{"id":"POLY2026-002","label":"Samoa lango mumu leaf toy bullroarer","people_or_site":"Samoan children","country_current":"Samoa","historic_region":"Samoan Islands","macroregion":"Oceania / Polynesia","local_name":"lango mumu","source_term":"bull roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A coconut-leaflet toy, made the same way as the Aitutaki leaflet bullroarer.","function_summary":"A children's plaything, whirled to buzz like a fly.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"buck1930_samoan_material_culture","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/hiroa-1930-samoan-material-culture","page_or_plate":"p. 552; index p. 552","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"representative country anchor at Apia, Upolu, Samoa; not an exact findspot","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the coconut-leaflet toys Samoan children made for themselves, alongside a windmill (pe'ape'a) and a spinner (moamoa), was a bull-roarer they called lango mumu — the name of the buzzing fly, taken from the humming the toy made when whirled. Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter Buck) recorded it in his 1930 survey of Samoan material culture for the Bishop Museum, noting it was built the same way as the leaf toys he had documented at Aitutaki. In his summary of Samoan sound-making he placed it with the jew's harp and the whistle as one of the children's instruments, all easily made from the leaves of plants.","pull_quote":"These included the windmill (pe'ape'a), spinner (moamoa), and bull roarer (lango mumu). The bull roarer from its humming noise takes the name of the buzzing fly.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Te Rangi Hiroa (P. H. Buck), Samoan Material Culture, Bishop Museum Bulletin 75 (1930), p. 552","term_gloss":"lango mumu — Samoan name for the leaflet toy bull-roarer; in Buck's orthography lango is the fly, and the toy borrows the name of the buzzing fly whose sound it imitates.","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"etymology":"The toy wears an insect’s name: in Samoan, lago (said lango) is the common house fly, and lago mumu, Buck’s “buzzing fly,” is the carpenter bee.","literal_gloss":"fly / buzzing-fly imagery","semantic_cluster":"insect; buzz; toy","etymology_confidence":"high","sources":[{"citation":"Te Rangi Hiroa (P. H. Buck), Samoan Material Culture, Bishop Museum Bulletin 75 (1930), p. 552","url":"https://archive.org/details/hiroa-1930-samoan-material-culture"}],"source_citations":"Te Rangi Hiroa (P. H. Buck), Samoan Material Culture, Bishop Museum Bulletin 75 (1930), p. 552","source_display":"Te Rangi Hiroa (P. H. Buck), Samoan Material Culture, Bishop Museum Bulletin 75 (1930), p. 552","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A coconut-leaflet toy, made the same way as the Aitutaki leaflet bullroarer.","function_display":"A children's plaything, whirled to buzz like a fly.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"samoan children","display_name":"Samoa lango mumu leaf toy bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/buck1927_aitutaki_fig281_patangitangi.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/buck1927_aitutaki_fig281_patangitangi_thumb.jpg","alt":"Buck’s construction diagram of the Aitutaki coconut-leaflet patangitangi: a curved leaflet loop above a flat strip, an enlarged tied attachment and the assembled instrument on its cord, labelled A–D.","credit":"Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter Buck), The Material Culture of the Cook Islands (Aitutaki) (1927), fig. 281","license":"Public domain","source_page":"http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BucMate.html","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Aitutaki coconut-leaflet bullroarer construction diagram.","pool_id":"auto-pd_plates--buck1927_aitutaki_fig281_patangitangi"},"slug":"poly2026-002-samoan-children"}