Karama (Elema)

tiparu

tiparu: the Karama word for the roarer, and locally for bamboo whistles too, which Williams sets aside as not true bull-roarers. bukari: both the chief who owns a named roarer and, elsewhere in Elema, the instrument itself. mai-karu: the 'worker' clan that keeps and swings it. migiosora: the Karama title for the chief of the eravo, the men's house.

At Karama, on the Gulf of Papua, the bullroarer was a court as much as a voice. Karama held twelve named tiparu: seven bullroarers and five bamboo instruments. Each belonged to a bukari clan whose leading man was its chief and, in the neighbouring Uaripi speech, its rubu-papa — father of the bullroarer. The chief never swung it himself. That fell to a paired clan of mai-karu, the workers, who kept the instrument and brought it out when called. A man who had been wronged went to the bukari; the bukari called up his roarer; the mai-karu sounded it, and the offender paid in pigs. The chief killed a pig for the worker, the worker returned shell ornaments to the chief, and the quarrel was closed. Offended badly enough, the bukari could summon the monster itself - a thing of terror that stayed in the village until a pig placated it. The same roarers were sounded to muster labour for a house or a fence. To the women and the uninitiated the things were snakes, and one of them was named Obo, Williams's word for the great carpet snake. The government officer at Karama reckoned the sound went up two or three times a month.

When there is occasion for calling up the bull-roarer it is the bukari who does so. He is in a sense in authority over it. But he does not concern himself with the actual swinging. This is for the mai-karu, the 'worker.'

F. E. Williams, Bull-Roarers in the Papuan Gulf (Port Moresby, 1936), p. 41

Particulars

Object

Spatulate wooden blade swung on a cord. Karama’s twelve named tiparu included seven bullroarers and five bamboo sounding instruments; named beings had an owning bukari clan and a paired mai-karu clan.

Function

Initiation roarer that doubles as an instrument of law: the owning bukari chief summons his named roarer to punish an affront or force a settlement, offenders paying pigs, and to muster labour for house- and fence-building. Sounded on average two or three times a month.