No. PNG155
Mengen
Papua New Guinea · East New Britain · Oceania · Sahul
Restricted
Among the Mengen of New Britain's Pomio coast, both the whirled bullroarer and the paired sacred flutes were kept and sounded — the very instruments that, across Melanesia, men reserve for ceremonies screened from women and children. What the Mengen called them, and the rite they built around them, went unrecorded; only this much survives: both instruments, kept for initiation and screened between the sexes.
Particulars
- Function
- Used in initiation or subject to restrictions between the sexes.
Source
K. A. Gourlay, Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society: A Study of Esoteric Instruments and Their Role in Male-Female Relations, New Guinea Research Bulletin 60 (Canberra, 1975), p. 3 and Table 1, p. 9, entry 155