PNG78 - ethnographic attestation
Topura
Papua New Guinea - Milne Bay - Oceania - Sahul
Sacred / spirit
Source term: bullroarer / sacred flute / slit-gong flags
Here the bullroarer spoke for one act only. As the fasting men of the Taupota coast, east of Bartle Bay near the island's far southeastern tip, planted the tall posts of the walaga — the grandest feast of the district, drawing in even hostile villages — they swung the roarers without pause, while medicine men crouched at every post-hole and sucked the shade of the dead out of the timber, so no lingering ghost would be crushed as the pile went down. Then the roarers stopped. They were used at no other time, Seligman was told, and no reason for them could be given.
- Object
- bullroarer occurrence; bullroarer use
- Function
- Gourlay source-catalog row with bullroarer use in PNG/Melanesia.
- Map confidence
- high - geocoded
- Source location
- Table 1, row 78