The Bullroarer Atlas

NGUINEA-002 - secondary catalog

Kimam (Kolepom / Frederik-Hendrik Island)

Indonesia - Frederik-Hendrik Island (Pulau Yos Sudarso - Kolepom), south coast - Oceania - New Guinea

Restricted

A dark wooden blade with a forked, fish-tail tip and incised bands, from a south-coast Netherlands New Guinea collection assembled before 1956;...
Representative image. A dark wooden blade with a forked, fish-tail tip and incised bands, from a south-coast Netherlands New Guinea collection assembled before 1956; the plain slat Jet used in Kimam boys' initiation on Frederik-Hendrik Island has not been photographed. Collectie Wereldmuseum (Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen), TM-2541-44, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0 Image source

Jet / Wèwi

Jet: both the mythical white-skinned figure and the Ndom/Kimam name for the bull-roarer itself in Serpenti's account.

Etymology. Among the Ndom-speaking Kimam of Kolepom the bullroarer is called Jet, which is at the same time the name of a mythical being: a white-skinned, hugely bearded 'superman' who lives underground, is given offerings of food that he swallows whole, and who during initiation is said to come and devour the boys. In the south-coast villages the same instrument and being are called Wèwi. (high confidence)

In the Ndom-speaking villages of southwest Kolepom, Serpenti records that initiation took the form of isolation in Jet's house rather than the bachelor huts found elsewhere on the island. Jet is both the mythical figure and the bull-roarer itself: a plain slat about twenty-five centimetres long, swung by the older men until the village heard a terrible howling noise. Women and the boys to be initiated were meant to believe that Jet was coming to devour the boys. As the men approached the house, the novices' guardians held the boys' hands over their eyes because they must not see the bull-roarers. Only after the boys had been carried to the seclusion house and their fear reached its height were their eyes uncovered and the instrument revealed. During seclusion they learned to swing Jet, were kept from seeing women, and were threatened with death if they ever told a woman the secret of the bull-roarer.

they must not see the bull-roarers

Serpenti, Cultivators in the Swamps (1965), p. 170
Object
Ndom/Kimam bull-roarer Jet, a plain whirled slat about 25 cm long and 3-4 cm wide, sounded by men during boys' isolation/initiation.
Function
Ndom-speaking Kimam initiation centred on the Jet bull-roarer: women and boys were meant to fear Jet, boys initially must not see the bull-roarers, and initiates were threatened with death if they told women the secret.
Map confidence
high - approximate territory centroid (mining 2026)
Source location
pp. 169-171; local extraction during source-recovery pass

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  • Sawia locality/dialectIndonesia - Sawia / Arso-Tami River / Keerom borderland - Function not recorded
  • AsmatIndonesia - Northwest Asmat, South Papua - Restricted
  • MuyuIndonesia - Muyu / Upper Kao-Digul / historic Netherlands New Guinea - Restricted
  • Marind-animIndonesia - Dutch South New Guinea / South Papua - Restricted