Komnzo frfr and ŋofoŋofo bullroarers, Rouku

frfr (children's coconut-leaf toy); ŋofoŋofo (wooden, sacred)

Source term: bullroarer / children's toy bullroarer

frfr: 'children's toy bullroarer' — made entirely of coconut leaf, bow-shaped, string at one end, swung to a buzz; ŋofoŋofo (ngofongofo): 'bull-roarer' — the wooden instrument, made from the süfr tree; farem: the name for the Komnzo-speaking people in and around Rouku.

In September 2012 at Rouku, a village of the Farem people near Morehead, Nakre Abia cut strips of coconut leaf, tied on cords of leaf-fibre, and demonstrated the frfr — the children's bullroarer, made of nothing but the leaf. Its physics came with the lesson: let it touch your clothes, your body, or a tree and it goes silent; keep it swinging free and it buzzes. The wooden ŋofoŋofo, cut from the forest tree süfr, is another thing entirely, and the two names are never traded. In the story told of the place called Fütha, a man heard a roaring from inside his wife's belly and wanted the thing that made it. Bird after bird went in to fetch it, splashing themselves with her blood — the red patches their plumage carries to this day — until one at last stole the bullroarer and brought it to the man. Since then the ŋofoŋofo has been a sacred object, only for initiated men.

The shared linguistic sign links these bird names to bases meaning 'vulva'. But this is esoteric knowledge, which should not be shared with women or uninitiated men. Therefore, the link is hidden by using words from distant languages: not from Komnzo, nor from neighbouring languages.

Döhler, A Grammar of Komnzo (2018), p. 349

Particulars

Object

Two distinct instruments, never one under two names: frfr, a child's bullroarer made entirely from coconut leaf, bow-shaped, a string tied to one end, swung to a buzz; and ŋofoŋofo, the wooden bullroarer proper, cut from the forest tree süfr.

Function

The leaf frfr is a children's toy, filmed in construction and use at Rouku in 2012. The wooden ŋofoŋofo is sacred: in the fütha origin story birds stole it from a woman's belly for a man, and since then it is 'only for initiated men.'