The Bullroarer Atlas

BOLANOS1978-001 - ethnographic attestation

Huitoto Peruvian Amazon feather bullroarer

Peru - Peruvian Amazon - Loreto - South America

Play / practical

The pluma zumbadora drawn for Bolaños's 1978 survey: guan feathers bound to a cord and slender handstick.
The pluma zumbadora drawn for Bolaños's 1978 survey: guan feathers bound to a cord and slender handstick. Image source

pluma zumbadora Spanish

pluma zumbadora: Spanish source label for the feather bullroarer; no local-language term recovered.

Among bullroarers of wood and bone, the Huitoto whirled feathers: several guan feathers tied to one cord and a short handstick. No village, rite, or story was set down with it.

Kein Schwirrholz. ... Ein Spiel mit Penelopefedern, die an eine Schnur gebunden sind und die ein surrendes Geräusch geben, ist üblich.

No bullroarer. ... A game with Penelope (guan) feathers, tied to a cord, which give a whirring sound, is customary.

Günther Tessmann, Die Indianer Nordost-Perus (1930), p. 321 (Uitoto, rubric 47).
Object
Several Penelope (guan) feathers tied to a single cord and a small handstick.
Function
A customary game: guan feathers on a cord, whirled for their whirring sound. Tessmann records no wooden bullroarer for the Uitoto.
Map confidence
low - Representative Loreto / Peruvian Amazon anchor only; the 1978 survey names no community, river, or Huitoto subtype.
Source location
Page references

INC 1978 p. 461 (entry 3) and p. 462 (figure); Perez de Arce 2025 Fig. 1913

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