The Bullroarer Atlas

No. DAMM1938-001

Ifaluk legawüliwuli coconut-leaf bullroarer toy

Federated States of Micronesia · Ifaluk Atoll, Central Caroline Islands (Yap State) · Oceania

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

legawüliwuli

Source term: Schwirrholz

legawüliwuli: Ifaluk name for the coconut-leaf bullroarer toy (Damm 1938, p. 96); the source gives no etymology.

On Ifaluk, a low coral atoll in the central Carolines, the toys came from the coconut palm: a ball, a toy bow, little boats, a whistle of coconut leaf, a windmill of leaf strips turning on a coconut-rib axle, and a bullroarer of coconut leaf, the legawüliwuli.

Schwirrholz (legawüliwuli) aus Kokosblatt

A bullroarer (legawüliwuli) made of coconut leaf

Damm 1938, Zentralkarolinen II, p. 96

Particulars

Object
A bullroarer made from coconut leaf.
Function
A plaything.

Source

Hans Damm (with E. Sarfert), Zentralkarolinen II: Ifaluk, Aurepik, Faraulip, Sorol, Mogemog, Ergebnisse der Südsee-Expedition 1908–1910, II B 10, part 2 (Hamburg: Friederichsen, de Gruyter, 1938), p. 96

View the source

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