{"id":"MUS2026-126","label":"Sissano's metre-long giant","people_or_site":"Sissano","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Sissano villages, Aitape coast, West Sepik (former German New Guinea)","macroregion":"Oceania / New Guinea","local_name":"","source_term":"Schwirrholz","source_language":"German","object_description":"A monumental wooden bullroarer, 108.5 cm long, broad and rounded at one end and tapering to a carved terminal form; cord not preserved.","function_summary":"No use or performance account was recorded.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"museum_digital_bremen","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://nat.museum-digital.de/object/1614136","page_or_plate":"Übersee-Museum Bremen D11950","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Sissano villages, Aitape coast","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"It’s not about the size, but how you use it. Still, this is a remarkable specimen: a 108.5-centimetre wooden bullroarer, probably from Sissano, and among the longest surviving museum examples. Broad as a paddle at one end, it narrows toward a carved tip; the cord is lost, and Bremen recorded no account of how this giant was put into motion. Psychoanalytic writers have called the bullroarer a phallus—and, in Alan Dundes’s notorious formulation, a “flatulent phallus.” This metre-long example hardly needed their help.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","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":"Übersee-Museum Bremen, D11950 (coll; Ludwig Cohn before 1913; probable Sissano provenance)","url":"https://nat.museum-digital.de/object/1614136","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013021342/https://nat.museum-digital.de/object/1614136"}],"source_citations":"Übersee-Museum Bremen, D11950 (coll; Ludwig Cohn before 1913; probable Sissano provenance)","source_display":"Übersee-Museum Bremen, D11950 (coll; Ludwig Cohn before 1913; probable Sissano provenance)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A monumental wooden bullroarer, 108.5 cm long, broad and rounded at one end and tapering to a carved terminal form; cord not preserved.","function_display":"No use or performance account was recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"sissano","display_name":"Sissano's metre-long giant","image":{"full":"assets/objects/expansion_2026_07/bremen_D11950_schwirrholz.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/expansion_2026_07/thumbs/bremen_D11950_schwirrholz_thumb.jpg","alt":"A very long, broad wooden Schwirrholz with a blunt, rounded end and a narrowing pointed projection at the other; the bare wood grain and worn surface are visible.","credit":"Übersee-Museum Bremen (D11950)","license":"CC BY-SA","source_page":"https://nat.museum-digital.de/object/1614136","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A monumental wooden Schwirrholz."},"slug":"mus2026-126-sissano"}