The Bullroarer Atlas

PNG99 - ethnographic attestation

Toaripi (Motumotu)

Papua New Guinea - Gulf - Oceania - Sahul

Restricted

The Toaripi tiparu as the nineteenth century figured it.
The Toaripi tiparu as the nineteenth century figured it. · Public domain Image source
Elema fish-form bullroarer from the Papuan Gulf, SMG A29976.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Elema fish-form bullroarer from the Papuan Gulf, SMG A29976. · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source
Papuan Gulf tiparu, British Museum Oc1894,-.50.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Papuan Gulf tiparu, British Museum Oc1894,-.50. · Public domain Image source
Haddon's figure of a large spiral-carved Toaripi blade, 20 inches long.
Haddon's figure of a large spiral-carved Toaripi blade, 20 inches long. · Public domain Image source

tiparu Toaripi (Eleman family, Gulf of Papua)

tiparu (Toaripi): the bullroarer; equated with the Orokolo hevehe in Herbert Brown's dictionary. No source gives a literal translation.

“Motumotu” was never the people's own name for themselves. Motu sailors on hiri trading voyages called the village at the mouth of the Lakekamu River Motumotu; the residents thought of themselves as belonging to two places, coastal Mirihea and inland Uritai. Among these easternmost Elema the bullroarer was called tiparu, and a young man could first set eyes on it only after leaving the eramo, the bachelors' house. When its voice sounded, every woman, child, and young man fled — the caption to Edge-Partington's album figure of a tiparu says the women left the village altogether, lest they hear it and die — while two old men sat inside a house, sounding the instrument as they conversed with the spirits. James Chalmers, the missionary who documented the tiparu, also set down the Toaripi account of their own beginnings: Semese, a spirit of the heavens, made the land and the sea, and his sons were Hiovaki and Miai. In the same book Chalmers recorded what the Toaripi thought of the python — the best of all snakes, "most aonega" (wisest), a creature that kills by winding round its prey.

Erst nachdem beim Toaripi-Stamm die Jünglinge das Eramo, das Junggesellenhaus, verlassen haben, dürfen sie das tiparu, das Schwirrholz, erblicken. Sobald sein Ton hörbar wird, fliehen sämmtliche Weiber, Kinder und junge Männer.

Only after the youths of the Toaripi tribe have left the eramo, the bachelors' house, may they set eyes on the tiparu, the bullroarer. As soon as its sound is heard, all the women, children, and young men flee.

J. D. E. Schmeltz, Das Schwirrholz (1896), p. 107, after James Chalmers's 1890 report on the Toaripi.
Object
Oval wooden bullroarer (tiparu); the Toaripi example figured by Edge-Partington bears carved black-and-white ornament, arched tooth-strips, eye spots, and fin-like pieces at the edge, so that the whole looks not unlike a fish.
Function
Initiation bullroarer of the men's eramo: youths may first see the tiparu only after leaving the bachelors' house, and all women, children, and young men flee at its sound.
Map confidence
medium - representative on-land anchor at Toaripi (Motumotu) (regional coordinate fell just offshore of the rendered coastline); not an exact findspot
Source location
Page references

Table 1, row 99; Schmeltz 1896, pp. 107-108

View source Open this point on the interactive map

  • Elema: GeneralPapua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted
  • Karama (Elema)Papua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted
  • OrokoloPapua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted
  • MoripiPapua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted
  • PurariPapua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted
  • SepoePapua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted