{"id":"HORNIMAN1906-001","label":"Cambridgeshire cattle-driving bullroarer","people_or_site":"Gamlingay / Over, Cambridgeshire","country_current":"United Kingdom","historic_region":"Cambridgeshire / Gamlingay or Over","macroregion":"Europe / British Isles","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarer / bull-roarer / 412.22 whirling aerophone","source_language":"English","object_description":"Small notched blade of sheet zinc on a vegetable-fibre cord.","function_summary":"Used for driving cattle by imitating the sound of the warble fly, which frightened cattle.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"horniman_6243_cambridgeshire_bullroarer","source_type":"museum_catalog","source_url":"https://www.horniman.ac.uk/object/6.243/","page_or_plate":"object 6.243; JSON catalogue note and description/use fields","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Gamlingay representative village anchor from the Horniman register; the same museum note records a later association with Over, Cambridgeshire, so this is not a precise use spot.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"This zinc bullroarer was swung not in any rite but to move cattle: its whirring carries the pitch of the warble fly, a biting fly whose drone sends grazing cows into flight. Roughly rectangular, about 155 millimetres long, it has fourteen notches cut around its edge and a length of vegetable-fibre cord knotted through a hole at the tapered end. The Horniman Museum bought it from A. W. Rowlett in 1906; its register records Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire, and the object was later associated with Over in the same county. In Britain the bullroarer otherwise survived mainly as a boy's plaything, and the museum now shows this one in its music gallery under the heading \"Adulthood and Survival.\" A companion blade from Offord dairy in neighbouring Huntingdonshire — tin cut with shears, notched the same way, on nearly four feet of string — was still being swung at cattle in 1906, proof the warble-fly trick was regional dairy practice rather than one farm's invention.","pull_quote":"Bullroarers were used for driving cattle. Their sound frightened the cattle as it was similar to that of the warble fly, a biting fly.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Horniman Museum and Gardens, object 6.243 (catalogue description)","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":"Horniman Museum and Gardens, object 6.243, catalogue description and register note","url":"https://www.horniman.ac.uk/object/6.243/","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250807073659/https://www.horniman.ac.uk/object/6.243/"},{"citation":"Horniman Museum and Gardens, object 6.242","url":"https://www.horniman.ac.uk/object/6.242/","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013012426/https://www.horniman.ac.uk/object/6.242/"}],"source_citations":"Horniman Museum and Gardens, object 6.243, catalogue description and register note; Horniman Museum and Gardens, object 6.242","source_display":"Horniman Museum and Gardens, object 6.243, catalogue description and register note; Horniman Museum and Gardens, object 6.242","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Small notched blade of sheet zinc on a vegetable-fibre cord.","function_display":"Used for driving cattle by imitating the sound of the warble fly, which frightened cattle.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"gamlingay","display_name":"Cambridgeshire cattle-driving bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/HORNIMAN1906-001.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/HORNIMAN1906-001_thumb.jpg","alt":"Cambridgeshire cattle-driving bullroarer with deep angular notches along both long edges and a long twisted cord tied through one end.","credit":"Horniman Museum and Gardens, London (6.243)","license":"© Horniman Museum and Gardens; non-commercial research/educational use","source_page":"https://www.horniman.ac.uk/object/6.243/","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Cattle-driving bull-roarer, Gamlingay/Over, Cambridgeshire. Horniman 6.243.","also":[{"label":"Offord dairy tin bullroarer, Huntingdonshire (Horniman 6.242) — same vendor, still swung at cattle in 1906 to mimic the warble fly","page":"assets/objects/HORNIMAN1906-001_horniman_6_242_offord.jpg","credit":"Horniman Museum and Gardens, London (6.242)","license":"© Horniman Museum and Gardens; non-commercial research/educational use"}]},"slug":"horniman1906-001-gamlingay-over-cambridgeshire"}