The Bullroarer Atlas

ANATOLIA-003 - museum specimen

Eldivon, Çankırı (Turkey)

Turkey - Cankiri - Eldivon - Europe - Anatolia

Play / practical

Two pale wooden slats hanging in a display case, their edges cut into saw-teeth, rounded tops pierced for twisted cords, and faces pricked with...
Representative image. Two pale wooden slats hanging in a display case, their edges cut into saw-teeth, rounded tops pierced for twisted cords, and faces pricked with dotted animal figures — European folk instruments shown for comparison; not the fırıldak collected by Picken at Eldivon, Çankırı. Léna, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 Image source

fırıldak / vırıldak / kıcırdak Turkish terms in English catalog

Source term: Bullroarer

Turkish names for the spinning blade. Fırıldak is the everyday word for a whirligig, pinwheel, weathervane or spinning top, built on the root fır- (to whirl); vırıldak and kıcırdak are onomatopoeic siblings, formed on Turkish sound-roots for a whirring and a creaking, grating noise.

Etymology. The Cambridge/Picken labels record `firildak`, `virildak`, and `kicirdak` for Turkish rotating-blade bullroarers. The secure lexical gloss is for Turkish `fırıldak`, a whirligig or spinning toy; the other variants remain name evidence pending direct Picken page work. (medium confidence)

Three toothed wooden bullroarers from Eldivan in Çankırı province, made by local children — the plate in Laurence Picken's Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey names İsmail, Hasan and Ahmet Sarıca — from wood already dressed rather than worked from the rough, which is why, Picken notes, they are not entirely typical of the region's make. The names he recorded are toy-words: fırıldak, the everyday Turkish term for a whirligig, pinwheel or weathervane, with its onomatopoeic siblings vırıldak and kıcırdak. Each blade is cut with teeth along its edge, so the whirling strip of wood bites the air rather than slicing it cleanly; spun on a cord at arm's length, the toy's circle is sized to the child swinging it.

Bullroarers (firildak, virildak, kicirdak). All three toothed.

Cambridge MAA, accession 1977.220 (object record)
Object
Toothed rotating-blade bullroarer, MAA 1977.220, from the Picken Turkish folk-instrument collection.
Function
Made by local children: Picken says so of these very blades — plate 31a i–iii, the work of İsmail, Hasan and Ahmet Sarıca, cut from previously dressed wood — and his fırıldak entry describes the toy whirled on its cord at arm's length, its circle sized to the child (Picken 1975:368, 371-372).
Map confidence
medium - Eldivon town/area representative anchor.
Source location
MAA 1977.220; Picken 1975, Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey, plate 31a i-iii and pp.370ff cited by catalog

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