The Bullroarer Atlas

PNG149 - ethnographic attestation

Ramuaina / Duke of York Island

Papua New Guinea - East New Britain - Oceania - Sahul

Function not recorded

A painted New Guinea bull-roarer board with a carved face at one end, shell-inlay eyes set above red, white, and black chevron banding, and red...
Representative image. A painted New Guinea bull-roarer board with a carved face at one end, shell-inlay eyes set above red, white, and black chevron banding, and red cloth ties at both ends; not the Ramuaina object documented here. © The Trustees of the British Museum (E/Oc1894-50) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

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

On the Duke of York Islands, the low chain in St George's Channel between New Britain and New Ireland whose people, the Ramoaaina, speak an Austronesian language, K. A. Gourlay's 1975 survey of New Guinea's sound-producing instruments records the bullroarer's presence. He records it beside the slit-gong, with no account of how the instrument was sounded or who was barred from hearing it.

Object
bullroarer occurrence; bullroarer use; slit-gong occurrence
Function
Gourlay source-catalog row with bullroarer use in PNG/Melanesia.
Map confidence
high - geocoded
Source location
Table 1, row 149

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  • BainingPapua New Guinea - East New Britain - Restricted
  • Gazelle: GeneralPapua New Guinea - East New Britain - Play / practical
  • MengenPapua New Guinea - East New Britain - Sacred / spirit
  • SulkaPapua New Guinea - East New Britain - Restricted
  • TolaiPapua New Guinea - East New Britain - Play / practical
  • AwalamaPapua New Guinea - Milne Bay - Function not recorded