{"id":"ROUTLEDGE1910-001","label":"Munge Kikuyu bullroarer","people_or_site":"Kikuyu","country_current":"Kenya","historic_region":"Historic Munge district / likely Mutira, Kirinyaga","macroregion":"Africa / East Africa","local_name":"ke-hu-ru-ta","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"End-pierced flat wooden tongue on bark-twine thong and stick handle.","function_summary":"Bird-scarer; whirled overhead for a loud sound.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"bm_af1910_0604_53_munge_kikuyu","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1910-0604-53","page_or_plate":"Af1910,0604.53; Routledge 1910 Plate XXXII.1","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Historic Munge inferred inland to likely Mutira/Njumbi-Mutira, Kirinyaga; not the coastal Kwale Munge.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Guarding the ripening grain from birds was, among the Kikuyu, what W. S. Routledge called \"a serious business, in which the whole population take part\" — watchers climbed platforms raised in the fields and pelted the raiders with stones and clods of earth. Into that clamour went the ke-hu-ru-ta: a flat wooden tongue on a bark-twine thong and a stick handle, whirled around the head and then twitched, not cracked like a whip. Well handled, Routledge wrote, it threw out a sound \"something between a pistol-shot and the whoop of a motor syren.\" Scaring birds off the crops was, by custom, a man's one nominal share of the fieldwork; the cultivating was women's.","pull_quote":"In use the thong is whirled around the head ... Used to scare birds.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Routledge 1910 Plate XXXII.1; British Museum Af1910,0604.53","term_gloss":"ke-hu-ru-ta = Kikuyu name printed in Routledge’s Plate XXXII caption and glossary.","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"W. Scoresby Routledge and Katherine Routledge, With a Prehistoric People: The Akikuyu of British East Africa (London, 1910), pl. XXXII.1; British Museum Af1910,0604.53","url":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1910-0604-53"}],"source_citations":"W. Scoresby Routledge and Katherine Routledge, With a Prehistoric People: The Akikuyu of British East Africa (London, 1910), pl. XXXII.1; British Museum Af1910,0604.53","source_display":"W. Scoresby Routledge and Katherine Routledge, With a Prehistoric People: The Akikuyu of British East Africa (London, 1910), pl. XXXII.1; British Museum Af1910,0604.53","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"End-pierced flat wooden tongue on bark-twine thong and stick handle.","function_display":"Bird-scarer; whirled overhead for a loud sound.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"kikuyu","display_name":"Munge Kikuyu bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/ROUTLEDGE1910-001_munge_bullroarer.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/ROUTLEDGE1910-001_munge_bullroarer_thumb.jpg","alt":"The Munge Kikuyu ke-hu-ru-ta bullroarer: a narrow wooden blade linked by a long bark-twine thong to a stick handle.","credit":"W. Scoresby Routledge and Katherine Routledge, With a Prehistoric People (1910), Plate XXXII, item 1","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/withprehistoricp00rout","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The Munge Kikuyu ke-hu-ru-ta bullroarer, with bark-twine thong and stick handle."},"slug":"routledge1910-001-kikuyu"}