The Bullroarer Atlas

NGUINEA-005 - museum specimen

Sirorata, Oro Province

Papua New Guinea - Oro Province - Sirorata - Oceania - Sahul

Function not recorded

The sova itself: a dark wooden blade with a braided cord, its face carved with diagonal painted striping, from Sirorata village in Oro Province.
The sova itself: a dark wooden blade with a braided cord, its face carved with diagonal painted striping, from Sirorata village in Oro Province. © UBC Museum of Anthropology (2623/2); photo Jessica Bushey CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA Image source

sova English

Source term: sova (Bullroarer)

A bullroarer from Sirorata, an Orokaiva village in the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea, now in the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology as object 2623/2. It is held under the name sova. Nothing was set down about how it was used: who swung it, who was permitted to hear it, or on what occasion it was sounded. Among the Orokaiva of Oro Province, the spirit of a dead person is a sovai, a being that lingers near the village and can bring sickness or death to the living, but no record ties this object's name to that belief.

Object
UBC Museum of Anthropology sova, object type Bullroarer; object number 2623/2; place made Papua New Guinea: Oro, Sirorata.
Function
Function not recorded.
Map confidence
medium - Representative Sirorata / Oro Province anchor; exact object findspot not separately geocoded.
Source location
UBC MOA object 2623/2

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