No. NAGA-005
Rengma Meluri aowu-prurr boys toy bullroarer
Naga Hills · present Nagaland · South Asia · Northeast India
Play / practical
aowu-prurr
aowu-prurr: Rengma Naga name for the bull-roarer, recorded for the Naked Rengma at Meluri as a boy's whirling toy.
The Rengma of Meluri made no claim on this bull-roarer: they freely admitted they had borrowed it from their Sema neighbours, and it might not be carried into the village. Whirled on a cord tied through a hole near its point, the aowu-prurr buzzed out in the fields, and among these Eastern, or Naked, Rengma had shrunk to a boys' plaything — swung for amusement even while the crops were ripening, with no taboo to silence it. J.P. Mills collected this slat in the Naga Hills in 1933.
Bull-roarer, aowu-prurr, a boy's toy. The cord for whirling it being tied through a hole near point.
Pitt Rivers Museum object 1928.69.1634 (coll. J.P. Mills, Naked Rengma, Meluri, 5 Nov. 1933), Cambridge Naga Database record r10582
Particulars
- Object
- Bull-roarer of the Naked Rengma Naga, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, acc. 1928.69.1634; coll. J. P. Mills at Meluri. Cord for whirling tied through a hole near the point (field catalogue).
- Function
- Crop-watching scarer in the fields (admittedly borrowed from the Semas, and may not be brought into the village); Eastern Rengma boys' toy, permitted even when the crops ripen
Source
J. P. Mills, The Rengma Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1937), pp. 84 and 123; University of Cambridge, 'The Nagas' database, record r10582 and collection listing C666; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1928.69.1634