{"id":"MUS2026-227","label":"Middle Sepik fishtail bullroarer","people_or_site":"Middle Sepik","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Middle Sepik","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"","source_term":"Schwirrholz","source_language":"German","object_description":"Carved wood, 38 x 6.2 x 0.8 cm. A pale, gently bowed leaf-shaped blade, widest at the middle and drawn to a rounded point at one end; at the other end a drilled circular hole sits immediately before a short notched, fishtail-shaped projection. No cord survives. At just 8 mm thick on a 380 mm blade, it is an unusually thin, clearly free-air profile.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"smb_vi_57792_middle_sepik","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://sammlungenonline.humboldtforum.org/en/object-catalogue/169088-schwirrholz","page_or_plate":"Ethnologisches Museum Berlin VI 57792; Humboldt Forum Sammlungen Online object 169088","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Middle Sepik regional anchor in the Ambunti-to-Angoram reach; the record's only place field is \"Mittelsepik\", with no village, people or collecting point.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A blade of pale wood the length of a forearm — thirty-eight centimetres by six — and just eight millimetres thick, thin enough that the measurement alone shows it was made to be swung, not merely carved for display. It tapers to a rounded point at one end; at the other, a small drilled hole sits just short of a stubby notched tail shaped like a fish's fluke. Berlin's Ethnologisches Museum received it as a gift from Hermann Schlenker in 2012, cataloguing it as a Schwirrholz, a \"whirring wood,\" from the Middle Sepik — though its own cord and its makers' word for it are long gone.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"Schwirrholz - the standing German museum term for a bullroarer, literally \"whirring wood\".","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":"Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, VI 57792, 'Schwirrholz' (Middle Sepik; gift of Hermann Schlenker, 2012)","url":"https://sammlungenonline.humboldtforum.org/en/object-catalogue/169088-schwirrholz","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260310100624/https://sammlungenonline.humboldtforum.org/en/object-catalogue/169088-schwirrholz"}],"source_citations":"Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, VI 57792, 'Schwirrholz' (Middle Sepik; gift of Hermann Schlenker, 2012)","source_display":"Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, VI 57792, 'Schwirrholz' (Middle Sepik; gift of Hermann Schlenker, 2012)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Carved wood, 38 x 6.2 x 0.8 cm. A pale, gently bowed leaf-shaped blade, widest at the middle and drawn to a rounded point at one end; at the other end a drilled circular hole sits immediately before a short notched, fishtail-shaped projection. No cord survives. At just 8 mm thick on a 380 mm blade, it is an unusually thin, clearly free-air profile.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"middle sepik","display_name":"Middle Sepik fishtail bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-227.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/thumbs/MUS2026-227_thumb.jpg","credit":"Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum / Heinz-Günther Malenz (VI 57792)","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://sammlungenonline.humboldtforum.org/en/object-catalogue/169088-schwirrholz","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Ethnologisches Museum VI 57792: a carved Middle Sepik blade with a terminal hole and fishtail end.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_new50_2026_10_30/mus2026_227_37.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_new50_2026_10_30/thumbs/mus2026_227_37.jpg","alt":"A pale wooden blade connected by a cord to a long segmented stick.","credit":"Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum / Heinz-Günther Malenz, VI 57802","source_page":"https://search.smb.museum/object/obj-1835638","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A Middle Sepik blade with its cord and operating stick, Berlin VI 57802."}]},"slug":"mus2026-227-middle-sepik-no-village-or-people-recorded"}