{"id":"MUS2026-209","label":"Central Arctic baleen bullroarer","people_or_site":"Inuit, Central Arctic","country_current":"Canada","historic_region":"Central Arctic","macroregion":"North America / Arctic","local_name":"","source_term":"Bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Carved baleen blade, 200 x 30 mm. The museum photograph shows a long narrow strip with deeply serrated edges running most of its length, one end tapered, and a surviving cord attached at the opposite terminal end - single-end free-air suspension rather than an axial double-cord buzzer.","function_summary":"Children's toy.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"prm_1907_72_1_central_arctic","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39586","page_or_plate":"PRM catalogue record 1907.72.1 and photograph PRM_RS486220","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Broad regional anchor for the Canadian Central Arctic, the only geography the museum records. This is a region-level point somewhere in the Kitikmeot / central mainland-and-islands area, not a community, camp or collection locality, and it should not be read as a findspot.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A strip of baleen twenty centimetres long, cut from the plates of a whale's jaw and worked down to a narrow blade, with rows of deep teeth cut along both edges and one end drawn to a point. Its cord is still tied on at the other end. It reached Oxford in May 1907, bought by the Pitt Rivers Museum, from Cecil Vincent Goddard, somewhere in the Central Arctic of Canada. What a Central Arctic bull-roarer was for, Diamond Jenness recorded among the Copper Inuit of Coronation Gulf: the imilguptak was one of two toys confined to children, the other being the buzz, nilitak. A single cord at one end makes this the imilguptak kind.","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":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1907.72.1 (Central Arctic, Canada; purchased 1907)","url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39586","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260917174840/https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39586"}],"source_citations":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1907.72.1 (Central Arctic, Canada; purchased 1907)","source_display":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1907.72.1 (Central Arctic, Canada; purchased 1907)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Carved baleen blade, 200 x 30 mm. The museum photograph shows a long narrow strip with deeply serrated edges running most of its length, one end tapered, and a surviving cord attached at the opposite terminal end - single-end free-air suspension rather than an axial double-cord buzzer.","function_display":"Children's toy.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"inuit","display_name":"Central Arctic baleen bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-209_mus2026-209-prm-central-arctic.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-209_mus2026-209-prm-central-arctic_thumb.jpg","alt":"Central Arctic baleen bullroarer, Pitt Rivers Museum 1907.72.1: a long dark serrated strip with cord at one end and a hanging museum tag.","credit":"Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 1907.72.1; photograph PRM_RS486220_1907.0072.1.jpg","license":"Rights reserved (© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford); rehosted for non-commercial research.","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39586","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Serrated baleen bullroarer, Central Arctic, Pitt Rivers Museum 1907.72.1."},"slug":"mus2026-209-central-arctic-catalogue-culture-field-inuit-inuit-greenland"}