MUS2026-161 - museum specimen
Iatmul / Kanganamun
Papua New Guinea - Middle Sepik - Kanganamun - Oceania - Sahul
Restricted
Luke Kamangari made this broad-bladed bull-roarer at Kanganamun in 2001, its cord and cross handle still attached. Only initiated Iatmul men may see or sound it: the museum's own label calls it a siren, its whir clearing women, children, and the uninitiated from around the men it moves past during initiation. The same initiation at Kanganamun scarifies a boy's back and chest into the pattern of a crocodile, the primeval ancestor whose split jaw, in Iatmul myth, made the sky and the land.
These powerful instruments can only be used and seen by initiated men. They are prominent during initiation rituals where they function like 'sirens'.
Cambridge MAA exhibition label for 2002.87
- Object
- Broad wooden blade with a cord fixed at its narrow end and a separate transverse handle; exact complete-rig photograph. The museum gives no dimensions.
- Function
- Used and seen only by initiated men; during initiation it functioned like a siren to control the movement of women, children, and uninitiated men relative to the initiates.
- Map confidence
- high - OpenStreetMap Kanganamun village node 10801918458 matching the museum maker and collection locality.
- Source location
- MAA 2002.87
- Initiation rite
- Forbidden to women