The Bullroarer Atlas

DEACON1934-002 - ethnographic attestation

Lambumbu / Vinmavis district

Vanuatu - Central-west Malekula - Lambumbu - Oceania - Melanesia

Restricted

Lambumbu ‘Mother’ and ‘Child’ bullroarers, Deacon Plate XVII section B. The full section and its complete caption are shown.
Lambumbu ‘Mother’ and ‘Child’ bullroarers, Deacon Plate XVII section B. The full section and its complete caption are shown. A. B. Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People (1934), Plate XVII, section B Image source

nangamgar nrlalinge (Uerik) English

Source term: bullroarer

nangamgar nrlalinge = Uerik name for the bullroarer; no literal gloss recovered

In Lambumbu, incision made puberty public: after seclusion, a boy’s altered body announced his new standing. Deacon called the bullroarer the transition rite’s “principal sacred instrument”—the defining sound of a passage cut into the body. In neighbouring Uerik, the drama lay in disclosure. During incision, novices were finally shown the nangamgar nrlalinge and taught how to swing it for themselves: guarded sound became knowledge they could now produce.

the bull-roarer is the principal sacred instrument of the transition rite in Lambumbu

Bernard Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People (1934), p. 244
Object
Sacred bullroarer used in Malekula boys’ incision rites; at Uerik it was called nangamgar nrlalinge. Construction is not recorded.
Function
Principal sacred instrument of the transition rite at Lambumbu; revealed to novices and taught as a ritual skill at Uerik.
Map confidence
high - Named Lambumbu inlet anchor on the central-west Malekula coast; a district/coast proxy rather than a village point.
Source location
p. 244; RAI MS 98 files 6/8 and 7/4

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