{"id":"MUS2026-264","label":"Upper Xingu painted toy blade","people_or_site":"Upper Xingu; people unrecorded","country_current":"Brazil","historic_region":"Upper Xingu River / Mato Grosso","macroregion":"South America / Amazonia","local_name":"","source_term":"Bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Wooden toy blade, 45 × 8.8 cm; brown-stained ends and edges, with black solid and outlined triangles across both faces.","function_summary":"A toy.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"penn_58_17_128","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://collections.penn.museum/collections/object/177575","page_or_plate":"58-17-128; object 177575","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Broad Upper Xingu regional anchor; no community or collection point is recorded.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In the Upper Xingu the dangerous voice belongs to the flutes, not to this. Karl von den Steinen watched Nahuqua men whirl their roarers on the open village plaza in all unconcern, as they would any everyday tool, and nobody drove the women off; on the Kulisehu the same whirring board went to the children. Forty-five centimetres of wood carries that easy status here — black triangles, some solid and some outlined, marching across both faces, brown stain sealing the ends and edges. Painters there gave other roarers the hissing snake, zigzagged down the blade, much as they gave flutes the fluting monkey.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Penn Museum 58-17-128","term_gloss":"","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,"sources":[{"citation":"Penn Museum 58-17-128; Upper Xingu River, Mato Grosso, Brazil; bequest of Harry B. Wright, 1958; catalogued “Toy; Bull-Roarer.”","url":"https://collections.penn.museum/collections/object/177575","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013134011/https://collections.penn.museum/collections/object/177575"}],"source_citations":"Penn Museum 58-17-128; Upper Xingu River, Mato Grosso, Brazil; bequest of Harry B. Wright, 1958; catalogued “Toy; Bull-Roarer.”","source_display":"Penn Museum 58-17-128; Upper Xingu River, Mato Grosso, Brazil; bequest of Harry B. Wright, 1958; catalogued “Toy; Bull-Roarer.”","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Wooden toy blade, 45 × 8.8 cm; brown-stained ends and edges, with black solid and outlined triangles across both faces.","function_display":"A toy.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"upper xingu","display_name":"Upper Xingu painted toy blade","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-113_museudoindio_7697-7698_kuikuro.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-113_museudoindio_7697-7698_kuikuro_thumb.jpg","alt":"Two Kuikuro zunidores painted with dark triangles, strung with cotton cord.","credit":"Museu do Índio / Museu Nacional dos Povos Indígenas (FUNAI), inv. 7697 & 7698","license":"No open licence stated — attribution/research use","source_page":"https://tainacan.museudoindio.gov.br/museu-do-indio/7697-2/","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Two Kuikuro zunidores painted with dark triangles, strung with cotton cord","pool_id":"auto-MUS2026-113_museudoindio_7697-7698_kuikuro","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-09-01"},"slug":"mus2026-264-upper-xingu-people-unrecorded"}