Michoacán bunfador, the purring board

bunfador

bunfador: Michoacán name for the bullroarer. zumbador: 'hummer', the general Mexican Spanish name.

Swung on a metre or more of cord, the bunfador spins on its own axis as it flies and purrs like an animal. In the mestizo villages of Michoacán it is a small wooden board, sometimes whittled to a spear point, with the cord run through a hole at one end. It has kin across Mexico, the zumbador of the Seri in Sonora and of the Maya in Yucatán: different names for the same free-spinning voice.

produce un sonido semejante al ronroneo de algún animal

it makes a sound like the purring of some animal

Juan Guillermo Contreras, 'México. VI. Organología,' Diccionario de la música española e hispanoamericana 7 (2000), p. 531

Particulars

Object

A small wooden board, sometimes sharpened to a spear point, tied through a hole at one end to a cord of 1 to 1.5 m; it turns on its own axis as it is whirled.

Function

Not recorded.