The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-160 - museum specimen

Purari / Kaimari

Papua New Guinea - Kaimari Island - Port Romilly - Gulf Province - Oceania - Sahul

Sacred / spirit

The Kaimari Island bull-roarer itself: a lime-whitened spirit face carved into the dark palmwood blade, cord hole at the tip of its head.
The Kaimari Island bull-roarer itself: a lime-whitened spirit face carved into the dark palmwood blade, cord hole at the tip of its head. Wereldmuseum / NMVW (TM-287-17) CC BY-SA 4.0 Image source

Source term: snorrebot of bromhout / bull-roarer

imunu = spirit (Purari)

On Kaimari Island in the Purari Delta, this pointed-oval slab of wood carries a face picked out in lime, its features raised white against dark timber. Men swung it on a cord through the hole at its tip during ritual; the note it threw was heard as a spirit's voice, the same imunu register the Purari swing over dead men and at boys' initiations. Here the spirit gets a carved face, where the delta's other bull-roarers leave him invisible in the sound alone.

Het geluid dat wordt voortgebracht is de stem van een geest.

The sound produced is the voice of a spirit.

Wereldmuseum TM-287-17
Object
Flat pointed-oval brown wooden slat, about 37 x 7 cm, with a round terminal cord hole and a carved mask or stylized face whose details are filled with lime; exact photograph.
Function
Swung on a cord during rituals; its sound was the voice of a spirit.
Map confidence
high - GeoNames Kaimari locality 2095048 beside Kaimari Island and Port Romilly; matches the museum provenance but is not a recorded performance site.
Source location
Wereldmuseum TM-287-17

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