CROVETTO1968-001 - primary ethnography
Mbyá-Guaraní
Argentina - South America - Paraná-Misiones
Play / practical
waimí kerambú Spanish
Source term: palo zumbador; first of two toys called waimí kerambú
waimí kerambú = 'vieja roncadora' (old snoring woman); applied to both the corded blade and a twist disc.
The Mbyá of the Misiones forest cut this roarer from a bamboo internode and named it waimí kerambú — 'the old snoring woman.' A slat of takuára some twenty centimetres long, pierced at one end and whirled on two metres of cord, it gave a deep, loud hum; Martínez-Crovetto, recording Mbyá games in the 1960s, is emphatic that men and boys made it solely to amuse the smallest children — a toy, not a musical instrument. The same name covered a second humming toy, a twist-spun disc cut from a gourd.
"Waimí kerambú" quiere decir "vieja roncadora" y los dos elementos que hemos descripto, conocidos bajo este nombre, se utilizan como juguetes y no como instrumentos musicales.
'Waimí kerambú' means 'old snoring woman', and the two objects described under this name are used as toys, not as musical instruments.
Martínez-Crovetto, 'Juegos y deportes de los indios guaraníes de Misiones,' Etnobiológica 6 (1968), p. 18.
- Object
- Bamboo (takuára/takuarusú) lamina about 20 by 3 cm, perforated at one end and spun from a cord about 2 m long. Figure 3A.
- Function
- Made by men and boys solely to amuse younger children; explicitly a toy, not a musical instrument.
- Map confidence
- high - Misiones province cultural-area anchor; source names no community.
- Source location
- p. 18 and Fig. 3A
- Toy / secular survival