{"id":"NGUINEA-015","label":"Ankave-Anga bullroarer (Suowi Valley)","people_or_site":"Ankave-Anga, Suowi Valley","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Southern Anga territory, northernmost Gulf Province at the Morobe / Eastern Highlands junction (Suowi-Mbwei Valley)","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"","source_term":"mautwa","source_language":"","object_description":"A bullroarer that hums when whirled.","function_summary":"Whirled by initiated men in the forest at the edge of the village during the boys' nose-piercing initiation; the secluded mothers and sisters, who hear but do not see, take the humming for the voices of spirits.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"bonnemere_2018_acting_for_others","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://haubooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Pascale-Bonneme%CC%80re-Acting-for-Others-Relational-Transformations-in-Papua-New-Guinea.pdf","page_or_plate":"p. 81 (pull quote); spirit-voice scene later in chap. 'A Long Ritual Journey'; Kapau-Kamea comparison pp. 106-08, citing Blackwood 1978: 124, 158-59 and Bamford 2004","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Representative point in the southern Anga highlands. Bonnemère places the Ankave's Suowi Valley in the northernmost part of Gulf Province, where it meets the Morobe and Eastern Highlands borders, a long day's walk south-south-west of Menyamya (-7.22, 146.02) toward the Gulf of Papua. No published point coordinate exists; the point is set south-west of Menyamya.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Ankave-Anga of the remote Suowi Valley, in the foothills that fall away toward the Gulf of Papua, the anthropologist Pascale Bonnemère watched a boys' initiation from the women's side. While the men pierced the novices' septa in the forest, the secluded mothers and sisters flattened themselves on the ground under their bark capes, listening to \"the words of the spirits, which we anthropologists know to be the sound of the bullroarers.\" Unlike the neighbouring Kapau-Kamea, among whom Beatrice Blackwood was told it meant death for a woman to see the instrument, the Ankave attach no such danger or myth to the bullroarer; here it concerns the women not at all, save as a voice heard at a distance.","pull_quote":"A strange sound rose from the forest above the village; it was the humming of the bullroarers, which the women, it is said, take to be spirit voices.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Bonnemère, Acting for Others (2018), p. 81","term_gloss":"\"Bullroarer\" in the neighbouring Kapau-Kamea (Kamea) language.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation","death_rebirth"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Pascale Bonnemère, Acting for Others: Relational Transformations in Papua New Guinea, trans. Nora Scott (Chicago: HAU Books, 2018), pp. 81, 96, 106-108","url":"https://haubooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Pascale-Bonneme%CC%80re-Acting-for-Others-Relational-Transformations-in-Papua-New-Guinea.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260730064725/https://haubooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Pascale-Bonneme%CC%80re-Acting-for-Others-Relational-Transformations-in-Papua-New-Guinea.pdf"},{"citation":"Beatrice Blackwood, The Kukukuku of the Upper Watut, ed. C. R. Hallpike (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 1978), pp. 124, 158-159, quoted in Bonnemère (2018)"},{"citation":"Bamford (2004), cited in Bonnemère (2018), pp. 106-108"}],"source_citations":"Pascale Bonnemère, Acting for Others: Relational Transformations in Papua New Guinea, trans. Nora Scott (Chicago: HAU Books, 2018), pp. 81, 96, 106-108; Beatrice Blackwood, The Kukukuku of the Upper Watut, ed. C. R. Hallpike (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 1978), pp. 124, 158-159, quoted in Bonnemère (2018); Bamford (2004), cited in Bonnemère (2018), pp. 106-108","source_display":"Pascale Bonnemère, Acting for Others: Relational Transformations in Papua New Guinea, trans. Nora Scott (Chicago: HAU Books, 2018), pp. 81, 96, 106-108; Beatrice Blackwood, The Kukukuku of the Upper Watut, ed. C. R. Hallpike (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 1978), pp. 124, 158-159, quoted in Bonnemère (2018); Bamford (2004), cited in Bonnemère (2018), pp.…","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A bullroarer that hums when whirled.","function_display":"Whirled by initiated men in the forest at the edge of the village during the boys' nose-piercing initiation; the secluded mothers and sisters, who hear but do not see, take the humming for the voices of spirits.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"ankave anga","display_name":"Ankave-Anga bullroarer (Suowi Valley)","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/bm_E_Oc1925-0213-4.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/thumbs/bm_E_Oc1925-0213-4_thumb.jpg","alt":"A pale wooden board painted at its corded end with a dark diamond pattern.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum (E/Oc1925-0213-4)","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1925-0213-4","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A pale wooden board painted at its corded end with a dark diamond pattern."},"slug":"nguinea-015-ankave-anga-suowi-valley"}