The Bullroarer Atlas

PNG99 - ethnographic attestation

Toaripi (Motumotu)

Papua New Guinea - Gulf - Oceania - Sahul

Restricted

Elema ichthyoform bull-roarer, Papuan Gulf — representative of the Toaripi (an Elema people). Science Museum Group A29976.
Representative image. Elema ichthyoform bull-roarer, Papuan Gulf — representative of the Toaripi (an Elema people). Science Museum Group A29976. Science Museum Group, A29976 (Wellcome Collection) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source
British Museum Oc1894,-.50, labelled tiparu by the London Missionary Society; Papuan Gulf provenance uncertain, not one of the exact Toaripi...
Representative image. British Museum Oc1894,-.50, labelled tiparu by the London Missionary Society; Papuan Gulf provenance uncertain, not one of the exact Toaripi specimens described by Haddon. British Museum, Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections (1910), fig. 117; object Oc1894,-.50 Public domain Image source

tiparu Toaripi (Eleman family, Gulf of Papua)

tiparu (Toaripi): the bullroarer; equated in Herbert Brown's Orokolo dictionary with the Orokolo hevehe.

“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.

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

View source Open this point on the interactive map

  • Elema: GeneralPapua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted
  • OrokoloPapua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted
  • PurariPapua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted
  • MoripiPapua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted
  • SepoePapua New Guinea - Gulf - Restricted
  • Wapo-EraPapua New Guinea - Gulf - Function not recorded