Bongo bamboo-midrib bullroarer pair

Source term: vinare / bullroarer

vinare: the Swedish museum term for a bullroarer.

It was swung over the head at religious ceremonies, and a whirring sound rose out of the air. The instrument was nothing more than the midrib of a bamboo leaf, a hand's length of it, with a cord four feet long knotted to one end — that, and the skill of the arm. It came to Stockholm with the collection of Efraim Andersson, a Swedish missionary who spent decades in the Congo forests, and it arrived with a smaller twin the museum measured but never described. Where either was made, and who swung them, is not written on the cards.

Snöret är fastbundet i ena änden av bambustycket. Vinaren svingas sedan över huvudet och ett vinande ljud uppstår. Används vid religiösa ceremonier.

The cord is tied fast at one end of the piece of bamboo. The bullroarer is then swung over the head and a whirring sound arises. Used at religious ceremonies.

Etnografiska museet, Stockholm, catalogue record 1993.06.0210

Particulars

Object

Two bamboo bullroarers. The first is the midrib of a bamboo leaf, 29 cm long, 4 cm high and 3.8 cm wide, with a cord about 120 cm long tied to one end. The second, of bamboo and wood, is 25 cm long, 3 cm high and 3 cm wide.

Function

Sounded at religious ceremonies.