{"id":"NGUINEA-005","label":"Sirorata sova, the hooded initiates","people_or_site":"Sirorata, Oro Province","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Oro Province / Sirorata","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"sova","source_term":"sova (Bullroarer)","source_language":"English","object_description":"UBC Museum of Anthropology sova, object type Bullroarer; object number 2623/2; place made Papua New Guinea: Oro, Sirorata. Two companion sova from the same donation, 2623/11 and 2623/12, are black-palm blades 38.2 and 31.1 cm long carved with zigzag and X designs; 2623/11 keeps its bark-fibre cord, and both ends of 2623/12 are painted red.","function_summary":"An esoteric initiation instrument among the Orokaiva: never seen but only heard by the uninitiated, its booming passed off as the voice of the embahi, spirits of the dead; candidates, boys and girls alike, were brought into its secret.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"UBC_MOA_2623_2","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/search/item?TB_iframe=true&height=580&modal=true&person%5B0%5D=4340&person%5B1%5D=4353&row=2&startletter=R&width=580","page_or_plate":"UBC MOA2623/2; Dutton1973 p.65; Dutton1969 p.91; Williams1930 pp.89,99,180,183,195–196,266–267","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Representative Sirorata / Oro Province anchor; exact object findspot not separately geocoded.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At Sirorata, a Hunjara village in Papua New Guinea’s Oro Province, the bullroarer is called sova: three survive, slim blades of black palm, one still tied to its bark-fibre cord, another painted red at both ends. The general Orokaiva term for the instrument is umbubu, \"a thin slat of palm-wood with a hole drilled through one end.\" F. E. Williams, the government anthropologist of the Orokaiva, recorded an initiation account from the Hunjara’s Koko people: boys and girls sat hooded in bark-cloth while men pulled trees down on long lianas and sounded the bull-roarers, notes running from the deepest bass to a piercing siren-like shriek — to the hooded children the voices of the embahi, spirits of the dead, who gabbled \"Kambo, kambo, kambo!\" — \"Bite, bite, bite!\" In the morning the initiates were shown the bull-roarers and flutes that had terrified them overnight. The name sova sits close to sovai, the Orokaiva word for those spirits of the dead — a nearness that goes unexplained.","pull_quote":"The bull-roarer and the flute are esoteric objects in that they are never seen but only heard by the uninitiated.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"F. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (1930), p. 277.","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation","women_special"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":true,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2623/2, 2623/11 and 2623/12, sova, Sirorata, Oro Province","url":"https://collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/search/item?keywords=2623%2F2&row=0","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013024615/https://collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/search/item?keywords=2623%2F2&row=0"},{"citation":"Tom Dutton, A Checklist of Villages in the Central and South-East of Mainland Papua, Pacific Linguistics B-24 (1973), p. 65","url":"https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/0afdccac-9553-4a0d-894e-d2e91f4999e5/content","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240727222133/https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/0afdccac-9553-4a0d-894e-d2e91f4999e5/content"},{"citation":"Tom Dutton, Pacific Linguistics B-9 (1969), p. 91","url":"https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/146442/1/PL-B9.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20220525102419/https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/146442/1/PL-B9.pdf"},{"citation":"F. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (1930), pp. 89, 99, 180, 183, 195–196, 266–267, 277","url":"https://archive.org/details/orokaivasociety0000fewi/page/89/mode/1up"}],"source_citations":"UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2623/2, 2623/11 and 2623/12, sova, Sirorata, Oro Province; Tom Dutton, A Checklist of Villages in the Central and South-East of Mainland Papua, Pacific Linguistics B-24 (1973), p. 65; Tom Dutton, Pacific Linguistics B-9 (1969), p. 91; F. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (1930), pp. 89, 99, 180, 183, 195–196, 266–267, 277","source_display":"UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2623/2, 2623/11 and 2623/12, sova, Sirorata, Oro Province; Tom Dutton, A Checklist of Villages in the Central and South-East of Mainland Papua, Pacific Linguistics B-24 (1973), p. 65; Tom Dutton, Pacific Linguistics B-9 (1969), p. 91; F. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society (1930), pp. 89, 99, 180, 183, 195–196, 266–267, 277","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"UBC Museum of Anthropology sova, object type Bullroarer; object number 2623/2; place made Papua New Guinea: Oro, Sirorata. Two companion sova from the same donation, 2623/11 and 2623/12, are black-palm blades 38.2 and 31.1 cm long carved with zigzag and X designs; 2623/11 keeps its bark-fibre cord, and both ends of 2623/12 are painted red.","function_display":"An esoteric initiation instrument among the Orokaiva: never seen but only heard by the uninitiated, its booming passed off as the voice of the embahi, spirits of the dead; candidates, boys and girls alike, were brought into its secret.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"sirorata","display_name":"Sirorata sova, the hooded initiates","image":{"full":"assets/objects/NGUINEA-005_ubc_2623-2.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/NGUINEA-005_ubc_2623-2_thumb.jpg","alt":"A long flat sova from Sirorata village, with alternating orange and white diagonal bands and a braided cord attached near one end.","credit":"© UBC Museum of Anthropology (2623/2); photo Jessica Bushey","license":"CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA","source_page":"https://collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/search?keywords=2623%2F2","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Braided-cord sova with painted diagonal carving, Sirorata village.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/NGUINEA-005_ubc-2623-11-sirorata.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/NGUINEA-005_ubc-2623-11-sirorata_thumb.jpg","alt":"A companion sova from the Sirorata gift, with pale geometric figures and bands along its dark wooden blade, still on its bark-fibre cord.","credit":"© UBC Museum of Anthropology (2623/11); photo Jessica Bushey","license":"CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA","source_page":"https://collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/search?keywords=2623%2F11","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A companion sova from the same Sirorata gift, still on its bark-fibre cord."},{"full":"assets/objects/NGUINEA-005_ubc-2623-12-sirorata.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/NGUINEA-005_ubc-2623-12-sirorata_thumb.jpg","credit":"© UBC Museum of Anthropology (2623/12); photo Jessica Bushey","license":"CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA","source_page":"https://collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/search?keywords=2623%2F12","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A third sova from the same gift, painted red at both ends."}]},"slug":"nguinea-005-sirorata-oro-province"}