{"id":"MUS2026-160","label":"Kaimari Island Purari spirit-voice bullroarer","people_or_site":"Purari / Kaimari","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Kaimari Island / Port Romilly / Gulf Province","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"","source_term":"snorrebot of bromhout / bull-roarer","source_language":"Dutch / English","object_description":"Flat pointed-oval brown wooden slat, about 37 x 7 cm, with a round terminal cord hole and a carved mask or stylized face whose details are filled with lime.","function_summary":"Swung on a cord during rituals; its sound was the voice of a spirit.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"wereldmuseum_tm_287_17_kaimari","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/93033","page_or_plate":"Wereldmuseum TM-287-17","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"GeoNames Kaimari locality 2095048 beside Kaimari Island and Port Romilly; matches the museum provenance but is not a recorded performance site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On Kaimari Island in the Purari Delta, this pointed-oval slab of wood carries a face picked out in lime, its features raised white against dark timber. Men swung it on a cord through the hole at its tip during ritual; the note it threw was heard as a spirit's voice, the same imunu register the Purari swing over dead men and at boys' initiations. Here the spirit gets a carved face.","pull_quote":"Het geluid dat wordt voortgebracht is de stem van een geest.","pull_quote_translation":"The sound produced is the voice of a spirit.","pull_quote_cite":"Wereldmuseum TM-287-17","term_gloss":"imunu = spirit (Purari)","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Wereldmuseum TM-287-17, Purari culture, Kaimari Island, acquired by exchange in 1926","url":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/93033"}],"source_citations":"Wereldmuseum TM-287-17, Purari culture, Kaimari Island, acquired by exchange in 1926","source_display":"Wereldmuseum TM-287-17, Purari culture, Kaimari Island, acquired by exchange in 1926","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Flat pointed-oval brown wooden slat, about 37 x 7 cm, with a round terminal cord hole and a carved mask or stylized face whose details are filled with lime.","function_display":"Swung on a cord during rituals; its sound was the voice of a spirit.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"purari","display_name":"Kaimari Island Purari spirit-voice bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/expansion_2026_07/wereldmuseum_tm287_17_kaimari.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/expansion_2026_07/thumbs/wereldmuseum_tm287_17_kaimari_thumb.jpg","credit":"Wereldmuseum / NMVW (TM-287-17)","license":"CC BY-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/93033","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Kaimari Island bullroarer carved with a lime-whitened spirit face."},"slug":"mus2026-160-purari-kaimari"}