{"id":"SPEISER1923-001","label":"Malo's polished laurel-leaf board","people_or_site":"Malo Islanders","country_current":"Vanuatu","historic_region":"Malo Island, off southern Espiritu Santo, Sanma Province","macroregion":"Oceania / Melanesia","local_name":"","source_term":"Schwirrholz","source_language":"German","object_description":"A wooden, laurel-leaf-shaped board, usually polished smooth by use and almost never ornamented beyond a few notches at the eye end; a cord about two metres long is tied to a springy pole that swings it.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"speiser1923_neue_hebriden","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://philhist-vanuatu.philhist.unibas.ch/en/objects/9959f49b-c06d-4343-8ca0-72478c2e5130/","page_or_plate":"pp. 380–381; Taf. 108, Abb. 21–22 (islands of the figured blades not checked)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Malo Island centroid (Wikipedia); island-level attestation, no village named.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On Malo, the island just off the south coast of Espiritu Santo, the bullroarer was a laurel-leaf-shaped board of wood, usually polished smooth by long handling and almost never decorated beyond a few notches beside its narrow eye. Through the eye ran a cord some two metres long, tied to a springy pole that sent it whirling. The same wooden board was so sacred on Malekula and Ambrym that no woman or uninitiated man might see it; on Santo it survived only as a palm-leaf toy. On Malo, where no secret societies were known, it may be the relic of societies long gone.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Felix Speiser, Ethnographische Materialien aus den Neuen Hebriden und den Banks-Inseln (Berlin, 1923), pp. 380–381, as reproduced for Museum der Kulturen Basel Vb 4000","url":"https://philhist-vanuatu.philhist.unibas.ch/en/objects/9959f49b-c06d-4343-8ca0-72478c2e5130/"}],"source_citations":"Felix Speiser, Ethnographische Materialien aus den Neuen Hebriden und den Banks-Inseln (Berlin, 1923), pp. 380–381, as reproduced for Museum der Kulturen Basel Vb 4000","source_display":"Felix Speiser, Ethnographische Materialien aus den Neuen Hebriden und den Banks-Inseln (Berlin, 1923), pp. 380–381, as reproduced for Museum der Kulturen Basel Vb 4000","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A wooden, laurel-leaf-shaped board, usually polished smooth by use and almost never ornamented beyond a few notches at the eye end; a cord about two metres long is tied to a springy pole that swings it.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"malo","display_name":"Malo's polished laurel-leaf board","image":{"full":"assets/objects/PNG153_wereldmuseum_tm3303_28.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PNG153_wereldmuseum_tm3303_28_thumb.jpg","alt":"Smooth reddish-brown Marind bullroarer from South Papua.","credit":"Collectie Wereldmuseum (Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen), TM-3303-28, via Wikimedia Commons","license":"CC BY 4.0","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Collectie_Wereldmuseum,_TM-3303-28,_Snorrebot,_'Bromhout',_voor_1963.jpg","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Smooth reddish-brown Marind bullroarer from South Papua","pool_id":"auto-PNG153_wereldmuseum_tm3303_28","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"speiser1923-001-malo-islanders"}