{"id":"SCHMELTZ1896-001","label":"Java kitiran child toy bullroarer analogue","people_or_site":"Java","country_current":"Indonesia","historic_region":"Java","macroregion":"Southeast Asia / Indonesia","local_name":"Kitiran","source_term":"Kitiran / Schwirrholz","source_language":"German","object_description":"A thin bamboo stick split halfway down its length, the split halves faced with brown paper and a square of tin, tied by a thread to a thicker, longer bamboo handle; swung on its thread exactly as a Schwirrholz is, and to the same effect (Leiden 625/2).","function_summary":"A children's toy, whirled on its thread like a bullroarer.","attestation_type":"related_instrument","source_key":"schmeltz1896_schwirrholz","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/Verh-Ver-Naturwiss-Unterh-Hamburg_9_0092-0128.pdf","page_or_plate":"Schmeltz 1896 pp. 102-103; plate fig. 24","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Java island regional anchor; source gives Java and a Leiden museum object number, not a collection village or use locality","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Surveying bullroarers worldwide in 1896, the ethnographer J. D. E. Schmeltz found only two in the whole Malay Archipelago: a Toba-Batak toy from Sumatra, and a Javanese children's plaything called the kitiran. He worked from an object in the Ethnographical Museum at Leiden, no. 625/2: a thin bamboo stick split halfway down its length, the split halves faced with brown paper cut to a truncated pyramid and marked with two red wavy lines, a square of tin slid onto the rest and tied by a thread to a thicker, longer piece of bamboo. Javanese children had many names for it: kitiran, oewoeng-oewoengan or koembangan in Central Java, and around Banyuwangi in the east oewèr-oewèran, after its whirr, or matjan-matjanan, a name that recalled the tiger.","pull_quote":"Die Behandlung ist die gleiche wie beim Schwirrholz und auch die erzielte Wirkung stimmt mit der desselben überein.","pull_quote_translation":"The handling is the same as with the bullroarer, and the effect produced agrees with it as well.","pull_quote_cite":"Schmeltz 1896:103 (Das Schwirrholz. Versuch einer Monographie)","term_gloss":"Kitiran: a Javanese term for a spinning or whirling toy, and one of the Central Javanese names for the bullroarer, beside oewoeng-oewoengan and koembangan; around Banyuwangi in the east it was oewèr-oewèran, an imitation of its sound, or matjan-matjanan, a name that recalled the tiger (Brandts Buys and Brandts Buys-van Zijp 1926:328).","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,"etymology":"Kitiran is the Javanese name of the toy windmill that the wind sets spinning in the trees; in Central Java it was also, less aptly, a name for the whirled bullroarer toy.","literal_gloss":"spinning / whirling toy","semantic_cluster":"spinning; toy","etymology_confidence":"medium","sources":[{"citation":"J. D. E. Schmeltz, Das Schwirrholz; Versuch einer Monographie, Verhandlungen des Vereins fur naturwissenschaftliche Unterhaltung zu Hamburg 9 (1896): 92-128; Zobodat public PDF","url":"https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/Verh-Ver-Naturwiss-Unterh-Hamburg_9_0092-0128.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260915023629/https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/Verh-Ver-Naturwiss-Unterh-Hamburg_9_0092-0128.pdf"}],"source_citations":"J. D. E. Schmeltz, Das Schwirrholz; Versuch einer Monographie, Verhandlungen des Vereins fur naturwissenschaftliche Unterhaltung zu Hamburg 9 (1896): 92-128; Zobodat public PDF","source_display":"J. D. E. Schmeltz, Das Schwirrholz; Versuch einer Monographie, Verhandlungen des Vereins fur naturwissenschaftliche Unterhaltung zu Hamburg 9 (1896): 92-128; Zobodat public PDF","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A thin bamboo stick split halfway down its length, the split halves faced with brown paper and a square of tin, tied by a thread to a thicker, longer bamboo handle; swung on its thread exactly as a Schwirrholz is, and to the same effect (Leiden 625/2).","function_display":"A children's toy, whirled on its thread like a bullroarer.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"related instrument","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"java","display_name":"Java kitiran child toy bullroarer analogue","image":{"full":"assets/objects/SCHMELTZ1896-001.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/SCHMELTZ1896-001_thumb.jpg","alt":"Schmeltz’s numbered comparative plate of carved boards, cords and spinning toys; figure 24 is the Javanese kitiran.","credit":"J. D. E. Schmeltz, 'Das Schwirrholz' (Verh. naturf. Ges. Bd. IX, 1896), Tafel","license":"Public domain (published 1896)","source_page":"https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Schmeltz’s 1896 comparative plate of bullroarers and spinning toys; fig. 24 is this Javanese kitiran."},"slug":"schmeltz1896-001-java"}