BORMIDA1978-001 - ethnographic attestation
Ayoreo palo zumbador, one of three
Paraguay; Bolivia - Chaco Boreal - South America
Play / practical
Source term: palo zumbador; zumbador de juguete
The Ayoreo of the northern Chaco kept only three instruments: a square wooden whistle, a single idiophone and the bullroarer. Of the three, the bullroarer had passed wholly into childhood. Among the boys, who slept together and built themselves little huts, a long slat tied at one end was whirled through the air for its familiar roar, while among the adults it had fallen completely out of use.
Los ayoreo poseen tan sólo tres instrumentos musicales: un aerófono (el silbato cuadrangular de madera), el zumbador de juguete ya mencionado y un idiófono.
The Ayoreo own only three musical instruments: an aerophone (the square wooden whistle), the toy bullroarer already mentioned, and an idiophone.
Bórmida and Califano 1978, reprinted in Zanardini 2003, p. 174
- Object
- An elongated slat tied at one end and whirled in the air.
- Function
- A boys' toy, entirely out of use among adults.
- Source
- Marcelo Bórmida and Mario Califano, Los indios ayoreo del Chaco Boreal: información básica acerca de su cultura (Buenos Aires: FECIC, 1978); reprinted in José Zanardini (ed.), Cultura del pueblo Ayoreo: manual para los docentes (Biblioteca Paraguaya de Antropología 44; Asunción, 2003), pp. 150-151, 174
- Source location
Page references
Zanardini 2003 reprint, pp. 150-151 (palo zumbador), p. 174 (three instruments)
- Source confidence
- low to medium
- Location note
- Ayoreo territory in the northern Paraguayan Chaco Boreal; the source names no community.
Regions: The Americas
- Toy / secular survival