Burum-Mindik esöŋ bullroarer

esöŋ (cult, spirit, and bullroarer; Siawari asa); köwawöŋ / muwum-muwum

Source term: bull-roarer

esöŋ (Siawari asa) = 'ancestral cult, circumcision of boys, ancestral spirit,' also the bullroarer; köwawöŋ (variant muwum-muwum) = 'bullroarer, humming, buzzing'; timbip = 'bamboo pole with which the bull-roarer is whirled.'

One word carried the whole institution among the Burum-Mindik of the inland Huon Peninsula: esöŋ was the ancestral cult, the circumcision it enacted, and the ancestral spirit, swallower of boys — and esöŋ was also the bullroarer, whose sound women and girls, shut out of the cult's ceremonies, had reason to fear. The everyday name was köwawöŋ or, echoing the hum itself, muwum-muwum, and the instrument whirled from a bamboo pole called timbip.

esöŋnöŋ leuam gwahöt eŋgiyök

the ancestral spirit swallowed up the boys

Olkkonen & Olkkonen, Somba-Siawari — English Dictionary (SIL, 2007), p. 29

Particulars

Object

Bullroarer (köwawöŋ, or echoically muwum-muwum), whirled from timbip, a bamboo pole.

Function

Named for the esöŋ ancestral cult — the spirit said to swallow the boys at circumcision; its sound was feared by women and girls, who were barred from the cult ceremonies.