The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-048 - museum specimen

Konyak Naga

Nagaland (Mon), NE India - South Asia - Northeast India

Weather / fertility magic

Longlam Konyak bullroarer collected in 1923; its own use is unrecorded, while broader Konyak accounts connect bullroarers with boys and rain.
Longlam Konyak bullroarer collected in 1923; its own use is unrecorded, while broader Konyak accounts connect bullroarers with boys and rain. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1928.69.608) Image source
Konyak Naga bull-roarer ‘Ma’, Pitt Rivers Museum (acc. 1953.10.64).
Konyak Naga bull-roarer ‘Ma’, Pitt Rivers Museum (acc. 1953.10.64). © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1953.10.64) Image source

Ma English

Source term: bull-roarer

Konyak boys swung bullroarers to call rain, sending a wooden voice into the weather above their fields. J. P. Mills collected two in October 1923 that survive with their notes: one from Shiong, a blade with cane handle, notches and incised decoration, set down as "A boy's toy now becoming obsolete"; one from Tamlu, cut in the shape of a fish-tail and swung by boys to bring rain. A third, long and slender, came from Longlam. Among the neighbouring Angami, a Khonoma bullroarer served as a toy and to scare birds from the crops.

Bull-roarer used by boys as a toy to bring rain, resembling a fish-tail (if the 'fork' were deeper the roarer would split).

Cambridge Naga Database (Exploratour), Konyak bull-roarer, Tamlu, coll. J.P. Mills 16.10.1923 (Pitt Rivers Museum 1928.69.609)
Object
Bull-roarer of the Konyak Naga, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (acc. 1953.10.64; Henry Balfour coll.). PRM 1928.69.608 is a second Konyak blade, from Longlam, 363 x 51 mm, collected in October 1923.
Function
Konyak comparanda record boys' toy use to bring rain; this specimen's own use was not recorded.
Map confidence
medium - approximate culture/locality centroid
Source location
1953.10.64 | PRM 1928.69.608

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