HAYS1986-008 - ethnographic attestation
Wojokeso roarer shown at septum-piercing
Papua New Guinea - Safeyoka - Ampale language orbit - Oceania - Sahul
Restricted
Source term: bull-roarer
No Wojokeso term recorded by Hays.
Two things came open at once for a Wojokeso boy: the source of the roaring he had heard all his life, and the cartilage of his own nose. In the southeastern corner of the Highlands, among Angan speakers, the bullroarer was the secret instrument revealed to young boys in association with septum-piercing. Wojokeso men had transverse flutes as well, where several of their Angan neighbours had none — yet it was the roarer that was kept out of sight and then disclosed, at the moment the boy's face was changed for good. Hays takes the Wojokeso detail from Vida Chenoweth's survey of Papua New Guinea instruments.
bullroarers were the secret instrument revealed to young boys, in association with septum-piercing, in Kapau, Menya, and Wojokeso
Hays 1986:443 (Anthropos 81), citing Blackwood 1978:125–127; Simpson 1953:102–105; Chenoweth 1976:40, 45
- Object
- A bullroarer kept secret from Wojokeso boys and revealed to them during initiation; no size, form or local name is recorded.
- Source
- Hays 1986 table p. 436 and specific Angan discussion p. 443, citing Chenoweth 1976:40,45 for Wojokeso context
- Source location
- pp. 436, 443
- Source confidence
- medium Safeyoka/Ampale language anchor; Wojokeso subgroup exact location unresolved.
- Initiation rite