Sorang sapana, silent old voice

sapana

kaap: ‘tambaran’ in Nekeni — the class of sacred sound-making things the sapana belongs to; tawing: the Rufous Night Heron, which names kaap tawing, the stamping tambaran found at Sorang alone.

Sorang is one of seven villages that speak Nekeni, and its sacred sounds have names. Karisi is a very small coconut-shell ocarina: when the initiates leave their enclosure, one man walks ahead of them playing it to warn everyone else away. Kaap tawing belongs to Sorang alone — the men stamp the ground together until the earth trembles, and it feels like an earthquake; it is named for the Rufous Night Heron, the bird that lives by water. All of these are tambaran and all of them are sacred: women and young children may use the public names, but they must not know how the sounds are made. Among them is the sapana, large and wooden and shaped like a bull-roarer. In earlier times, Sorang men say, it was played as one. Now it is kept for decoration.

Sapana looks like a bull-roarer; it is quite large, and made from wood. I was told that, in earlier times, it was actually played as a bull-roarer, but now it's used only for decoration.

Reigle, 'Sound of the Spirits, Song of the Myna' (1995), p. 124.

Particulars

Object

A large wooden blade shaped like a bull-roarer.

Function

Sacred sound-making object whose mechanism was secret from women and young children; formerly played as a bull-roarer, now kept for decoration.