{"id":"BATTAGLIA1925-011","label":"Postojna bullroarer","people_or_site":"Boys of Postumia (Postojna) and the nearby countryside","country_current":"Slovenia","historic_region":"Postumia / Postojna, Carniola","macroregion":"Europe / Southeast Europe","local_name":"","source_term":"","source_language":"Italian / local Istrian and Venetian names","object_description":"Wooden tablet about 30 cm long and 5 cm wide, whirled in the air.","function_summary":"Formerly a fairly common boys' toy, seen whirling in all seasons; by 1925 only the oldest people remembered it.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"battaglia_1925_postojna","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"http://cisadu2.let.uniroma1.it/smsr/archive/1925/l/0216.jpg","page_or_plate":"printed p. 212","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Postojna town centroid.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Around Postojna, the karst town above the great caves, only the oldest people could still summon the bullroarer when Battaglia asked: a wooden tablet, thirty centimetres by five, once fairly common among the boys and seen whirling in the air in every season of the year. No name for it survived. The last generation to play it had grown old, and the toy was dying with their childhood — caught on paper a few years before it went.","pull_quote":"Era abbastanza comune fra i ragazzi, e lo si poteva veder roteare in aria in tutte le stagioni. Lo ricordano pero solo i piu vecchi.","pull_quote_translation":"It was fairly common among the boys, and could be seen whirled in the air in all seasons. Only the oldest, however, remember it.","pull_quote_cite":"Battaglia 1925:212","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":"Raffaello Battaglia, 'Sopravvivenze del rombo nelle Provincie Venete,' Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 1 (1925), p. 212","url":"http://cisadu2.let.uniroma1.it/smsr/archive/1925/l/0216.jpg","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013002100/http://cisadu2.let.uniroma1.it/smsr/archive/1925/l/0216.jpg"}],"source_citations":"Raffaello Battaglia, 'Sopravvivenze del rombo nelle Provincie Venete,' Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 1 (1925), p. 212","source_display":"Raffaello Battaglia, 'Sopravvivenze del rombo nelle Provincie Venete,' Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 1 (1925), p. 212","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Wooden tablet about 30 cm long and 5 cm wide, whirled in the air.","function_display":"Formerly a fairly common boys' toy, seen whirling in all seasons; by 1925 only the oldest people remembered it.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"boys postumia","display_name":"Postojna bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/SEM2026-001_sem_0021839.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/SEM2026-001_sem_0021839_thumb.jpg","alt":"A wooden brnivka bullroarer with a broad tapered blade and white cord tied through a hole near one end.","credit":"Slovenski etnografski muzej, 630:LJU;0021839","license":"© Slovene Ethnographic Museum — rehosted low-res for non-commercial research (contact-to-license)","source_page":"https://www.etno-muzej.si/en/digitalne-zbirke/ljudska-glasbila/630lju0021839","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Slovenian brnivka folk bullroarer.","pool_id":"auto-SEM2026-001_sem_0021839"},"slug":"battaglia1925-011-boys-of-postumia-postojna-and-the-nearby-countryside"}