The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-354 - museum specimen

Mongemonge twin Schwirrhölzer

Papua New Guinea - Mongemonge, east of Rein Bay - West New Britain - Oceania - Sahul

Function not recorded

Arawe Pagiwar bullroarer from Kandrian, southwest New Britain, with its cord attached.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Arawe Pagiwar bullroarer from Kandrian, southwest New Britain, with its cord attached. Image source

Source term: Schwirrholz

Schwirrholz (German): literally “whirring wood”; the historic catalog designation.

Two roarers, inventoried one after the other, came off the north coast of West New Britain on 7 December 1908, when Friedrich Fülleborn's party of the Hamburg South Seas Expedition called at Mongemonge, east of Rein Bay. Both carry the same German word, Schwirrholz — whirring wood — the same village and the same day; the space for the people who made them was left empty. Around them in the consignment lie fish-shaped net floats, a drum, taro tools and combs: a coast recorded through its work and its sound.

Schwirrholz … Dorf Mongemonge (im Osten der Reinbucht)

Bullroarer / whirring wood … village of Mongemonge (east of Rein Bay).

MARKK Hamburg South Seas Expedition collection list, PDF pp. 159–160, inventories 1291 I and 1292 I.
Object
Two separately inventoried objects catalogued as Schwirrholz, collected at Mongemonge east of Rein Bay on the north coast of West New Britain; material, dimensions, cord and form are not published.
Function
Not recorded.
Source
MARKK 1291 I and 1292 I: two Schwirrholz from Mongemonge east of Rein Bay, collected by Friedrich Fülleborn on 7 December 1908
Source location
PDF pp. 159–160
Source confidence
low to medium Coast immediately east of Rein Bay, north shore of West New Britain, following MARKK's 'im Osten der Reinbucht'; Rein Bay placed from the 1943 US Army provisional map sheet B55/8 (ANU copy) checked against the OSM Iboki fix. Not an identified modern village.

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