{"id":"PNG154","label":"Sulka","people_or_site":"Sulka","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"East New Britain","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"vuvu","source_term":"vuvu","source_language":"Sulka (language isolate / non-Austronesian, Wide Bay-Cape Orford, East New Britain, PNG)","object_description":"bullroarer occurrence; bullroarer use; slit-gong occurrence; slit-gong use","function_summary":"Swung to warn the women away when a spirit-mask was near; the women, hearing a spirit's voice in it, hid at once.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"gourlay1975_sound_producing","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000082089644","page_or_plate":"Table 1, row 154; Parkinson1907 original635–636,638","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Sulka language-area point on Wide Bay, East New Britain (Glottolog); an area anchor.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"When the drone of the vuvu crossed a Sulka village, the women hid at once: they heard a spirit's voice in it, and it meant a mask was near. The Sulka of Wide Bay held their towering masks to be real spirits, o inkuol, which now and then devoured children and women; a woman who set foot on the mask-men's assembly ground would lose the child she carried and remain barren ever after. The masks were built and kept at a vererei, a homestead set apart in the forest, and went out from there to dance in the hamlets at the great rites — a boy's circumcision, a girl's ear- and nose-piercing, a young man's teeth-blackening before marriage. Ahead of them went the warning voice of the vuvu — the Sulka word for wind and for blowing. The final mask, lelwong, carried a snake curling from its belly over its head and down its back; its dance closed the feast.","pull_quote":"Um die Weiber zu warnen, wenn eine Maske in der Nachbarschaft ist, schwingt man das Schwirrholz, vuvu, und die Geängstigten, die darin eine Geisterstimme zu erkennen glauben, verstecken sich schleunigst.","pull_quote_translation":"To warn the women when a mask is in the neighbourhood, one swings the bullroarer, vuvu, and the frightened women, who believe they recognize a spirit's voice in it, hide themselves at once.","pull_quote_cite":"Parkinson 1907, \"Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee,\" p. 636 (chapter \"Masken der Sulka\")","term_gloss":"\"Wind, to blow\" — a motion-and-weather word; non-initiates hear the swung instrument as a spirit's voice (Geisterstimme).","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","snake","initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"etymology":"Vuvu means \"wind, to blow\" in Sulka — a motion-sound term fitting the whirled, air-roaring instrument, which non-initiates take for a spirit's voice.","literal_gloss":"wind; blow","semantic_cluster":"weather; motion_sound; spirit_voice; initiation","etymology_confidence":"high","sources":[{"citation":"K. A. Gourlay, Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society: A Study of Esoteric Instruments and Their Role in Male-Female Relations (New Guinea Research Bulletin 60; Canberra and Port Moresby, 1975), Table 1, entry 154; Richard Parkinson, Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 635-636 and 638","url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000082089644"}],"source_citations":"K. A. Gourlay, Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society: A Study of Esoteric Instruments and Their Role in Male-Female Relations (New Guinea Research Bulletin 60; Canberra and Port Moresby, 1975), Table 1, entry 154; Richard Parkinson, Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 635-636 and 638","source_display":"K. A. Gourlay, Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society: A Study of Esoteric Instruments and Their Role in Male-Female Relations (New Guinea Research Bulletin 60; Canberra and Port Moresby, 1975), Table 1, entry 154; Richard Parkinson, Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 635-636 and 638","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Swung to warn the women away when a spirit-mask was near; the women, hearing a spirit's voice in it, hid at once.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"sulka","display_name":"Sulka","image":{"full":"assets/objects/PNG148_prm_1938_36_1317.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PNG148_prm_1938_36_1317_thumb.jpg","alt":"Second Arawe Pagiwar bullroarer from Kandrian: a long flat blade with a rounded end and a repaired hole at its narrow end.","credit":"Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 1938.36.1317 (Beatrice Blackwood collection)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum — non-commercial/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-43110","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Arawe Pagiwar bullroarer from Kandrian, with a repaired perforated end.","pool_id":"auto-PNG148_prm_1938_36_1317","auto_assigned":true},"slug":"png154-sulka"}