{"id":"NAGA-005","label":"Rengma Meluri aowu-prurr boys toy bullroarer","people_or_site":"Rengma / Meluri village","country_current":"India","historic_region":"Naga Hills / present Nagaland","macroregion":"South Asia / Northeast India","local_name":"aowu-prurr","source_term":"aowu-prurr","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bull-roarer of the Naked Rengma Naga, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, acc. 1928.69.1634; coll. J. P. Mills at Meluri. Cord for whirling tied through a hole near the point (field catalogue).","function_summary":"Crop-watching scarer in the fields (admittedly borrowed from the Semas, and may not be brought into the village); Eastern Rengma boys' toy, permitted even when the crops ripen","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"NAGA_COL51_MELURI_AOWU_PRURR","source_type":"cambridge_naga_database","source_url":"https://wwwe.lib.cam.ac.uk/nagas/coll/51/records/detail/coll/from_500.html","page_or_plate":"collection listing C666 | Mills 1937, pp. 84, 123 | PRM acc. 1928.69.1634 (Cambridge Naga Database r10582 / coll. 51)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Meluri village/locality anchor from the source provenance; Getty TGN 7554623 inhabited-place coordinate, corroborated by GeoNames 1263150 (Meluri/Melomi); not the museum or an exact historical collection findspot. GeoNames: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"The Rengma of Meluri made no claim on this bull-roarer: they freely admitted they had borrowed it from their Sema neighbours, and it might not be carried into the village. Whirled on a cord tied through a hole near its point, the aowu-prurr buzzed out in the fields, and among these Eastern, or Naked, Rengma had shrunk to a boys' plaything — swung for amusement even while the crops were ripening, with no taboo to silence it. J.P. Mills collected this slat in the Naga Hills in 1933.","pull_quote":"Bull-roarer, aowu-prurr, a boy's toy. The cord for whirling it being tied through a hole near point.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Pitt Rivers Museum object 1928.69.1634 (coll. J.P. Mills, Naked Rengma, Meluri, 5 Nov. 1933), Cambridge Naga Database record r10582","term_gloss":"aowu-prurr: Rengma Naga name for the bull-roarer, recorded for the Naked Rengma at Meluri as a boy's whirling toy.","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["agriculture","toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"J. P. Mills, The Rengma Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1937), pp. 84 and 123; University of Cambridge, 'The Nagas' database, record r10582 and collection listing C666; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1928.69.1634","url":"https://wwwe.lib.cam.ac.uk/nagas/coll/51/records/detail/coll/from_500.html","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013024023/https://wwwe.lib.cam.ac.uk/nagas/coll/51/records/detail/coll/from_500.html"}],"source_citations":"J. P. Mills, The Rengma Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1937), pp. 84 and 123; University of Cambridge, 'The Nagas' database, record r10582 and collection listing C666; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1928.69.1634","source_display":"J. P. Mills, The Rengma Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1937), pp. 84 and 123; University of Cambridge, 'The Nagas' database, record r10582 and collection listing C666; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1928.69.1634","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bull-roarer of the Naked Rengma Naga, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, acc. 1928.69.1634; coll. J. P. Mills at Meluri. Cord for whirling tied through a hole near the point (field catalogue).","function_display":"Crop-watching scarer in the fields (admittedly borrowed from the Semas, and may not be brought into the village); Eastern Rengma boys' toy, permitted even when the crops ripen","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"rengma","display_name":"Rengma Meluri aowu-prurr boys toy bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/prm/prm_39618.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/review_2026_10_03/NAGA-005_linked_primary_thumb.jpg","alt":"A narrow wooden Rengma aowu-prurr with cord tightly wrapped around one end and a small split projection at the opposite end.","credit":"© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1928.69.1634)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum — non-commercial/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39618","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The same aowu-prurr in colour, cord wound round its narrow end.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/BATCH3-007.jpeg","thumb":"assets/objects/BATCH3-007_thumb.jpg","alt":"Color photograph of a narrow carved wooden aowu-prurr with cord wrapped around its narrow end.","credit":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (1928.69.1634); Cambridge Naga Exploratour","license":"In copyright — Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford; rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://wwwe.lib.cam.ac.uk/nagas/objects/c666.html","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The same aowu-prurr in colour, cord wound round its narrow end."}]},"slug":"naga-005-rengma-meluri-village"}