The Bullroarer Atlas

No. POLY2026-010

West Futuna ragohpa, the housefly roarer

Vanuatu · Futuna, Tafea Province · Oceania · Polynesian outliers

Play / practical

Buck’s construction diagram of the Aitutaki coconut-leaflet patangitangi: a curved leaflet loop above a flat strip, an enlarged tied attachment and the assembled instrument on its cord, labelled A–D.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. A coconut-leaflet roarer of the same kind, from Aitutaki in the Cook Islands. Public domain · Image source

ragohpa

Source term: leaf whizzer

ragohpa (West Futuna): leaf whizzer; built on rago, "housefly" (Proto-Polynesian *lago).

West Futuna is a Polynesian island in a Melanesian sea, at the southern end of Vanuatu, where the people speak a Polynesian language among Melanesian neighbours. Its children whirled a strip of coconut leaf for its buzz and called it ragohpa. The name begins with rago, the island's word for the housefly. Tongans and Samoans built their leaf roarers' names on the same word, and Māori did the same with rango, the blowfly. The fly-name travelled with the canoes that settled the Pacific.

Particulars

Object
A coconut-leaf strip whirled for its buzz.
Function
A children's toy.

Source

The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, vol. 9, Australia and the Pacific Islands (1998), "West Futuna" article, p. 863; Mervyn McLean, Weavers of Song: Polynesian Music and Dance (Auckland University Press, 1999), p. 255 (instrument table)

View the source

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