{"id":"NGUINEA-011","label":"Kairu (Koriki) \"imunu-viki\" bullroarer, Purari Delta","people_or_site":"Koriki, Kairu (Purari Delta)","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Gulf Province / Purari Delta / Naman District / Kairu","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"Imunu-viki","source_term":"Imunu-viki","source_language":"English","object_description":"A bullroarer from Kairu in the Purari Delta, Naman District (Cambridge MAA E 1916.143.232).","function_summary":"Kept with forty-three others beneath a kopiravi in the men's house, where no woman might see it.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"MAA_E_1916_143_232","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/518591/","page_or_plate":"MAA E 1916.143.232","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Representative Kairu / Purari Delta anchor; exact object findspot not separately geocoded.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"This bullroarer, collected by A. C. Haddon, was one of forty-four lying beneath a kopiravi — a basketwork spirit-monster — in the men's house at Kairu, a Koriki village in the Purari Delta. Each kopiravi had its own name and its own keeper; none was ever taken out of the house, and no woman was ever allowed to see one. When a raid brought home victims, their bodies were thrust inside the kopiravi overnight; next morning they were cut up with bull-roarers, cooked and eaten. Each monster was a kai-ia-imunu, a sky spirit; the roarers beneath were imunu-viki, crying ones.","pull_quote":"On peering over the screen into the gloomy “holy of holies” (maivaki) is to be seen a double row, up to ten or a dozen, of large, hollow, basketwork monsters, (kopiravi), with wide gaping jaws and four wooden legs … Bull-roarers are laid beneath some of them.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"A. C. Haddon, 'The Kopiravi Cult of the Namau, Papua', Man 19 (1919), no. 91, p. 178","term_gloss":"\"crying imunu\" — a weeping spirit; imunu is the Purari word for the spirit category to which bullroarers belong","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"etymology":"Imunu-viki, 'crying imunu,' names the bullroarer as a weeping spirit: imunu is the Purari word for the spirit-beings that pervade the delta. The whir of these instruments was heard as the crying of the spirits themselves.","literal_gloss":"crying imunu (weeping spirit)","semantic_cluster":"spirit_voice; death","etymology_confidence":"high","sources":[{"citation":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, E 1916.143.232, bullroarer","url":"https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/518591/","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013132010/https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/518591/"},{"citation":"A. C. Haddon, “The Kopiravi Cult of the Namau, Papua,” Man 19 (1919), no. 91, p. 178"}],"source_citations":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, E 1916.143.232, bullroarer; A. C. Haddon, “The Kopiravi Cult of the Namau, Papua,” Man 19 (1919), no. 91, p. 178","source_display":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, E 1916.143.232, bullroarer; A. C. Haddon, “The Kopiravi Cult of the Namau, Papua,” Man 19 (1919), no. 91, p. 178","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A bullroarer from Kairu in the Purari Delta, Naman District (Cambridge MAA E 1916.143.232).","function_display":"Kept with forty-three others beneath a kopiravi in the men's house, where no woman might see it.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"koriki","display_name":"Kairu (Koriki) \"imunu-viki\" bullroarer, Purari Delta","image":{"full":"assets/objects/PNG96.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PNG96_thumb.jpg","alt":"Two Purari (Maipua) bullroarers with pale lime-filled carved figures and geometric bands on dark blades.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum, Oc1906,1013.663-664","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1906-1013-663-664","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Purari (Maipua) bull-roarers with lime-infilled anthropomorphic carving."},"slug":"nguinea-011-koriki-kairu-purari-delta"}