The Bullroarer Atlas

No. MUS2026-154

Baramura blade, Méte’s first swing

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

Sacred / spirit

The monumental Baramura ceremonial bullroarer: a long wooden blade carved with a face inside nested arches, two holes above the face and several near its base, where a tag hangs.
Plate I. The carved face of the monumental Baramura ceremonial bullroarer. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Image source
Plain reverse of the Baramura board, shown upright against black cloth; several small holes pierce the otherwise undecorated wooden face, with a scale below.
Plate II. The plain reverse of the same Baramura board. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Image source

Source term: bullroarer

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

Méte was splitting otoro firewood when a splinter whirled up crying “bigu, bigu” and stuck in the ground. That night it came to her in a dream, calling her Mother: bore a hole near its nose, attach a cord, rub it with semen and vaginal fluid, and swing it over the gardens to make yams, banana, taro and sweet potato grow. Méte tried it first; her frightened husband nearly ran away. When he swung it, the ground shook and thunder ran along the island. He assembled the men, sent women and children away, and threatened any man who told a woman with his drawn bow. Méte helped the secret along by pretending to be frightened herself. Námai of Mawáta told this Kiwai story to Gunnar Landtman. In 1912 Landtman also gave the British Museum this eighty-two-centimetre blade from Baramura on the Fly River, its face carved and its reverse plain.

Ceremonial bullroarer. Baramura (on Fly River).

British Museum, Oc1912,1217.5, 1912 register.

Particulars

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.

Sources

  1. Gunnar Landtman, The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans (1917), tale 261, pp. 316–317, told by Námai of Mawáta View
  2. British Museum Oc1912,1217.5: bullroarer, carved wood, Baramura, 82 x 24 x 4 cm. View

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.