The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-076 - museum specimen

Gogodala

Papua New Guinea - Western Province (Aramia River - Oceania - Sahul

Function not recorded

Gogodala bull-roarer — Wereldmuseum / NMVW (TM-2670-418).
Gogodala bull-roarer — Wereldmuseum / NMVW (TM-2670-418). Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. TM-2670-418) Image source

Source term: bull-roarer

Carved and scorched with figures, this roarer comes from the Gogodala, lagoon-dwellers of the Aramia River floodplain whose adolescent boys were once inducted into aida — a male secret society whose spectacular initiation bound neighbouring longhouses together and closed its rites to women. In 1936, local converts and Unevangelised Fields missionaries burned nearly all of that ceremonial world as heathenism. Whether this fire-marked piece had a voice in it, and who was allowed to hear it, went unrecorded before it left the river.

Bromhout met ingekraste en ingebrande figuren

Wereldmuseum / NMVW TM-2670-418
Object
Decorated snorrebot / bull-roarer of the Gogodala, Wereldmuseum / NMVW TM-2670-418.
Function
Not recorded.
Map confidence
high - approximate culture/locality centroid
Source location
TM-2670-418

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