The Bullroarer Atlas

FAMSF2013-001 - museum specimen

Aimei village / northeastern Kiwai (Gibaio dialect)

Papua New Guinea - Gulf Province - lower Era River - Oceania

Function not recorded

Representative—not this record’s object: a lanceolate gopi board from the Fly River District, the same Kiwai-delta type as the deaccessioned...
Representative—not this record’s object: a lanceolate gopi board from the Fly River District, the same Kiwai-delta type as the deaccessioned Aimei kaiaimuru, of which no photograph survives. Science Museum Group, A155755 (Wellcome Collection) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

Kaiaimuru English

Source term: Bull-roarer, Kaiaimuru

Kaiaimuru is the catalogue term; no gloss is recorded.

A wood-and-lime bullroarer nearly sixty centimetres long, recorded as Kaiaimuru, from Aimei village on the lower Era River — a Kiwai-speaking, Gibaio-dialect outpost at the eastern edge of the Kiwai world. Its only surviving record is a San Francisco deaccession catalogue from 2013, which preserved its size, material, and home village and nothing else; where the object went next is unknown. Elsewhere, Kiwai speakers whirled bullroarers over their gardens to make the yams grow, but no one wrote down what this one did.

Bull-roarer, Kaiaimuru

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Acquisitions Committee report, May 15, 2013, p. 4-1, L05.1.175.
Object
Wood-and-lime slat, 58.4 x 8.9 x 0.6 cm (23 x 3 1/2 x 1/4 in.), 19th-early 20th century; cord and exact outline are not recorded.
Function
No function, performance, or restriction recorded.
Map confidence
high - OpenStreetMap/Nominatim named-village geocode for Aimei, matching the source locality.
Source location
p. 4-1; L05.1.175

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