{"id":"NAAIN-018","label":"Nanticoke Indian River whirligig bullroarer","people_or_site":"Nanticoke / Indian River descendants","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Delaware / Sussex County / Indian River Hundred","macroregion":"North America / Eastern Woodlands","local_name":"","source_term":"whirligig; bull roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Oblong cypress-shingle blade about eight inches long, with rounded edges.","function_summary":"Nanticoke children's toy bullroarer / whirligig, explicitly separated in Speck's article from the two-hole buzzer or buzz-button called see-saw.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"speck1942_nanticoke_whirligig","source_type":"ethnographic_article","source_url":"https://www.delawarearchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Vol.-3-No.-5-1942.pdf","page_or_plate":"Bulletin pp. 20-23","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Millsboro / Indian River Hundred community anchor for Speck's Indian River Nanticoke source context; the article gives Indian River Hundred and Sussex County, not an exact maker home or use site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Nanticoke descendants living along Indian River in Sussex County, Delaware, the bull roarer was a children's amusement called the whirligig: an oblong blade of cypress shingle, about eight inches long, with rounded edges and no notching. Frank Speck recorded it in 1942, on recent visits to Indian River; Edgar Morris, a Nanticoke man whose father had been a carpenter and bow-and-arrow maker, made one for Speck's collection of old-fashioned tribal crafts, after which some of the boys in his family whittled their own. Speck kept the whirligig distinct from the see-saw, a separate buzzer or buzz-button made locally from a four-inch disc of yellow pine bark or stiff shoe leather, the older rotater since replaced by a common coat button. Some of the men recalled teasing the little girls by spinning the see-saw against their hair until it tangled so badly that locks had to be cut off.","pull_quote":"The bull roarer known as whirligig is familiar to all the older people as an amusement for children, although it is not now seen in their hands.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Speck 1942:22, \"Back Again to Indian River, Its People and Their Games,\" Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware 3(5)","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":"Frank G. Speck, “Back Again to Indian River, Its People and Their Games,” Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware 3(5) (May 1942), pp. 20-23, at p. 22","url":"https://www.delawarearchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Vol.-3-No.-5-1942.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240530001527/https://www.delawarearchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Vol.-3-No.-5-1942.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Frank G. Speck, “Back Again to Indian River, Its People and Their Games,” Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware 3(5) (May 1942), pp. 20-23, at p. 22","source_display":"Frank G. Speck, “Back Again to Indian River, Its People and Their Games,” Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware 3(5) (May 1942), pp. 20-23, at p. 22","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Oblong cypress-shingle blade about eight inches long, with rounded edges.","function_display":"Nanticoke children's toy bullroarer / whirligig, explicitly separated in Speck's article from the two-hole buzzer or buzz-button called see-saw.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"nanticoke","display_name":"Nanticoke Indian River whirligig bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/NAAIN-018_speck1942_fig2_whirligig.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/NAAIN-018_speck1942_fig2_whirligig_thumb.jpg","credit":"Frank G. Speck, 'Back Again to Indian River', Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware 3(5), 1942, fig. 2 (detail)","license":"Scholarly figure (Speck 1942); non-commercial research use","source_page":"https://www.delawarearchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Vol.-3-No.-5-1942.pdf","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Speck’s drawing of an Indian River cypress-shingle whirligig on its cord."},"slug":"naain-018-nanticoke-indian-river-descendants"}