The Bullroarer Atlas

PNG18 - ethnographic attestation

Iatmul — Mindimbit

Papua New Guinea - East Sepik - Oceania - Sahul

Restricted

Front and back of H.S. 6649a from Mindimbit (Reche's ‘293-km village’).
Front and back of H.S. 6649a from Mindimbit (Reche's ‘293-km village’). · Public domain Image source
Reche’s Plate LXV, including carved Middle Sepik object H.S. 6596.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Reche’s Plate LXV, including carved Middle Sepik object H.S. 6596. · Public domain Image source
Iatmul bullroarer from Korigo Hill, collected by Gregory Bateson.
Iatmul bullroarer from Korigo Hill, collected by Gregory Bateson. · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Image source

Source term: Schwirrholz; bullroarer / sacred flute / slit-gong

Schwirrholz: Reche’s German term for bullroarer. wagan: Iatmul avenging clan-spirits whose voices are the secret slit-gongs.

At Mindimbit on the Middle Sepik, Otto Reche documented a bullroarer whose construction and performance leave no ambiguity about the identification. H.S. 6649a was a 37.5-centimetre carved blade with a twisted-bast cord and a short wooden handle. Its forked cord mount kept the line aligned as the blade rotated, and when swung it produced what Reche called a very deep, humming tone. The expedition found it stored inside the belly of a large woven crocodile. Reche’s paired engraving shows the patterned front and back. A second plate depicts the monumental 140-centimetre H.S. 6596 from Mụåńgêm, which Reche judged very probably also a bullroarer and interpreted as a formal embodiment of the initiation spirit. Bateson’s later Iatmul account places bullroarers with flutes in the earlier men’s initiation ceremonies, while the slit-gongs called wagan belonged to the more serious secret rites.

Beim Schwingen gibt es einen sehr tiefen, brummenden Ton.

When swung, it produces a very deep, humming tone.

Reche, Der Kaiserin-Augusta-Fluss (1913), p. 350, fig. 385
Object
H.S. 6649a from Mindimbit (the “293-km village”): carved wooden bullroarer, 37.5 × 4.7 cm, with a 46 cm twisted-bast cord and 9.5 cm handle; front and back figured by Reche, who reports a very deep humming tone when it was swung. It had been stored inside the belly of the large woven crocodile H.S. 6649b.
Function
Reche documents the object's forked cord mount, stable rotation, and very deep humming tone; Bateson places bullroarers with the flutes in the earlier Iatmul men's initiation ceremonies — secret instruments that women must not see.
Map confidence
medium - Central Iatmul area anchor around Palimbei/Parambei; the upgraded object provenance is Mindimbit (“293-km village”).
Source location
Page references

Reche 1913:350, fig. 385; Taf. LXV fig. 1 (H.S. 6596 regional comparator); Bateson 1936/1958:137

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