{"id":"ASEXP-002","label":"Muria Gond bull-roarer from Markabera, Bastar","people_or_site":"Muria Gond / Markabera village, Bastar","country_current":"India","historic_region":"Bastar / Central Provinces","macroregion":"South Asia / Central India","local_name":"","source_term":"Bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bull-roarer illustrated as Figure 142 in Elwin's monograph on the Muria and their ghotul; collected from Markabera village, Bastar.","function_summary":"A toy, swung for fun.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"ELWIN1947_MURIA_GHOTUL_FIG142","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.94957","page_or_plate":"Figure 142 (list of figures) | Elwin 1947, p. 529; fig. 142 (p. 544)","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Representative anchor for Muria country in northern Bastar, between Narayanpur and Kondagaon; Elwin's village, Markabera, is not on modern maps.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"When Verrier Elwin came to the bull-roarer among the Muria Gond of Bastar, he found nothing secret in it. The Jhoria of the western parganas, he wrote, made them for amusement. The Muria cut theirs from bamboo slats twelve to eighteen inches long, notched at one end where a string was tied and sometimes pointed at the other, then whirled them to raise a roaring noise. Elwin printed a drawing of one from Markabera as Figure 142 in his 1947 monograph on the Muria and their ghotul, setting it in the chapter on dance and song — not among the eighteen instruments of the Gond hero Lingo, still full of the love-charms he put into them, but among the few the Muria keep beside them. In a footnote he added that the bull-roarer, common across the world, is rare in India, though S. C. Roy had recorded it in the Uraon dhumkuria and among the Santal, Ho and Munda.","pull_quote":"I have not been able to discover any religious or magical significance in them; they are only used as toys.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Elwin 1947, The Muria and Their Ghotul, p. 529 (chap. XX, Dance and Song)","term_gloss":"","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Verrier Elwin, The Muria and Their Ghotul (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 529 and fig. 142, 'Bull-roarer from Markabera'","url":"https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.94957"}],"source_citations":"Verrier Elwin, The Muria and Their Ghotul (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 529 and fig. 142, 'Bull-roarer from Markabera'","source_display":"Verrier Elwin, The Muria and Their Ghotul (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 529 and fig. 142, 'Bull-roarer from Markabera'","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bull-roarer illustrated as Figure 142 in Elwin's monograph on the Muria and their ghotul; collected from Markabera village, Bastar.","function_display":"A toy, swung for fun.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"muria gond","display_name":"Muria Gond bull-roarer from Markabera, Bastar","image":{"full":"assets/objects/ASEXP-002_elwin1947_fig142.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/ASEXP-002_elwin1947_fig142_thumb.jpg","alt":"R. F. Motofram’s drawing of the Markabera bullroarer: a long narrow blade with a cord spiralling along it, beside an enlarged detail of the cord tied around its rounded end.","credit":"Verrier Elwin, The Muria and Their Ghotul (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1947), fig. 142","license":"PD in India (Elwin d. 1964; 60 y pma); rehosted for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.94957","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The Markabera bull-roarer, drawn by R. F. Motofram for Elwin's 1947 monograph."},"slug":"asexp-002-muria-gond-markabera-village-bastar"}