The Bullroarer Atlas

No. CARROLL2024-010

Wim wɑgrɑ

Papua New Guinea · Wim village, Pahoturi River country, South Fly District, Western Province · Oceania · Sahul

Function not recorded

Period drawing of three carved oval bullroarers on cords beside two small carved human figures, captioned Agricultural Charms of Kiwai.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. Kiwai madubu, bullroarers for yams, with two sago effigies Public domain · Image source

wɑgrɑ

Source term: bullroarer: wɑgrɑ

wɑgrɑ: bullroarer (Yamfinder, Kawam, Wim, Kate L. Lindsey field data; phonetic transcription)

At Wim, in the Pahoturi River country of south-western Papua New Guinea, Kawam speakers call the bullroarer wɑgrɑ. It is one word carried across a language border. Their Ende-speaking neighbours say waglla, and east of them the Bine, whose language belongs to another family altogether, say wagra. Yet at Kinkin, Taeme speakers of the same small Pahoturi family call it mələs.

Particulars

Object
A bullroarer, called wɑgrɑ; its form is not recorded.
Function
Not recorded.

Sources

  1. Matthew J. Carroll, Wolfgang Barth, Nicholas Evans et al., Yamfinder: The Southern New Guinea Lexical Database (University of Melbourne), concept 'bullroarer' View
  2. CLDF dataset derived from Carroll et al., "Yamfinder: The Southern New Guinea Lexical Database", Lexibank release v1.0 (2024) View
  3. Kate L. Lindsey, Ghost Elements in Ende Phonology (PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 2019), p. 229 View · archived
  • Kiriwa sosamPapua New Guinea · Arammba (Upper Morehead) language area, Kiriwa village, South Fly District, Western Province · Function not recorded
  • Tais mburerePapua New Guinea · Tais village, southern Morehead district near the coast, South Fly District, Western Province · Function not recorded
  • Daraia áki kwèfanPapua New Guinea · Daraia village, north-east of Morehead station, Morehead district, South Fly District, Western Province · Function not recorded
  • Mibini saɸaŋgəPapua New Guinea · Mibini village, south of Morehead station, Morehead district, South Fly District, Western Province · Function not recorded
  • Namo mbulu and moyaŋgPapua New Guinea · Namo language area, south of the Morehead River toward Tais, Morehead district, South Fly, Western Province · Function not recorded
  • Ndre mayañgPapua New Guinea · Ndre (Dre) language area, northern Morehead district, South Fly, Western Province · Function not recorded

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.