MUS2026-154 - museum specimen
Baramura ceremonial bullroarer
Papua New Guinea - Lower Fly River, Western Province - Oceania
Sacred / spirit
Source term: bullroarer
bullroarer: English British Museum object type; no Baramura name is recorded.
An old woman named Mete was splitting firewood when a splinter of otoro wood whirled up whizzing 'bigu, bigu' and stuck in the ground — so the Kiwai told Gunnar Landtman, who collected this eighty-two-centimetre blade, its worked face carved closer to a looming figure than a toy, at Baramura on the Fly River. That night the splinter came to Mete in a dream, calling its own name and teaching her its use: bore a hole near its nose, hang it on a cord, rub it with semen and vaginal fluid, and sling it whirring over the yam gardens to 'make altogether garden move, make him grow' — good for banana, taro and sweet potato too. When her husband first swung it the ground shook and thunder ran the length of the island; the men seized it as their secret and drove the women, Mete among them, away. From there, the Kiwai said, the bull-roarer spread across the whole country.
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
Page references
Oc1912,1217.5; 1912 register
- Snake-linked