PNG129 - ethnographic attestation
Dom / Sinasina
Papua New Guinea - Chimbu - Oceania - Sahul
Sacred / spirit
Source term: bullroarer / sacred flute / slit-gong flags
High in the Simbu valleys of the New Guinea Highlands, among the Dom-speaking farmers of Sinasina, the bullroarer belonged to the men's cult sphere. Highland esoteric sound was above all the realm of the paired sacred flutes, blown at initiation as spirit voices; where the bullroarer occurs in these valleys it took a subsidiary part in that same hidden world — an instrument of the cults rather than of the open air.
- Object
- bullroarer occurrence; bullroarer use
- Function
- Gourlay codes the Dom/Sinasina bullroarer as associated with the esoteric cults (Table 1 usage class), within a Highlands complex where the paired sacred flutes dominate and the bullroarer plays a subsidiary role.
- Map confidence
- high - geocoded
- Source location
- Table 1, row 129