HAYS1986-007 - ethnographic attestation
Yagwoia roarer for boys and dogs
Papua New Guinea - Angan language region - Oceania - Sahul
Restricted
Source term: bullroarer
No Yagwoia term recorded by Hays.
Angan speakers on the southeastern margin of the Highlands, the Yagwoia gave the bullroarer two lives. In first-stage initiation — held for boys of six to fifteen, and turning on nose-bleeding and instruction in the fellation of bachelors — it was the only instrument actually revealed: the flutes had already been played openly at the ceremony's start, so the roarer alone still held a secret worth disclosing. Away from ceremony it was working equipment, swung to excite the dogs for a hunt. Hays drew both facts from Jadran Mimica's Yagwoia fieldwork.
In the latter only the bullroarer was actually revealed ritually, flutes having been played "publicly" at the onset of the ceremony
Hays 1986:444 (Anthropos 81), citing Mimica 1981:61
- Object
- A bullroarer revealed to Yagwoia novices in first-stage initiation and also swung to excite hunting dogs; no size, form or local name is recorded.
- Function
- Ritually revealed to boys in first-stage initiation, and sounded outside ceremony to excite dogs for hunting.
- Source
- Hays 1986 table p. 436; discussion pp. 443–444, citing Mimica 1981:52–53, 61, 74
- Source location
- pp. 436, 443–444
- Source confidence
- medium Glottolog Yagwoia language anchor; not a performance site.
- Initiation rite