NGUINEA-017 - ethnographic attestation
Boazi (Boadzi / Kuni-Boazi; incl. Zimakani / Suki ethnonyms)
Papua New Guinea - Lake Murray and its central - northern shores plus the middle reaches of the Fly River, Western Province (southern lowlands) - Oceania - New Guinea (Trans-Fly
Restricted
aut Boadzi (Boazi), Trans-Fly / Middle Fly, South New Guinea
Source term: aut (atu gisagaru)
cult name atu gisagaru, "voice of the old woman"
Etymology. aut is the Boadzi word for the bullroarer; the atu of the fuller cult name is the supernatural old-woman figure of the gomai initiation cult. (high confidence)
Among the Boazi of Lake Murray and the middle Fly River, initiation itself had an inventor. The culture hero Nggiw, who had shaped the first people and divided them into clans, wanted to make a feast: he tried a mouse, but the mouse fled; he tried a wallaby, but the wallaby made too much noise; at last he carved a fish-shaped piece of wood, the faroch, set it up high in the ceremonial house, and so contrived the first initiation ceremony. The bullroarer belongs to that founding order: van Baal lists it among the implements of the gomai ritual performed on Nggiw's instructions, sounded by night only, its voice that of "the atu, the old woman" — the same instrument that among the coastal Marind sounds for Sosom, the giant who swallows and disgorges the novices. Every Boazi village kept a men's house set apart from the dwellings, the repository of the central objects of the men's secret cult; male initiation here was bound up with head-hunting, and lapsed with the raids. The ethnographer Mark Busse lists the bullroarer plainly beside the great hourglass drum among Boazi instruments.
Musical instruments include large hourglass drums and bullroarers.
Mark Busse, "Boazi," Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. II: Oceania (1991), "Religion and Expressive Culture."
- Object
- A flat slat whirled on a cord to produce a roaring hum, listed among Boazi instruments alongside large hourglass drums. No vernacular name, dimensions, or material is recorded in the source.
- Function
- Among the implements of the gomai ritual instituted by the culture hero Nggiw: sounded by night only, its voice that of the atu, the old woman; kept within a men's secret cult whose initiation was bound up with head-hunting.
- Map confidence
- medium - Approximate territory centroid: Lake Murray (7°00′S, 141°30′E), at the centre of the Boazi range spanning the lake's central/northern shores and the adjacent middle Fly River. The source gives the Lake Murray–Middle Fly area as lying between 6°30′ and 8° S; the Lake Murray coordinate is taken from the standard gazetteer value.
- Source location
- Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. II (Oceania), "Boazi" entry — "Religion and Expressive Culture" (instruments and men's cult), "Settlements" (men's house), "Orientation" (location); unpaginated online edition (encyclopedia.com / everyculture.com mirrors)
- Spirit voice
- Initiation rite