MUS2026-340 - museum specimen
Massim pair, cords still attached
Papua New Guinea - Massim region - Oceania
Function not recorded
Source term: Bullroarer
Massim bullroarer use got written down once, and narrowly. At Awaiama and Taupota, east of Bartle Bay, Seligman was told that the fasting men swung bull-roarers the whole time the posts of the walaga feasting platform were being stepped into their holes — and at no other time. Nobody could tell him why. These two blades came in as one lot and share nothing else: two hands, two silhouettes, both cords still on.
they were said to be used at no other time and no reason for their use could be elicited
C. G. Seligman, The Melanesians of British New Guinea (Cambridge, 1910), p. 592
- Object
- Two separately carved wooden blades with their cords, catalogued together as Harvard Peabody 18-25-70/D981.
- Function
- Not recorded for this pair.
- Source
- Harvard Peabody object 69961, accession 18-25-70/D981
- Source location
- 18-25-70/D981
- Source confidence
- low Broad Massim regional anchor; no precise island is supplied.