The Bullroarer Atlas

WILLIAMS1936-003 - ethnographic attestation

Nine named rubu of Uaripi

Papua New Guinea - Gulf Province - Uaripi village - Kerema District - Oceania - Sahul

Restricted

An Orokolo roarer of the same Elema hevehe world; Williams never figured Uaripi's nine rubu.
Representative — not this record’s object. · An Orokolo roarer of the same Elema hevehe world; Williams never figured Uaripi's nine rubu. Image source

rubu

Source term: bull-roarer

rubu: bullroarer; rubu-papa: “father of the bullroarer” — the human bukari who owns a named roarer and calls it out.

At Uaripi, one bullroarer was not enough. Williams recorded nine major rubu, each controlled through paired offices: a bukari clan that owned and summoned it, and a mai-karu curator who set it sounding. The system belonged to initiation, but it also carried legal force. When disputes were settled, a named roarer could be called out and offenders answered with pigs.

a list (which is possibly incomplete) of nine major bull-roarers with their respective bukari and mai-karu

Williams 1936:41
Object
A named set of nine major bullroarers belonging to Uaripi village; Williams describes the group’s true instruments as long, narrow, flat spatulate or compressed-ovoid blades swung on string.
Function
Used in initiation and in a clan-controlled system for settling disputes: the owning bukari summoned a named roarer, its mai-karu curator swung it, and offenders paid pigs.
Source
F. E. Williams, Bull-Roarers in the Papuan Gulf (1936), pp. 39–46; p. 41 explicitly lists nine major Uaripi bullroarers and glosses rubu-papa
Source location
pp. 39–46, especially p. 41
Source confidence
high
Location note
Uaripi village, OSM node 11476043954; village anchor for the named community, not a performance spot.

Regions: Sahul · New Guinea · Melanesia

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