EXH2026-055 - secondary catalog
Mawai (Waria watershed)
Papua New Guinea - Mawai (Waria watershed) - Oceania
Restricted
Source term: bullroarer
Break a taboo during the initiation season and the valley heard about it. Among the Mawai of the Waria, in the forested ranges of southeast New Guinea, the bullroarer was swung not to summon a spirit but as the answer to an offence: when any prohibition of the initiation period was violated, the slat was set roaring over the boys' seclusion. The government anthropologist E.W.P. Chinnery recorded the custom in the 1920s; what the sound forbade, and to whom, he left unwritten.
the Mawai bullroarer is sounded for any offence against taboos committed during the initiation period
Gourlay 1975, citing Chinnery ndC:61
- Object
- Bullroarer sounded for offences against initiation-period taboos.
- Function
- Mawai bullroarer sounded for offences against taboos during the initiation period; no women-specific prohibition or positive female link is stated in the recovered local passage.
- Map confidence
- medium - Mawai (Waria watershed), approximate
- Source location
Page references
Gourlay; Chinnery ndC:61 via Gourlay
- Initiation rite