No. CHENG2015-002
Puyuma childhood bullroarer, Katratripulr
Taiwan · Katratripulr (Zhiben), Taitung · East Asia
Play / practical
Sangpuy Katatepan of Katratripulr, the Puyuma community at Zhiben, remembered the instrument from his own childhood: a thin slip of bamboo on a string, tied to a bamboo stick and swung until it sounded. 'That was a toy during our childhood,' he told the ethnomusicologist Jen-hao Cheng in 2009 — and then turned the question around: 'Can it be regarded as a musical instrument?' Among the Puyuma, he confirmed, it was a plaything.
Our Puyuma children also play a similar instrument.
Sangpuy Katatepan, interview with L. J. Cheng, 10 Aug 2009; Cheng 2015, printed p. 899
Particulars
- Object
- A thin slip of bamboo tied by one string to a bamboo handstick, swung by the string.
- Function
- Remembered childhood toy.
Source
Lancini Jen-hao Cheng, Taxonomies of Taiwanese Aboriginal Musical Instruments (PhD thesis, University of Otago, 2015), interview with Sangpuy Katatepan, 10 Aug 2009