{"id":"CONTRERAS2000-001","label":"Michoacán bunfador, the purring board","people_or_site":"Mestizo communities of Michoacán","country_current":"Mexico","historic_region":"Michoacán","macroregion":"North America / Mexico","local_name":"bunfador","source_term":"bunfador","source_language":"Spanish","object_description":"A small wooden board, sometimes sharpened to a spear point, tied through a hole at one end to a cord of 1 to 1.5 m; it turns on its own axis as it is whirled.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"contreras2000_michoacan_bunfador","source_type":"scholarly_article","source_url":"https://repositoriobibliotecas.uv.cl/serveruv/api/core/bitstreams/17692402-7a3e-4330-9787-a63da7bb042e/content","page_or_plate":"pp. 530–531","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"State-level anchor for Michoacán; no village named.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Swung on a metre or more of cord, the bunfador spins on its own axis as it flies and purrs like an animal. In the mestizo villages of Michoacán it is a small wooden board, sometimes whittled to a spear point, with the cord run through a hole at one end. It has kin across Mexico, the zumbador of the Seri in Sonora and of the Maya in Yucatán: different names for the same free-spinning voice.","pull_quote":"produce un sonido semejante al ronroneo de algún animal","pull_quote_translation":"it makes a sound like the purring of some animal","pull_quote_cite":"Juan Guillermo Contreras, 'México. VI. Organología,' Diccionario de la música española e hispanoamericana 7 (2000), p. 531","term_gloss":"bunfador: Michoacán name for the bullroarer. zumbador: 'hummer', the general Mexican Spanish name.","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Juan Guillermo Contreras, 'México. VI. Organología,' in E. Casares Rodicio (dir.), Diccionario de la música española e hispanoamericana 7 (Madrid, 2000), pp. 530–531","url":"https://repositoriobibliotecas.uv.cl/serveruv/api/core/bitstreams/17692402-7a3e-4330-9787-a63da7bb042e/content"}],"source_citations":"Juan Guillermo Contreras, 'México. VI. Organología,' in E. Casares Rodicio (dir.), Diccionario de la música española e hispanoamericana 7 (Madrid, 2000), pp. 530–531","source_display":"Juan Guillermo Contreras, 'México. VI. Organología,' in E. Casares Rodicio (dir.), Diccionario de la música española e hispanoamericana 7 (Madrid, 2000), pp. 530–531","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A small wooden board, sometimes sharpened to a spear point, tied through a hole at one end to a cord of 1 to 1.5 m; it turns on its own axis as it is whirled.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"mestizo communities","display_name":"Michoacán bunfador, the purring board","image":{"full":"assets/objects/LAUGHLIN1975-001_p153.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/LAUGHLIN1975-001_p153_thumb.jpg","credit":"Robert M. Laughlin, The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of San Lorenzo Zinacantán (Smithsonian, 1975), p. 153","license":"US federal (Smithsonian Institution Press) publication; public domain in the US","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153030_0583","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Laughlin's dictionary page with himhim, the bullroarer","pool_id":"auto-LAUGHLIN1975-001_p153","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"contreras2000-001-mestizo-communities-of-michoacan"}