The Bullroarer Atlas

No. PNG35

Bagabag Island

Papua New Guinea · Madang · Oceania · Sahul

Restricted

A carved New Guinea bullroarer from the Madang coast: geometric bands and a single eye-like motif near its notched end, with most of the long blade plain.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. A carved New Guinea bull-roarer from the Madang coast. CC BY-SA · Image source

Bagabag is a roughly circular island, about seven kilometres across, lying off the Madang coast of New Guinea; its people speak Takia. On Bagabag the bullroarer and the garamut slit-gong were both instruments of initiation and of the secrets kept 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. 6, entry 35

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Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.