EXH2026-004 - ethnographic attestation
Ngati Porou (Maori iwi)
New Zealand - East Cape - Waiapu Valley, North Island - Oceania
Weather / fertility magic
turorohu / huhu English/Maori
Source term: bullroarer (turorohu, huhu)
turorohu (also huhu): Ngati Porou names for the swung bullroarer used in the rain rite; the same words also denote the humming whizzer-toy.
Etymology. huhu is the Maori onomatopoeic verb "to hiss, whiz, buzz, whirr, swish, hum," naming the instrument from its humming roar; the same word names the huhu beetle, whose buzzing flight the sound evokes. (medium confidence)
Among Ngati Porou of the East Cape, the bullroarer was an instrument of weather magic. The Ngati Porou chief Tuta Nihoniho described the rite to Elsdon Best, who recorded it in his Games and Pastimes of the Maori (1925): an adept threw a handful of ashes toward the south, the rainy quarter, swung the turorohu until it gave its dull roar, bared his buttocks to the south, and recited a karakia meant to insult and anger that quarter into sending a storm. The blade was a thin, elongated piece of matai heartwood, swung on a long cord tied to a rod handle.
- Object
- Thin flat blade of matai heartwood, elongated oval, 12-18 in., on a 4-ft cord tied to a 3-ft rod handle.
- Function
- Rain-making rite: adept throws ashes toward the south, swings the turorohu and recites a karakia to anger the rainy quarter; children chided that sounding it brings storms. Explicitly ceremonial, not a toy (Best).
- Map confidence
- high - Ngati Porou rohe, Waiapu Valley / East Cape
- Source location
- pp. 294-295
- Weather / fertility magic