{"id":"HAD1898-009","label":"Point Barrow Eskimo toy bullroarer","people_or_site":"Point Barrow Eskimo / Inupiat","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Point Barrow, Alaska","macroregion":"North America / Arctic","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A thin board of pine, painted with black lead and red ocher, fastened by about a foot of braided sinew to a slender rod handle. Three more blades came from the same place with William Blair Van Valin's 1919 Wanamaker Expedition (Penn Museum NA6686A-B, NA10426): one of whalebone cut to the outline of a whale, a slim notch-edged whalebone ellipse, and a bone blade tied with sinew to a long wooden rod handle.","function_summary":"A child's toy.","attestation_type":"secondary_catalog","source_key":"haddon1898study","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/43568/pg43568-images.html","page_or_plate":"p. 379, Fig. 377 (\"Whizzing stick\"; specimen no. 89800 [1331], Utkiavwĭñ)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"representative coordinate for named people, place, or region in Haddon","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At Utkiavwĭñ, near Point Barrow, the naturalist John Murdoch obtained the well-known \"whizzing-stick\" the children often played with: a thin board of pine wood, painted with black lead and red ocher and fastened by about a foot of braided sinew to a slender rod that served as a handle. Swung rapidly round, it made a loud, whizzing sound. The Eskimo called it ĭmĭglúta. Murdoch knew the instrument as the one found in widely distant parts of the world and often used in religious ceremonies, but recorded that here it was nothing of the kind: \"This appears to be purely a child's toy and has no mystical signification. I never saw one in the hands of an adult.\" The specimen (no. 89800), collected for the International Polar Expedition of 1881-1883, had been made and brought over for sale by a lad about thirteen or fourteen years old. Alfred Haddon later reproduced the Point Barrow example, citing Murdoch, in his 1898 survey of the bull-roarer.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","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":"Murdoch 1892, \"Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,\" Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-88 (Washington: GPO, 1892)","url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/43568/pg43568-images.html","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251211191547/https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/43568/pg43568-images.html"}],"source_citations":"Murdoch 1892, \"Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,\" Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-88 (Washington: GPO, 1892)","source_display":"Murdoch 1892, \"Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,\" Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-88 (Washington: GPO, 1892)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A thin board of pine, painted with black lead and red ocher, fastened by about a foot of braided sinew to a slender rod handle. Three more blades came from the same place with William Blair Van Valin's 1919 Wanamaker Expedition (Penn Museum NA6686A-B, NA10426): one of whalebone cut to the outline of a whale, a slim notch-edged whalebone ellipse, and a bone blade tied with sinew to a long wooden rod handle.","function_display":"A child's toy.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"secondary catalog","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"point barrow","display_name":"Point Barrow Eskimo toy bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_18/HAD1898-009_usnm_e89800.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_18/thumbs/HAD1898-009_usnm_e89800_thumb.jpg","credit":"National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian (E89800-0)","license":"Usage Conditions Apply (Smithsonian)","source_page":"https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm%3Anmnhanthropology_8486161","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Point Barrow red-painted blade, sinew cord, and rod handle collected in 1883, Smithsonian E89800-0.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_murdoch_fig377.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_murdoch_fig377_thumb.jpg","credit":"Murdoch 1892, fig. 377, reproduced in Haddon, The Study of Man (1898)","license":"Public domain (published 1898)","source_page":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43568","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Murdoch’s drawing of a Point Barrow whizzing stick with cord and wooden handle."},{"full":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_mathiassen_pl11_10.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_mathiassen_pl11_10_thumb.jpg","alt":"A whale-shaped baleen imigdlugtaoq from Point Barrow, with serrated body edges, broad tail flukes and a cord hole near the head.","credit":"Therkel Mathiassen, Archaeological Collections from the Western Eskimos (1930), Pl. 11 no. 10","license":"Published 1930 — US public domain; rehosted low-res","source_page":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Arch%C3%A6ological_Collections_from_the_Western_Eskimo.djvu/76","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A whale-shaped baleen imigdlugtaoq from Point Barrow, its serrated flukes at one end and the cord hole at the other."},{"full":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_penn_na6685.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_penn_na6685_thumb.jpg","alt":"Two baleen bullroarers from Utkiavik with their cords: a leaf-shaped blade notched around its edge and a narrower slat with a broken free end.","credit":"Object NA6685. Courtesy of the Penn Museum","license":"Penn Museum terms — research/educational use with credit; rehosted low-res","source_page":"https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/274951","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A baleen bullroarer from Utkiavik — Van Valin's Wanamaker Expedition, 1919."},{"full":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_penn-na6686a.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_penn-na6686a_thumb.jpg","credit":"Object NA6686A. Courtesy of the Penn Museum","license":"Penn Museum terms — research/educational use with credit; rehost low-res (as NA6685 on this record)","source_page":"https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/50711","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A whalebone blade cut as a whale, fin and flukes, from Van Valin's 1919 Point Barrow trip (Penn NA6686A)."},{"full":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_penn-na6686b.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_penn-na6686b_thumb.jpg","credit":"Object NA6686B. Courtesy of the Penn Museum","license":"Penn Museum terms — research/educational use with credit; rehost low-res","source_page":"https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/381403","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Partner to the whale-shaped blade from the same 1919 trip: a slim, notch-edged whalebone ellipse."},{"full":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_penn-na10426.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_penn-na10426_thumb.jpg","alt":"Point Barrow bone bullroarer with short rows of sawtooth notches near its narrow end, linked by sinew to a long wooden handle.","credit":"Object NA10426. Courtesy of the Penn Museum","license":"Penn Museum terms — research/educational use with credit; rehost low-res","source_page":"https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/112178","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A bone blade on sinew beside its long wooden rod handle, Point Barrow, 1919 (Penn NA10426)."}]},"slug":"had1898-009-point-barrow-eskimo-inupiat"}