The Bullroarer Atlas

No. CAPELL1951-001

Sonsorol buzzing-wood toy

Sonsorol (Songosor · Dongosaro), Southwest Islands of Palau · Oceania · Micronesia

Play / practical

Bone and shell finds from Pig Bay, numbered 1–6; the long flat bone item at left, marked 1, is identified as a possible kōrorohū bullroarer.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. Bone and shell items from Pig Bay; the bullroarer Image source

faurijeŋ; faurien

Source term: A toy bullroarer; buzzing wood (only a toy)

faurijeŋ (Capell) / faurien (Eilers): toy bullroarer, "buzzing wood."

On Sonsorol the bullroarer was a plaything. The islanders called it faurien or faurijeŋ, "buzzing wood, only a toy." Sonsorol is a low island of the Southwest Islands, more than three hundred kilometres from the main Palau group, and its people speak a language of the central Carolines rather than Palauan. Pulo Anna, the next island to the south, had its own word for the bullroarer: zorien.

Particulars

Object
A wooden buzzing toy; form, size and cord not recorded.
Function
A plaything; no other use recorded.

Sources

  1. A. Capell, Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of Sonsorol-Tobi (1951; Oceania Linguistic Monographs 12, Sydney, 1969), p. 118 View
  2. Anneliese Eilers, Westkarolinen: Songosor, Pur (Hamburg, 1935), Songosor p. 64; English translation by Carmen C. H. Petrosian-Husa (2017) View · archived

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.