The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-065 - museum specimen

Kanum

Indonesia - South Papua (Merauke area) - Oceania - Sahul

Function not recorded

Kanum bull-roarer — Wereldmuseum / NMVW (RV-3070-93).
Kanum bull-roarer — Wereldmuseum / NMVW (RV-3070-93). Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. RV-3070-93) Image source

Source term: bull-roarer

Swung fast on its cord, this incised wooden slat throws a deep, pulsing roar into the air — the bullroarer's single trick, everywhere a sound made to carry a spirit or a summons past the edge of a village. Its collector labelled it only as a piece of wood "decorated with motifs." The Kanum who made it hunt wallaby, deer and wild boar across the seasonally flooded Wasur savanna of the Merauke borderland. The roarer reached a Dutch museum before 1954, shelved among ritual gear — but which ceremony this particular voice served, the man who took it never wrote down.

Bromhout met motieven versierd

Wereldmuseum / NMVW RV-3070-93
Object
Decorated bromhout / snorrebot of the Kanum, Wereldmuseum / NMVW RV-3070-93.
Function
Not recorded.
Map confidence
high - approximate culture/locality centroid
Source location
RV-3070-93

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