The Bullroarer Atlas

No. MUS2026-391Oceania

Wannfalli, cross-headed spirit voice

Papua New Guinea · Kwotmagum (Kwatmagum), south of Maprik, East Sepik Province · Oceania

Sacred / spirit

The ulke-maira made by Tarigo at Kalabu I in 1965: a long dark palmwood blade, its middle wound with many turns of plant-fibre cord and a short tie at one end.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. An Abelam ulke-maira from near Maprik, bound with plant fibre. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Image source

wannfalli

Source term: Schwirrholz wannfalli

wannfalli - the local name recorded for this bullroarer at Kwotmagum.

Wannfalli was made to give the spirits their voices. It is a small lance of palm wood, barely thirty centimetres long, whose upper end was cut in the shape of a cross; one arm of the cross has snapped off, and the hole for the cord was bored where it broke. The Basel expedition of 1955 and 1956 brought it from Kwotmagum, a village in the hills south of Maprik, with its name written down beside it.

Particulars

Object
A 30.8 cm lance-shaped palm-wood blade whose upper end was cut as a cross; one arm has broken off, and the cord hole sits at the break (MKB Vb 13681).
Function
Said to serve for producing the voices of spirits.

Sources

  1. Museum der Kulturen Basel, Vb 13681, Schwirrholz "wannfalli", Kwotmagum, coll. Alfred Bühler View · archived
  2. Museum der Kulturen Basel, Bestandesliste Vb Melanesien (2022), Vb 13681 View · archived

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.