No. TORRES-003
Moa (Mua) Islanders
Australia · Moa (Mua · Banks) Island, western Torres Strait, Queensland · Oceania
Weather / fertility magic
wanes
wanes: the small, thin, leaf-shaped (ellipsoidal) bull-roarer of the western Torres Strait, distinguished from the larger bigu; whirled on a yard-long cord fastened to a stick.
Etymology. In the western Torres Strait wanes named the small, thin, leaf-shaped bull-roarer, whirled on a yard of cord tied to a stick; Ray's Mabuiag vocabulary defines it as 'a small bull-roarer with a shrill sound,' the counterpart of the deep-voiced bigu. No literal etymology is recorded; on Moa the instrument served wind magic.
On Moa Island in the western Torres Strait, a "big man" could call up wind. He painted himself black from head to foot and whirled a wanes — the small, leaf-shaped bull-roarer of the islands — and that the same man could just as readily "quench the wind." The wanes was a thin, bevelled slat of wood swung on a yard of cord tied to a stick, the smaller companion to the larger bigu; in initiation it was the secret object shown to youths and kept from women, but here on Moa its roar was turned to the weather. For more wind, a man on neighbouring Muralug would climb to the top of a tree and whirl it there.
A "big man" in Moa could cause wind to blow by painting himself black all over and whirling a wanes, or small leaf-shaped bull-roarer (fig. 52 E). He could also "quench the wind," "usimaipa gub."
A. C. Haddon (ed.), Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, Vol. V (1904), p. 352.
Particulars
- Object
- The wanes is the smaller of two Torres Strait bull-roarers: an ellipsoidal, thin leaf-shaped wooden slat with bevelled edges and a swelling at one end where a cord about a yard long is tied. The cord is fastened to a stick and the slat is whirled over the head. On Moa it was used in a small, very thin form for weather magic.
- Function
- Whirled by a Moa "big man," painted black, to raise wind (and to "quench" it) — wind/weather magic.
Source
A. C. Haddon (ed.), Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, Vol. V: Sociology, Magic and Religion of the Western Islanders (Cambridge University Press, 1904), "Magic and Religion," p. 352 (Moa wind-magic); the wanes is defined p. 217 and figured fig. 52 E