The Bullroarer Atlas

PNG129 - ethnographic attestation

Dom / Sinasina

Papua New Guinea - Chimbu - Oceania - Sahul

Function not recorded

An oval wooden blade wound about with plant-fiber cord and marked with an old paper accession tag - a generic New Guinea bullroarer, not the...
Representative image. An oval wooden blade wound about with plant-fiber cord and marked with an old paper accession tag - a generic New Guinea bullroarer, not the object specific to the Dom/Sinasina bullroarer practice documented here. © The Trustees of the British Museum (E/Oc1906-1013-1452) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

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, a bullroarer was in use — but almost nothing of what it did survives. A 1975 survey of Highland sound-instruments counted it here, yet no one set down the whirling blade's ceremony, the voice people heard in it, or who was kept from watching. For the Dom the roarer's rite went unwritten; only that it once sounded across these ridges is certain.

Object
bullroarer occurrence; bullroarer use
Function
Gourlay Table 1 row 129 records Dom/Sinasina bullroarer occurrence/use; no row-local sacred-flute cult or gender passage is recovered.
Map confidence
high - geocoded
Source location
Table 1, row 129

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  • AwalamaPapua New Guinea - Milne Bay - Function not recorded
  • Baluan IslandPapua New Guinea - Manus - Function not recorded
  • BarriaiPapua New Guinea - West New Britain - Function not recorded
  • BensbachPapua New Guinea - Western Province (Morehead) - Function not recorded
  • Bola (Bakovi)Papua New Guinea - Willaumez / Talasea Peninsula / West New Britain / New Pommern - Function not recorded
  • BonguPapua New Guinea - Rai Coast, Madang (Astrolabe B - Function not recorded