{"id":"TORRES-003","label":"Moa (Mua) Islanders","people_or_site":"Moa (Mua) Islanders, western Torres Strait (Kauralaig group)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Moa (Mua / Banks) Island, western Torres Strait, Queensland","macroregion":"Oceania / Torres Strait","local_name":"wanes","source_term":"wanes","source_language":"Kala Lagaw Ya (Western Torres Strait language)","object_description":"The wanes is the smaller of two Torres Strait bull-roarers: an ellipsoidal, thin leaf-shaped wooden slat with bevelled edges and a swelling at one end where a cord about a yard long is tied. The cord is fastened to a stick and the slat is whirled over the head. On Moa it was used in a small, very thin form for weather magic.","function_summary":"Whirled by a Moa \"big man,\" painted black, to raise wind (and to \"quench\" it) — wind/weather magic.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"completeness_sweep_2026","source_type":"ethnographic_literature","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/reportsofcambrid0005hadd","page_or_plate":"p. 352 (wind magic); definition p. 217; fig. 52 E","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate centroid of Moa (Mua) Island, western Torres Strait","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On Moa Island in the western Torres Strait, a \"big man\" could call up wind. He painted himself black from head to foot and whirled a wanes — the small, leaf-shaped bull-roarer of the islands — and that the same man could just as readily \"quench the wind.\" The wanes was a thin, bevelled slat of wood swung on a yard of cord tied to a stick, the smaller companion to the larger bigu; in initiation it was the secret object shown to youths and kept from women, but here on Moa its roar was turned to the weather. For more wind, a man on neighbouring Muralug would climb to the top of a tree and whirl it there.","pull_quote":"A \"big man\" in Moa could cause wind to blow by painting himself black all over and whirling a wanes, or small leaf-shaped bull-roarer (fig. 52 E). He could also \"quench the wind,\" \"usimaipa gub.\"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"A. C. Haddon (ed.), Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, Vol. V (1904), p. 352.","term_gloss":"wanes: the small, thin, leaf-shaped (ellipsoidal) bull-roarer of the western Torres Strait, distinguished from the larger bigu; whirled on a yard-long cord fastened to a stick.","cls":"weather","class_label":"Weather / fertility magic","color":"#2F6FA3","is_candidate":false,"flags":["women_taboo","weather"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"etymology":"In the western Torres Strait wanes named the small, thin, leaf-shaped bull-roarer, whirled on a yard of cord tied to a stick; Ray's Mabuiag vocabulary defines it as 'a small bull-roarer with a shrill sound,' the counterpart of the deep-voiced bigu. No literal etymology is recorded; on Moa the instrument served wind magic.","literal_gloss":"","semantic_cluster":"size_class; sound; wind","etymology_confidence":"high","sources":[{"citation":"A. C. Haddon (ed.), Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, Vol. V: Sociology, Magic and Religion of the Western Islanders (Cambridge University Press, 1904), \"Magic and Religion,\" p. 352 (Moa wind-magic); the wanes is defined p. 217 and figured fig. 52 E","url":"https://archive.org/details/reportsofcambrid0005hadd"}],"source_citations":"A. C. Haddon (ed.), Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, Vol. V: Sociology, Magic and Religion of the Western Islanders (Cambridge University Press, 1904), \"Magic and Religion,\" p. 352 (Moa wind-magic); the wanes is defined p. 217 and figured fig. 52 E","source_display":"A. C. Haddon (ed.), Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, Vol. V: Sociology, Magic and Religion of the Western Islanders (Cambridge University Press, 1904), \"Magic and Religion,\" p. 352 (Moa wind-magic); the wanes is defined p. 217 and figured fig. 52 E","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"The wanes is the smaller of two Torres Strait bull-roarers: an ellipsoidal, thin leaf-shaped wooden slat with bevelled edges and a swelling at one end where a cord about a yard long is tied. The cord is fastened to a stick and the slat is whirled over the head. On Moa it was used in a small, very thin form for weather magic.","function_display":"Whirled by a Moa \"big man,\" painted black, to raise wind (and to \"quench\" it) — wind/weather magic.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"moa","display_name":"Moa (Mua) Islanders","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_08/TORRES-003_haddon1904_v5_plXX_bigu_wanes.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_08/thumbs/TORRES-003_haddon1904_v5_plXX_bigu_wanes_thumb.jpg","alt":"Haddon’s printed figures of a large Mabuiag bigu with patterned pointed ends and a smaller plain Muralug wanes, with captions and lengths.","credit":"A. C. Haddon (ed.), Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. V (1904), Pl. XX figs 2–3","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/reportsofcambrid05hadd","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A Mabuiag bigu and a wanes used at initiation on Muralug."},"slug":"torres-003-moa-mua-islanders-western-torres-strait-kauralaig-group"}