Kwaplalim's six ochred rods

Six slender rods, each about twenty-seven centimetres long and tapering at both ends, came from Kwaplalim, a small settlement five miles from Menyamya in the Anga country of Morobe Province. Every rod is coated in ochre except one thin bare strip, and each hangs on its own plaited fibre cord, knotted through a hole at the tip; the six cords were then tied together into a single bundle. Linda Manning collected the set in the early 1980s, and Oxford's curator of musical instruments, Hélène La Rue, examined the rods and confirmed them as bullroarers in 2000. Who swung them, and for what, was never recorded — what survives is the bundle itself, six voices tied together. Kwaplalim lies in Menya country, and for the Menya the bullroarer was the secret instrument revealed to young boys at initiation, with the piercing of the septum. Six rods tied by their cords into one bundle is an Angan habit too: Blackwood's Upper Watut roarers came to Oxford bound in threes and fives.

The lengths of string for all six rods are tied together … The strings are all coated with ochre as well.

Pitt Rivers Museum record, 1996.40.1.1-.6

Particulars

Object

Six slim shaped rods, c. 270 x 20 mm, tapering at each end, coated in ochre except for a thin bare strip, each with a plaited fibre cord knotted through a terminal perforation; all six cords are tied together in one bundle.

Function

Among the Menya, revealed to boys as a secret at initiation, when the nasal septum was pierced.