The Bullroarer Atlas

No. HAYS1986-012

Binumarien roarer without flutes

Papua New Guinea · Eastern Family language region · Oceania · Sahul

Restricted

A slender tapered wooden Kainantu rhombe from the Georges Barbey collection, 35 cm long, with a long twisted cord attached near one end.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. A Kainantu bullroarer, 35 cm, from the Georges Barbey collection. Image source

Source term: bullroarer

No Binumarien term recorded by Hays.

The Binumarien break the regional pattern. Their Eastern Family neighbours — Gadsup, Agarabi, Auyana, Tairora — put novices of ten to sixteen through nose-bleeding, tongue-bleeding, penis-cutting and cane-swallowing, and formally revealed both flutes and bullroarers to them. The Binumarien initiated with the bullroarer and no sacred flute at all.

Here both sacred flutes and bullroarers (except possibly in Binumarien) were revealed formally at the initiation of 10-16 year-old pumara, kumara, or ummara

Hays 1986:444 (Anthropos 81)

Particulars

Object
A bullroarer recorded in Binumarien initiation, with no sacred flutes alongside it; no size, form or local name is recorded.
Function
Used in initiation.

Source

Terence E. Hays, 'Sacred Flutes, Fertility, and Growth in the Papua New Guinea Highlands,' Anthropos 81 (1986), pp. 436, 444

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Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.