The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-154 - museum specimen

Baramura (Balamula) village

Papua New Guinea - Lower Fly River, Western Province - Oceania

Sacred / spirit

The carved face of the monumental Baramura ceremonial bullroarer, British Museum Oc1912,1217.5.
The carved face of the monumental Baramura ceremonial bullroarer, British Museum Oc1912,1217.5. © The Trustees of the British Museum (Oc1912,1217.5) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source
The plain reverse of the same Baramura board.
The plain reverse of the same Baramura board. © The Trustees of the British Museum (Oc1912,1217.5) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

Source term: bullroarer

bullroarer: English British Museum object type; no Baramura name is recorded.

Carved into an enormous petal-shaped blade, eighty-two centimetres long — its worked face closer to a looming figure than to a toy, its reverse stark and plain — this 'ceremonial bullroarer,' as the 1912 register calls it, came from Baramura on the Fly River. Its collector was Gunnar Landtman, who had just spent two years among the Kiwai-speaking peoples of the estuary and would describe them, in the title of his great monograph, as 'a nature-born instance of Rousseau's ideal community.'

Ceremonial bullroarer. Baramura (on Fly River).

British Museum, Oc1912,1217.5, 1912 register.
Object
82 x 24 x 4 cm petaloid wooden board, carved on one face; the museum calls it a bullroarer.
Function
The 1912 register calls it ceremonial; no performance is described.
Map confidence
medium_high - Balamula locality anchor: Baramura is listed as an alternate name, and the British Museum gives Baramura on the Fly River. This is the village, not an asserted object findspot.
Source location
Oc1912,1217.5; 1912 register

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