{"id":"MINE2026-083","label":"Hawaiian O-e-o-e wooden toy bullroarer","people_or_site":"Native Hawaiian / Hawaiian Islands general","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Hawaiian Islands","macroregion":"Oceania / Polynesia","local_name":"O-e-o-e","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"End-pierced wooden blade with a whirling cord.","function_summary":"Culin's Hawaiian informants knew it as a toy.","attestation_type":"historical_text","source_key":"CULIN1899_HAWAII_OEOE","source_type":"ethnographic_article","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/americananthrop04socigoog","page_or_plate":"p. 220, item 41","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Hawaiian Islands general; placed on Oahu as an on-land archipelago anchor, not a source-named island or play site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Its name was its noise. In Hawaiian, oeoe meant to whiz like grape-shot through the air, or to keep up an indistinct continuous sound, and that is what this end-pierced wooden blade did when it was whirled on its cord. It was a children's toy that informants also called ko-wa-luwa-lu. It belonged to a whole family of island spinning and buzzing playthings recorded in the 1890s: the po-ka-kaa \"buzz\" of perforated hau bark, the hu-ila-ma-kani wind-wheel of paper or bark cloth, and the hu-o-e-o-e humming tops cut from small gourds. Making sound was the game — each toy a different way to set the air singing.","pull_quote":"O-e-o-e: BULLROARER. - This is made of wood, with a hole in one end through which is passed a cord with which it is whirled. It is known to my informants as a toy.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Stewart Culin, 'Hawaiian Games' (1899), p. 220, item 41.","term_gloss":"O-e-o-e: Hawaiian name recorded by Culin for the wooden toy bullroarer; oeoe is the verb 'to whiz, as a ball or grape-shot through the air', 'to make an indistinct continued sound', and 'to murmur, as a purling brook' (Andrews 1865, p. 85).","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":"Stewart Culin, 'Hawaiian Games,' American Anthropologist n.s. 1(2) (1899), pp. 220-221, item 41","url":"https://archive.org/details/americananthrop04socigoog"},{"citation":"Lorrin Andrews, A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language (Honolulu, 1865), p. 85, s.v. Oe, O-e-o-e","url":"https://archive.org/details/cu31924026916167"}],"source_citations":"Stewart Culin, 'Hawaiian Games,' American Anthropologist n.s. 1(2) (1899), pp. 220-221, item 41; Lorrin Andrews, A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language (Honolulu, 1865), p. 85, s.v. Oe, O-e-o-e","source_display":"Stewart Culin, 'Hawaiian Games,' American Anthropologist n.s. 1(2) (1899), pp. 220-221, item 41; Lorrin Andrews, A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language (Honolulu, 1865), p. 85, s.v. Oe, O-e-o-e","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"End-pierced wooden blade with a whirling cord.","function_display":"Culin's Hawaiian informants knew it as a toy.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"historical text","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"native hawaiian","display_name":"Hawaiian O-e-o-e wooden toy bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/POLY2026-001_prm_1901-64-7_maori.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/POLY2026-001_prm_1901-64-7_maori_thumb.jpg","credit":"Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, accession 1901.64.7","license":"PRM Collections Online terms (noncommercial educational/community use with credit)","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39777","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Māori wooden pūrerehua with its cord wound on.","pool_id":"auto-POLY2026-001_prm_1901-64-7_maori"},"slug":"mine2026-083-native-hawaiian-hawaiian-islands-general"}