{"id":"LOEB1929-040","label":"Kulisehu River toy bullroarer and sacred flute","people_or_site":"Kulisehu River peoples","country_current":"Brazil","historic_region":"Upper Xingu / Kulisehu River","macroregion":"South America / Brazil","local_name":"yelo","source_term":"yelo / iyelo (Bakairí)","source_language":"Bakairí (yelo/iyelo); Mehinakú (niatäpu); Nahuquá (matähu) — Upper Xingu / Kulisehu River","object_description":"","function_summary":"Used as a toy.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"loeb1929","source_type":"comparative_secondary","source_url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82839/files/ucp025-004.pdf","page_or_plate":"p. 281","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"representative coordinate for named people, place, or region in Loeb","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On the Kulisehu River in the Upper Xingu, the bullroarer was a child's plaything, and the flute, not the bullroarer, was the sacred instrument. Edwin Loeb set the detail against its neighbor for contrast: among the Bororo nearby, von den Steinen had reported that women sought refuge in the woods the moment a bullroarer was sounded, and would have died had they seen one. Here the roles were reversed, and the whirring board passed into the hands of children.","pull_quote":"Wir werden ihm bei den Bororó und zwar auch in einer geheimnissvollen Bedeutung, die am Kulisehu fehlt, wieder begegnen …","pull_quote_translation":"We shall meet it again among the Bororó, and there, indeed, in a mysterious significance that is lacking on the Kulisehu …","pull_quote_cite":"Karl von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens (1894), p. 327","term_gloss":"thunder/thunderstorm (Bakairí); cf. Mehinakú matápu, Nahuquá matáhu","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["snake","toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"etymology":"For the Bakairí the bullroarer is yelo (iyelo), the same word for \"lightning and thunder\" — best rendered, von den Steinen says, as \"thunder\" for the sound it imitates. The Mehinakú (matápu) and Nahuquá (matáhu) share what he treats as the same word.","literal_gloss":"yelo = \"thunder\" (the audible part of \"lightning-and-thunder\", roughly \"thunderstorm/Gewitter\")","semantic_cluster":"weather; motion_sound; name_only (for niatäpu/matähu)","etymology_confidence":"high","sources":[{"citation":"Edwin M. Loeb, Tribal Initiations and Secret Societies, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 25(3) (1929): 249-288, p. 281; Karl von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1894), pp. 327-328","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82839/files/ucp025-004.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250411091854/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82839/files/ucp025-004.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Edwin M. Loeb, Tribal Initiations and Secret Societies, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 25(3) (1929): 249-288, p. 281; Karl von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1894), pp. 327-328","source_display":"Edwin M. Loeb, Tribal Initiations and Secret Societies, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 25(3) (1929): 249-288, p. 281; Karl von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1894), pp. 327-328","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Used as a toy.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"kulisehu river","display_name":"Kulisehu River toy bullroarer and sacred flute","image":{"full":"assets/objects/LOEB1929-040.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/LOEB1929-040_thumb.jpg","credit":"Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (V B 2505); coll. K. von den Steinen, Kulisehu River, 1887","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://smb.museum-digital.de/object/135637","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Nahuquá bullroarer from the Upper Xingu, collected in 1887 and labelled ‘Kleiner Blitz’ — little lightning."},"slug":"loeb1929-040-kulisehu-river-peoples"}