Mackenzie River mouth BM Am1929-0412-54

Source term: bullroarer

A leaf-shaped wooden blade, notched down both edges, collected near the mouth of the Mackenzie River and now in the British Museum. Among the Western Arctic Inuit it was a child's noisemaker: a thin board hung on a length of sinew braid and swung until it gave off a loud whizzing roar. John Murdoch, who gathered such toys at Point Barrow on the international polar expedition of 1881-83, recorded the name as ĭmĭglúta and was emphatic that the thing carried no ritual weight — he never saw one in adult hands, and the specimen he brought home had been made for sale by a lad about thirteen or fourteen years old.

It is the well known “whizzing-stick” found among savages in so many widely distant parts of the world, and often used in religious ceremonies.

Murdoch 1892, Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition, p. 379

Particulars

Object

Carved leaf-shaped wooden bullroarer with notches down both sides

Function

Western Arctic Inuit child's whizzing-toy (imigluta); no ritual significance per Murdoch