{"id":"SA-Z1953-021","label":"Kashibo taī, the voice of thunder","people_or_site":"Kashibo","country_current":"Peru","historic_region":"Northeastern Peru","macroregion":"South America","local_name":"taī","source_term":"Schwirrgerät / Schwirrholz / bullroarer","source_language":"German / English extraction","object_description":"","function_summary":"Toy and child-frightening use; presented to children as the voice of thunder (kaná-wanög); Zerries reads the deceased-impersonator paired with the roarer as the survival of an older initiation.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"zerries1953","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://etnolinguistica.wdfiles.com/local--files/biblio%3Azerries-1953-bullroarer/Zerries_1953_TheBullroarerAmongSAmerIndians.pdf","page_or_plate":"Tessmann 1930:152 (Schwirrholz \"taī\" + thunder-voice \"kaná-wanög\"); 139 (maya/tsinkati whirring sticks; Taf. 16 Fig. 2 = tsinkati); 147 (\"Keine Kultfeste. ... Keine Masken.\"); via Zerries 1953:287, 297","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Regional anchor; a survival, with exact ritual status uncertain.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Kashibo of northeastern Peru the bull-roarer, called taī, was a toy for the half-grown children and was whirled at the little ones to frighten them when they were naughty; to the children it was named as the voice of thunder, kaná-wanög, and it was the father who carved it. Günter Tessmann, whose 1930 fieldwork is the source here, recorded two further buzzing sticks kept alongside it — the hollow maya and the solid tsinkati, the latter likewise swung to scare children — and, in the same breath, a man called otanõ who veiled himself in palm leaves with a calabash on his head to play a dead man at the naughty children. In that pairing of roaring wood and dead-man bogey Otto Zerries saw the wreck of an older initiation, in which bush-spirits had been impersonated by mask and roaring wood.","pull_quote":"Die kleinen werden auch durch Schreckmittel eingeschüchtert. Eins ist das auch als Spiel verwendete Schwirrholz = taī. Ein spitz zulaufendes Stück Holz ist an einer Schnur und diese an einem Stock befestigt.","pull_quote_translation":"The little ones are also cowed with frightening devices. One of them is the bullroarer, taī, also used as a game. A tapering piece of wood is fastened to a cord, and the cord to a stick.","pull_quote_cite":"Tessmann 1930:152 (Kashibo chapter, rubric 71)","term_gloss":"taī = Kashibo name for the bull-roarer; kaná-wanög = \"thunder voice\", what children are told the sound is; maya = hollow whirring stick; tsinkati = solid whirring stick (both stick-whirrers distinct from the bull-roarer proper); otanõ = the man disguised as a dead man to frighten children.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation","weather","toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Günter Tessmann, Die Indianer Nordost-Perus: Grundlegende Forschungen für eine systematische Kulturkunde (Hamburg: Friederichsen, de Gruyter, 1930), p. 152 (Kashibo chapter); Otto Zerries, 'The Bull-roarer among South American Indians,' Revista do Museu Paulista n.s. 7 (1953)","url":"https://etnolinguistica.wdfiles.com/local--files/biblio%3Azerries-1953-bullroarer/Zerries_1953_TheBullroarerAmongSAmerIndians.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260420134455/https://etnolinguistica.wdfiles.com/local--files/biblio%3Azerries-1953-bullroarer/Zerries_1953_TheBullroarerAmongSAmerIndians.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Günter Tessmann, Die Indianer Nordost-Perus: Grundlegende Forschungen für eine systematische Kulturkunde (Hamburg: Friederichsen, de Gruyter, 1930), p. 152 (Kashibo chapter); Otto Zerries, 'The Bull-roarer among South American Indians,' Revista do Museu Paulista n.s. 7 (1953)","source_display":"Günter Tessmann, Die Indianer Nordost-Perus: Grundlegende Forschungen für eine systematische Kulturkunde (Hamburg: Friederichsen, de Gruyter, 1930), p. 152 (Kashibo chapter); Otto Zerries, 'The Bull-roarer among South American Indians,' Revista do Museu Paulista n.s. 7 (1953)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Toy and child-frightening use; presented to children as the voice of thunder (kaná-wanög); Zerries reads the deceased-impersonator paired with the roarer as the survival of an older initiation.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"kashibo","display_name":"Kashibo taī, the voice of thunder","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-084_mqb_71-1980-61-50_matsigenka.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-084_mqb_71-1980-61-50_matsigenka_thumb.jpg","alt":"A red-stained Matsigenka child’s wooden bullroarer from the Río Urubamba, tapering at both ends, with scattered small surface holes and no attached cord.","credit":"© Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac","license":"N/A","source_page":"https://collections.quaibranly.fr/#/objet/185049","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A red-stained Matsigenka child's bullroarer from the Río Urubamba, its cord now lost.","pool_id":"auto-MUS2026-084_mqb_71-1980-61-50_matsigenka","auto_assigned":true},"slug":"sa-z1953-021-kashibo"}