The Bullroarer Atlas

PNG143 - ethnographic attestation

Titans (incl. M'bunai, Rambutyo Island & Mouk)

Papua New Guinea - Manus - Oceania - Sahul

Function not recorded

A plain, unengraved New Guinea bull-roarer blade with two small holes drilled near one end; a generic specimen, not the Titans object...
Representative image. A plain, unengraved New Guinea bull-roarer blade with two small holes drilled near one end; a generic specimen, not the Titans object documented here. © The Trustees of the British Museum (E/Oc1906-1013-1453) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

Source term: bullroarer / sacred flute / slit-gong flags

A bullroarer is recorded here among the sea-dwelling Manus of M'bunai, Rambutyo, and Mouk, logged beside sacred flutes and slit-gongs, yet no one set down what it was swung for. What Reo Fortune set down instead, living among these Titan villagers, was the power that truly ruled them: Sir Ghost, the skull of the household's last dead man, kept above the doorway, watching his kin for every theft, lie, and sexual lapse and striking them sick when he found one. The whirled wood keeps its silence; the dead father kept none.

Object
bullroarer occurrence; sacred flute occurrence; sacred flute use; slit-gong occurrence; slit-gong use
Function
Gourlay Table 1 row 143 records Titan-cluster bullroarer occurrence plus sacred-flute/slit-gong use; no row-local bullroarer gender passage is recovered.
Map confidence
medium - alias_area
Source location
Table 1, row 143

View source Open this point on the interactive map

  • Baluan IslandPapua New Guinea - Manus - Function not recorded
  • KurtiPapua New Guinea - Manus - Function not recorded
  • AwalamaPapua New Guinea - Milne Bay - 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