HAD1898-024 - secondary catalog
Mota Banks Islands nanamatea
Vanuatu - Oceania
Sacred / spirit
nanamatea English
Source term: nanamatea / death-maker
nanamatea: Mota (Banks Islands) "death-maker," the name for the bullroarer swung to drive off a ghost.
Etymology. The Mota bullroarer name is a transparent death/ghost-driving term in the checked Haddon/Codrington lane. (high confidence)
On Mota in the Banks Islands the bullroarer is called nanamatea, "death-maker," and is swung to drive a ghost away. Codrington, who recorded the name, says there is no mystery about it: in the Banks Islands the instrument is a common plaything, and this is simply a noise used to chase off the dead. On nearby Merlav the same thing is the worung-tamb, "a wailer," sounded the night after a death to make a mourning sound.
There is no mystery about it when it is used in the Banks' Islands to drive away a ghost, as in Mota, where it is called nanamatea, death-maker, or to make a mourning sound, as in Merlav, where it is called worung-tamb, a wailer, and used the night after a death.
Codrington 1891, The Melanesians, ch. 17
- Function
- Bullroarer used to drive away a ghost.
- Map confidence
- medium - representative anchor on Vanua Lava, the main Banks Islands landmass; Mota is a small island in the same group, too small to render
- Source location
Page references
p. 342; and p. 267
- Spirit voice