The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-110 - museum specimen

Nias

Indonesia - Lafau, Nias Island - Island SE Asia

Function not recorded

A long, gently curved stick fitted with a narrow wooden blade bound near one end with cord — a Southeast Asian bull-roarer held by the British...
Representative image. A long, gently curved stick fitted with a narrow wooden blade bound near one end with cord — a Southeast Asian bull-roarer held by the British Museum, shown for the general type; not the Nias instrument from Lafau documented here. © The Trustees of the British Museum (A/As1905-629) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

Source term: bull-roarer

A bull-roarer collected from the Nias people at Lafau, on the island of Nias off the western coast of Sumatra, now held by the Smithsonian. The record carries the object and its origin but no account of how it was used.

Object
Bull-roarer of the Nias, Smithsonian (NMNH/NMAI).
Function
Not recorded.
Map confidence
medium - approximate culture/locality centroid
Source location
nmnhanthropology_8364793 / ark:/65665/3038a4bb8-2300-41e8-9496-88f2f48ac5d2

View source Open this point on the interactive map

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  • KanumIndonesia - South Papua (Merauke area) - Function not recorded
  • Kayan Umaq Lekan, Miau BaruIndonesia - Miau Baru, Kongbeng, East Kutai Regency, East Kalimantan - Function not recorded