Maewo (Aoba), Vanuatu — tal-viv toy

tal-viv

Source term: bull-roarer

tal-viv — Maewo name for the bull-roarer, "a whirring string."

Etymology. Transparent descriptive compound for the Maewo toy bullroarer.

On Maewo in the New Hebrides the bull-roarer was a common plaything, called tal-viv, "a whirring string." Listing the names it went by from island to island, the missionary R. H. Codrington set Maewo's toy beside Vanua Lava's mala, "a pig," named for the noise it made, and Araga's tavire bua, "a bit of bamboo." Only at Florida, where it was the buro used in the Mysteries, did he say any superstitious character belonged to it; in the Banks' Islands there was no mystery about it, where it served to drive off a ghost or to make a mourning sound the night after a death.

It is a common plaything; in Vanua Lava they call it mala, a pig, from the noise it makes; in Maewo it is tal-viv, a whirring string; in Araga it is merely tavire bua, a bit of bamboo.

Codrington, The Melanesians (1891), Ch. XVII, p. 342

Particulars

Object

Swung-cord aerophone; local name means 'a whirring string'. Used as a common plaything.

Function

Secular toy; name describes the acoustic property. No ritual character noted.