MUS2026-027 - museum specimen
Malekula (Nivivbur)
Malekula, Vanuatu - Oceania - Island Melanesia
Restricted
Nevin or.or ndeling English
Source term: bull-roarer
Local name recorded as "Nevin or.or ndeling," glossed by Deacon as "woman-slit-my-ear." Nivivbur = Deacon's Nevinbur, a graded secret/ritual society of South West Bay, Malekula.
Etymology. The bullroarer of the Nivivbur (Nevinbur) graded society of South West Bay, Malekula carries the local name Nevin or.or ndeling, which its collector A.B. Deacon glossed 'woman-slit-my-ear'. Deacon names no second being behind the word, so it stands as a descriptive epithet rather than the name of another entity. (high confidence)
Its name, as Deacon set it down, was "woman-slit-my-ear" — the roar a wound a woman's ear was never meant to hear. This red-tailed blade on its cord belonged to the Nevinbur, a secret society of South West Bay, Malekula, whose men brought spirit-puppets to life behind the dancing-ground fence: the ogress Nevinbimbaau's grandchildren raised and destroyed, her son and his two wives speared and burned. Screened from all of that theatre, women were left only the voice — and the name records what the voice cost them.
Bullroarer of the Nivivbur society. Painted with red transverse tail. String attached.
MAA Cambridge object 512259, accession 1927.2185 (A.B. Deacon, Seniag, South West Bay, Malekula)
- Object
- Bull-roarer of the Malekula (Nivivbur), in the collection of MAA Cambridge (MAA 1927.2185-87 (Deacon)).
- Function
- MAA Cambridge object record 512259 identifies a Malekula bullroarer of the Nivivbur society; no row-local women note was recovered.
- Map confidence
- medium - approximate culture/locality centroid
- Source location
- MAA 1927.2185 / object 512259; cf. Deacon 1934 (Nevinbur ceremonies, South West Bay)
- Forbidden to women