PNG11 - ethnographic attestation
Duo Yangoru
Papua New Guinea - East Sepik - Oceania - Sahul
Sacred / spirit
Source term: bullroarer / sacred flute / slit-gong flags
Among the Yangoru Boiken of the East Sepik foothills, the swung bullroarer was the voice of the wala — spirits believed to be formed from the mystical union of ancestral shades, some of them culture heroes now standing as the local mountains, others male and female spirits of the bush and stream. In former times, an important man's wife who insulted his sexuality was disciplined by "the wala": a band of men who came swinging the bullroarer and destroyed the couple's belongings. Bullroarers, along with weaponry and cooking and dining utensils, were sometimes incised with abstract designs the Boiken called the face of the wala. The culture was documented by the anthropologist Paul Roscoe, who spent about two years among the Yangoru Boiken at Sima village between 1979 and 1981.
if the wife of an important man insulted the sexuality of her husband, she would be disciplined by "the wala," a group of men swinging a bullroarer who would destroy her and her husband's belongings.
Roscoe, "Yangoru Boiken," in Hays (ed.), Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. II: Oceania (1996)
- Object
- bullroarer occurrence; bullroarer use; sacred flute occurrence; slit-gong occurrence; slit-gong use
- Function
- Gourlay source-catalog row with bullroarer use in PNG/Melanesia.
- Map confidence
- high - geocoded
- Source location
- Table 1, row 11