{"id":"SA-Z1953-004","label":"Apinayé me-galo soul-ghost toy","people_or_site":"Apinaye","country_current":"Brazil","historic_region":"Eastern Brazil","macroregion":"South America / Brazil","local_name":"me-galo","source_term":"Schwirrgerät / Schwirrholz / bullroarer","source_language":"German / English extraction","object_description":"Nimuendajú's own Apinayé example survives complete in the Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen — H.2998, a wooden blade 40.5 centimetres long, still corded to its separate wooden shaft.","function_summary":"Toy bullroarer named me-galo meaning soul; ghost; shadow","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"zerries1953","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/apinaye0000nimu","page_or_plate":"109-110 (Childhood/toys; bull-roarers in fig. 25); 140 (Animism); 158 (Megalo-kamdu're in the fire myth)","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Representative Apinaye/Tocantins coordinate; the evidence speaks to toy decay and soul names more than to a living rite.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Apinayé, the bull-roarer had slipped into the toy basket — but its name, me-galo, is the one word for soul, ghost, shadow, and the image of the dead. The Apinayé dead linger at cemeteries and old village sites until a second death turns them into animals, tree stumps, or termite hills. Among the neighbouring Sherente, whose usage the Apinayé name recalls, the link is explicit: their bullroarer is 'the howling of Hieparo-wawe,' lord of the will-o'-the-wisps, whirled in the woods to make the demon appear. In the Apinayé fire myth, an ogre named for the me-galo tries to pass himself off as a lost boy's father before wrestling him into his carrying-basket.","pull_quote":"Like the Eastern Timbira, the Apinaye call the soul, ghost, shadow, and image by a common term, me-galo; the Apinaye further apply the word to the bull-roarer, which recalls Serente usage.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Nimuendajú, The Apinayé (1939), p. 140","term_gloss":"me-galo: the Apinayé name for the toy bull-roarer.","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"etymology":"me-galo, the name of the Apinayé toy bullroarer, is their word for the soul, ghost, shadow, and image of a dead person.","literal_gloss":"soul; ghost; shadow","semantic_cluster":"soul; ghost; image","etymology_confidence":"high","sources":[{"citation":"Curt Nimuendaju, \"The Apinaye,\" trans. Robert H. Lowie, ed. R. H. Lowie and J. M. Cooper (Washington: Catholic University of America Anthropological Series No. 8, 1939)","url":"https://archive.org/details/apinaye0000nimu"}],"source_citations":"Curt Nimuendaju, \"The Apinaye,\" trans. Robert H. Lowie, ed. R. H. Lowie and J. M. Cooper (Washington: Catholic University of America Anthropological Series No. 8, 1939)","source_display":"Curt Nimuendaju, \"The Apinaye,\" trans. Robert H. Lowie, ed. R. H. Lowie and J. M. Cooper (Washington: Catholic University of America Anthropological Series No. 8, 1939)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Nimuendajú's own Apinayé example survives complete in the Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen — H.2998, a wooden blade 40.5 centimetres long, still corded to its separate wooden shaft.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"apinaye","display_name":"Apinayé me-galo soul-ghost toy","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/nimuendaju1939_apinaye_fig25.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/nimuendaju1939_apinaye_fig25_thumb.jpg","alt":"A plate showing two mounted Apinayé bullroarers flanking a diamond-patterned thread-cross.","credit":"Curt Nimuendajú, The Apinayé (1939), fig. 25","license":"Public domain (US; no renewal found)","source_page":"https://etnolinguistica.wdfiles.com/local--files/biblio%3Animuendaju-1939-apinaye/nimuendaju_1939_apinaye.pdf","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Two mounted Apinayé bullroarers flanking a diamond-patterned veve thread-cross.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_15/SA-Z1953-004_apinaye_gm31_40_266_fig1g.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_15/thumbs/SA-Z1953-004_apinaye_gm31_40_266_fig1g_thumb.jpg","credit":"Vera Primavera in Aguirre-Fernandez et al. 2021, fig. 1g, after Izikowitz 1935 (GM-31.40.266); cropped from the published figure","license":"CC BY 4.0","source_page":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00881-z","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A second Apinayé bullroarer from Nimuendajú's collection, drawn complete with handstick, cord and narrow wooden blade."}],"also":[{"label":"The collected me/galõ itself — an Apinayé bull-roarer whose zigzag-banded blade is pierced at one end and strung to a long handle-stick, gathered by Curt Nimuendajú on the Lower Rio Tocantins; the museum specimen behind the fig. 25 drawing. SMVK, Världskulturmuseet 1931.40.0265.","page":"assets/objects/SA-Z1953-004_smvk-vkm_1931-40-0265_megalo.jpg","credit":"Världskulturmuseerna / Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg (1931.40.0265); collected by Curt Nimuendajú","license":"CC BY 4.0 (Världskulturmuseerna)"}]},"slug":"sa-z1953-004-apinaye"}