The Bullroarer Atlas

PNG168 - ethnographic attestation

Barriai

Papua New Guinea - West New Britain - Oceania - Sahul

Function not recorded

An incised New Guinea bull-roarer, its blade banded with fine triangular carving, the slender handle stick beside it wrapped in a fibre lashing...
Representative image. An incised New Guinea bull-roarer, its blade banded with fine triangular carving, the slender handle stick beside it wrapped in a fibre lashing near the tip. No image of the Barriai aulu/bokumu is known; Rivers described the mask dance it accompanied only in words. University Museum of Bergen (photo: Knut Rio) CC BY-SA 4.0 Image source

Source term: bullroarer

Only initiates could watch the Barriai aulu or bokumu mask dance. The bullroarer drove everyone else away—and the secret had a price: one pig bought the right to see the instrument, while a second bought admission to the dance.

The dance may only be seen by initiated persons, others being warned off by means of the bullroarer. A new member is allowed to see the bullroarer on payment of a pig, and by means of a second pig obtains admission to the dance.

Rivers, The History of Melanesian Society (1914), vol. II, pp. 512-513, citing Friederici 1912:102.
Object
Bullroarer sounded outside the aulu or bokumu cylindrical-mask dance.
Function
Warned uninitiated people away; staged initiation required one pig to see the bullroarer and another to enter the dance.
Map confidence
medium - alias_area
Source location
vol. II, pp. 512-513 (footnote: Friederici 1912:102)

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