Buje boyhood bullroarer (Vigini reconstruction)

The Buje bullroarer survived because a museum man could not forget it. A. Vigini, preparator at Trieste's natural history museum, built Battaglia a copy of the toy of his boyhood in the Istrian Carso: a plain rectangular tablet, eighteen centimetres by five, cord knotted through a hole. He remembered the technique exactly — whirled vertically, arm stretched out before him, not swung overhead in the usual way — but the name, after a lifetime, was gone.

Il Vigini lo ricorda come un semplice balocco del quale dimenticò il nome.

Vigini remembers it as a simple toy whose name he forgot.

Battaglia 1925:210

Particulars

Object

Simple rectangular tablet, 18 x 5 cm, with a single cord tied through a hole.

Function

Simple boys' toy, whirled vertically with the arm stretched forward rather than horizontally overhead; its local name was already forgotten.