anthropology Report 5 (Port Moresby, 1924), pp. 131, 165–171; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1979.206.1545","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Carved wooden slat, 72 × 11 × 2.5 cm; chevron zigzags and a face with ringed eyes and a toothed mouth fill its narrow half, the broad half left plain.","function_display":"Secret-cult boards associated with initiation; sounding Purari variants represented kaiaimunu voices and lamented an amua after burial.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"iari","display_name":"Iari slats that could not roar","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-093_mqb_71-1930-29-206_iari.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-093_mqb_71-1930-29-206_iari_thumb.jpg","alt":"A flat elongated wooden rhombe with carved chevron bands framing a narrow raised face-like motif near one end.","credit":"© Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac","license":"N/A","source_page":"https://collections.quaibranly.fr/#/objet/7801","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Wooden rhombe carved with chevron zigzags.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-093_schaeffner_plate_xi_fig4.jpg","credit":"André Schaeffner, Origine des instruments de musique, Plate XI, fig. 4; electronic plate via UQAM","license":"No open license stated; scholarly figure crop used for non-commercial research context","source_page":"https://classiques.uqam.ca/contemporains/schaeffner_andre/origines_instruments_musique/planches/planche_11.html","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Carved Jare/Iari bullroarer, Quai Branly 71.1930.29.206."}]},"slug":"mus2026-093-iari"}