{"id":"GEISER1978-001","label":"Swiss firlifurli / Schnurre, Ticino name","people_or_site":"Swiss folk tradition; Ticino name","country_current":"Switzerland","historic_region":"Ticino / Switzerland-wide folk tradition","macroregion":"Europe / Central Europe","local_name":"Schnurre / fiferlet / firlifurli","source_term":"Schwirrholz","source_language":"German","object_description":"A wooden shingle tied at one end to a cord and whirled over the player's head.","function_summary":"Geiser classifies it as a whirled aerophone and calls it a children's toy widespread across Switzerland; pitch varies with rotation speed, and archaeological finds attest the instrument in Switzerland since the 14th century.","attestation_type":"historical_text","source_key":"geiser1978_swiss_firlifurli","source_type":"folklore_journal","source_url":"https://doi.org/10.5169/seals-1004284","page_or_plate":"p. 78","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Ticino canton reference point; [TI] marks the local name firlifurli, not a village or specimen location.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A children's toy found everywhere in Switzerland — so Brigitte Geiser's survey of Swiss folk instruments records it: a wooden shingle on a cord, swung over the head until it hummed, the pitch climbing and falling with the speed of the swing. German Switzerland called it the Schnurre; in Ticino it was the firlifurli. And the toy is old — archaeological finds attest it in Switzerland since the fourteenth century, six hundred years of the same simple rig.","pull_quote":"Eine Schindel an einer Schnur wird vom Spieler über dem Kopf durch die Luft gewirbelt.","pull_quote_translation":"A shingle on a cord is whirled through the air over the player's head.","pull_quote_cite":"Brigitte Geiser, 'Die Volksmusikinstrumente der Schweiz' (1978), p. 78.","term_gloss":"Schnurre, from German schnurren 'to whirr'; firlifurli is the Ticino name and fiferlet another Swiss form. Schwirrholz, 'whirring wood', is the German word for the bullroarer.","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":"Brigitte Geiser, Die Volksmusikinstrumente der Schweiz (1978), p. 78","url":"https://doi.org/10.5169/seals-1004284"}],"source_citations":"Brigitte Geiser, Die Volksmusikinstrumente der Schweiz (1978), p. 78","source_display":"Brigitte Geiser, Die Volksmusikinstrumente der Schweiz (1978), p. 78","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A wooden shingle tied at one end to a cord and whirled over the player's head.","function_display":"Geiser classifies it as a whirled aerophone and calls it a children's toy widespread across Switzerland; pitch varies with rotation speed, and archaeological finds attest the instrument in Switzerland since the 14th century.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"historical text","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"swiss folk","display_name":"Swiss firlifurli / Schnurre, Ticino name","image":{"full":"assets/objects/GEISER1978-001_geiser1978-001-geiser1978-shingle.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/GEISER1978-001_geiser1978-001-geiser1978-shingle_thumb.jpg","credit":"Brigitte Geiser, Die Volksmusikinstrumente der Schweiz (1978), p. 78","license":"Rights reserved; rehosted for non-commercial research. © author / Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Volkskunde; E-Periodica requires prior rights-holder consent for publication.","source_page":"https://doi.org/10.5169/seals-1004284","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Geiser’s Swiss Schnurre / firlifurli: shingle with a single cord."},"slug":"geiser1978-001-swiss-folk-tradition-ticino-name"}