Araga (Pentecost), Vanuatu — tavire bua toy

tavire bua

Source term: bull-roarer

tavire bua — Araga (Pentecost) for the bull-roarer, meaning "a bit of bamboo."

Etymology. Semantically minimal toy name: object-material rather than ritual meaning.

On Araga (Pentecost), the swung bull-roarer carried no name grander than the thing itself: tavire bua, "a bit of bamboo." Codrington noted that only at Florida did the toy hold superstitious significance, where it was used in the Mysteries; everywhere else it was a common plaything. He set Araga among neighboring islands where the names still caught at something the instrument did — mala, "a pig," on Vanua Lava, after the noise it made; tal-viv, "a whirring string," on Maewo — while on Araga the word had narrowed to a bare description of the wood in hand.

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 merely 'a bit of bamboo'. Used as a common plaything.

Function

Secular toy; semantically minimal name, the most secularised form in Codrington's passage.