BOELAARS1970-001 - ethnographic attestation

Mandobo (Wakeriop)

Indonesia - Wakeriop (modern Kampung Maju, Arimop District), between the Digul and Kao rivers, Boven Digoel, South Papua - historic Netherlands New Guinea - Oceania - Sahul

Restricted

At the first feast of Mutut, the sacral pig who had been human, the pig's 'Throat' spoke and ordered the Mandobo men to cut short flat blades of hard wood, tie on a fibre, and swing them through the air. The first cast failed: the fibre snapped and the blade flew among the women, lodging in a woman's groin. It took Kaomberim of the Teri river to teach the working rig — tough tenot fibre tied to a springy 1.70-metre rod — and, swinging from a hillock, he made the blade sound at last. Hoera, said the Throat: now that you have heard the bullroarer, eat me. The struck woman's ordeal made the first vagina: skin lifted from her groin became the tenot plant, and a hornbill finally drew the blade out with its beak, her blood spattering its face. At Wakeriop the instrument is tenotkok — Murinop when it hums, the voice of Kowamup, the first human-pig. Women held it first; Kawumbirop saw them and took it: only for the men.

Het bromhout heet hier tenotkok en als het zoemt heet het Murinop.

The bullroarer here is called tenotkok, and when it hums it is called Murinop.

Boelaars, Mandobo's tussen de Digoel en de Kao (1970), p. 78 n. 6

Object

Short flat blade of hard wood (nibung palm among the woods named), with a notch at the pointed tip and a hole bored about 0.5 cm behind it, strung with tenot fibre; in the improved rig the fibre is tied to a springy rod about 1.70 m long and the blade swung through the air. Drabbe's informants built a faithful model: about 20 cm long, 0.5 cm thick, 3-4 cm wide tapering to 1 cm.

Function

Sounded at the feast of the sacral pig Mutut, as the origin myth prescribes; its hum is the voice of Kowamup, the first human-pig. In the Wakeriop telling Kawumbirop took the bullroarer from the women who had it, as 'only for the men.'

Map confidence

high - 2025 BPS village-office coordinate for Kampung Maju (Arimop District), the modern identification of Wakeriop; a representative historic-village anchor, not an object findspot.

Source location

pp. 77-79 (nn. 5-7)

• Spirit voice
• Forbidden to women
• Women-linked
• Female-origin myth

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