Toba healing roarer calls the Nowet

Source term: placa zumbadora

piogonak: Toba shaman. Nowet: helper spirits. cháguar: a bromeliad whose fibre the Chaco peoples twist into cord.

When a Toba piogonak set out to heal, the shaman whirled a light wooden board, cut like a long leaf or a fish and hung on a cháguar-fibre cord as long as a man is tall. Its roar called the Nowet, the helper spirits, to the cure. Something that could reach that kind of power was not for small hands: among the Toba, children were not allowed to use it. The same people had another weather-turning whirler, a forked sling that flung its stick free; the healing board stayed on its cord.

convoca mediante su ejecución a los Nowet -espíritus auxiliares- durante sus rituales terapéuticos

by playing it, he summons the Nowet, the helper spirits, during his healing rituals

Rubén Pérez Bugallo, Catálogo ilustrado de instrumentos musicales argentinos (1993), p. 129

Particulars

Object

A light wooden board shaped like a long leaf or a fish, up to about 40 × 10 cm, pierced at one end for a cháguar-fibre cord about 1.5 m long.

Function

Sounded by the piogonak (shaman) in healing rites to summon the Nowet, his helper spirits; because of its tie to sacred power, children were not allowed to use it.