PNG65 - ethnographic attestation
Binandere
Papua New Guinea - Northern - Oceania - Sahul
Restricted
Source term: bullroarer / sacred flute / slit-gong flags
Among the Binandere-speaking peoples of the Northern District of Papua—now Oro Province—the bullroarer belonged to the opening and most terrifying phase of a boy's initiation. F. E. Williams, government anthropologist of Papua, who did fieldwork among the Orokaiva tribes in the 1920s, recorded a three-stage rite whose first stage was called the "terror," or the "ordeal." In it, initiated men of the clan disguised themselves as malevolent spirits, the embahi, and chased the novices around the village while their families begged the spirits not to eat their sons. It was during this stage of panic that the boys were first shown the bullroarers and the sacred flutes. Only afterward came seclusion in the men's house, the oro, where they were taught the secrets of those instruments along with weaponry, clan history, and the otuhu virtues of the warrior.
During the 'terror' stage (or ordeal as Williams calls it) of initiation, the boys were first introduced to the bullroarers and the flutes. Initiated members of the clan dressed up as 'malevolent spirits' called 'embahi' and chased the young initiates around the village while the families admonished the spirits not to eat their sons.
Women in Transition, "Chapter Six: Orokaiva," p. 125 (drawing on Williams 1930:180–209 and Reay 1953:114–15)
- Object
- bullroarer occurrence; bullroarer use
- Function
- Gourlay source-catalog row with bullroarer use in PNG/Melanesia.
- Map confidence
- medium - alias_area
- Source location
- Table 1, row 65
- Initiation rite