{"id":"MUS2026-141","label":"Netsilik brummer (bull-roarer), Amundsen Gjøa expedition (UEM16245)","people_or_site":"Netsilik Inuit (Netsilingmiut)","country_current":"Canada","historic_region":"King William Island (Qikiqtaq) / Netsilingmiut territory, Kitikmeot, Nunavut","macroregion":"North America / Arctic","local_name":"","source_term":"brummer","source_language":"Norwegian","object_description":"Pointed wooden bullroarer, 23.7 cm long, pierced for a cord and serrated along one edge.","function_summary":"A child's game.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"KHM_UEM16245","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://digitaltmuseum.org/0210213479706/brummer","page_or_plate":"UEM16245","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Gjøahavn (Gjoa Haven / Uqsuqtuuq), the harbour on the SE coast of King William Island where Amundsen wintered the Gjøa 1903–1905, in the Netsilingmiut heartland named by the record's ingress. Not a documented find-spot for the object itself; the catalogue's own locality field instead reads \"Alaska.\"","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"The Netsilingmiut—“people of the place of the ringed seal”—travelled in small communities across King William Island and the country northwest of Hudson Bay, hunting seals on the sea ice and moving inland for fish and caribou. Oslo’s museum attributes this striking bullroarer to them: a pointed wooden blade 23.7 centimetres long, pierced for its cord and cut like a saw along one edge. It reached Oslo in 1906 with Roald Amundsen’s Gjøa expedition collection. Among the Netsilik two decades later, Knud Rasmussen listed the imiklutAQ — a shaped slat whirled round to make a humming noise — among the games, and at Malerualik he dug a far older one, a Thule-era miniature in antler, out of a ruined winter house.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"brummer = Norwegian for a bull-roarer or buzzer (from brumme, to buzz or drone).","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":"Kulturhistorisk museum, Universitetet i Oslo, Etnografiske samlinger UEM16245 (\"brummer\"); collected by Roald Amundsen, Gjøa expedition 1903–1906, accessioned November 1906","url":"https://digitaltmuseum.org/0210213479706/brummer","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013021705/https://digitaltmuseum.org/0210213479706/brummer"}],"source_citations":"Kulturhistorisk museum, Universitetet i Oslo, Etnografiske samlinger UEM16245 (\"brummer\"); collected by Roald Amundsen, Gjøa expedition 1903–1906, accessioned November 1906","source_display":"Kulturhistorisk museum, Universitetet i Oslo, Etnografiske samlinger UEM16245 (\"brummer\"); collected by Roald Amundsen, Gjøa expedition 1903–1906, accessioned November 1906","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Pointed wooden bullroarer, 23.7 cm long, pierced for a cord and serrated along one edge.","function_display":"A child's game.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"netsilik inuit","display_name":"Netsilik brummer (bull-roarer), Amundsen Gjøa expedition (UEM16245)","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-141_khm_uem16245_netsilik.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-141_khm_uem16245_netsilik_thumb.jpg","credit":"Kulturhistorisk museum, Universitetet i Oslo (UEM16245); collected by Roald Amundsen, Gjøa expedition 1903–1906","license":"CC BY-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://digitaltmuseum.org/0210213479706/brummer","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Netsilik saw-edged wooden brummer collected by Roald Amundsen, UEM16245.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-141_cmh_iv_c_4617.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-141_cmh_iv_c_4617_thumb.jpg","alt":"Simon Kirnik's polar-bear-bone blade, Gjoa Haven, 1975: a pale narrow strip with serrations along both long edges, a row of holes and a long cord attached at one end.","credit":"Canadian Museum of History, IV-C-4617 (maker Simon Kirnik, 1975)","license":"© Canadian Museum of History — rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://www.historymuseum.ca/collections/artifact/24304/","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Simon Kirnik's polar-bear-bone blade, Gjoa Haven, 1975."},{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-141_cmh_iv_c_4614.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-141_cmh_iv_c_4614_thumb.jpg","credit":"Canadian Museum of History, IV-C-4614 (maker Rosie Palah, 1975)","license":"© Canadian Museum of History — rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://www.historymuseum.ca/collections/artifact/24307/","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Rosie Palah's wood-and-sinew roarer with its fur tuft, Gjoa Haven, 1975."}]},"slug":"mus2026-141-netsilik-inuit-netsilingmiut"}