{"id":"ZFE1888-001","label":"Gadfly at rest and in flight","people_or_site":"Kaiser-Wilhelmsland","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Kaiser-Wilhelmsland (German New Guinea), locality unrecorded","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"","source_term":"Brumm- oder Schwirrholz","source_language":"German","object_description":"Blade of dark palm wood, 47 cm long, 6.8 cm wide, 1 cm thick, running out flat and pointed at the upper end; pierced 6.3 cm from the lower end for a cord of about 1 m, swung around the head to give a humming or dully howling tone. One face carries a deeply incised gadfly (Bremse or Dase) at rest, the other the same insect head-on in flight; contours white-infilled, hatched areas painted red. Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin, Cat. Nr. VI 10 342, acquired from the collections of the Neu-Guinea-Compagnie; presented by A. Bastian and figured in three zincographs by conservator E. Krause, session of 26 May 1888.","function_summary":"Whirled around the head to produce a humming or dully howling tone; the carved gadfly appears at rest on one face and in flight on the other.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"zfe1888_krause_verhandlungen","source_type":"ethnographic_article","source_url":"https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015034718224&seq=583","page_or_plate":"Verhandlungen pp. (266)–(267), Figs. 1–3","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Finschhafen, the Neu-Guinea-Compagnie's 1885–1892 headquarters and shipping point — an acquisition anchor only, not a find-spot; the 1888 text gives no locality below Neu-Guinea.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In 1888 Berlin published an extraordinary New Guinea bullroarer of dark palm wood: a 47-centimetre blade whose deep carving was filled white and hatched red. One face shows a gadfly at rest; the other confronts it head-on, wings spread. Swung from a metre of cord, the blade gave a humming, dully howling tone—the insect passing from stillness into sound. Krause’s three zincographs preserve its portrait.","pull_quote":"Hr. E. Krause reicht Zeichnungen dieses interessanten Gegenstandes, des ersten derartigen von Neu-Guinea, herum.","pull_quote_translation":"Mr. E. Krause passes around drawings of this interesting object — the first of its kind from New Guinea.","pull_quote_cite":"Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, Sitzung vom 26. Mai 1888, in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 20 (1888), p. (267)","term_gloss":"Brumm- oder Schwirrholz = German, humming-wood or whirring-wood, the standard nineteenth-century German terms for the bull-roarer.","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":"E. Krause (presented by A. Bastian), Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, session of 26 May 1888, pp. (266)-(267), figs. 1-3, in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 20 (1888)","url":"https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015034718224&seq=583"}],"source_citations":"E. Krause (presented by A. Bastian), Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, session of 26 May 1888, pp. (266)-(267), figs. 1-3, in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 20 (1888)","source_display":"E. Krause (presented by A. Bastian), Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, session of 26 May 1888, pp. (266)-(267), figs. 1-3, in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 20 (1888)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Blade of dark palm wood, 47 cm long, 6.8 cm wide, 1 cm thick, running out flat and pointed at the upper end; pierced 6.3 cm from the lower end for a cord of about 1 m, swung around the head to give a humming or dully howling tone. One face carries a deeply incised gadfly (Bremse or Dase) at rest, the other the same insect head-on in flight; contours white-infilled, hatched areas painted red. Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin, Cat. Nr. VI 10 342, acquired from the collections of the Neu-Guinea-Compagnie; presented by A. Bastian and figured in three zincographs by conservator E. Krause, session of 26 May 1888.","function_display":"Whirled around the head to produce a humming or dully howling tone; the carved gadfly appears at rest on one face and in flight on the other.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"kaiser wilhelmsland","display_name":"Gadfly at rest and in flight","image":{"full":"assets/objects/ZFE1888-001_zfe20_krause_vi10342.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/ZFE1888-001_zfe20_krause_vi10342_thumb.jpg","credit":"E. Krause, Verhandlungen der Berliner Ges. f. Anthropologie, 26. Mai 1888, in ZfE 20 (1888), p. (267) — HathiTrust, Univ. of Michigan copy","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015034718224&seq=583","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Conservator E. Krause's three zincographs of the gadfly bullroarer, 1888."},"slug":"zfe1888-001-kaiser-wilhelmsland-unlocalized-ex-neu-guinea-compagnie"}