Kyrlyush, the Telengit humming plate

kyrlyush (кырлюш)

Source term: вращаемая гуделка-аэрофон (rotated hummer-aerophone)

kyrlyush (кырлюш): the Telengit name shared by two children's sound toys, the whirled wooden plate and a spinning vortex buzzer. abyrga (абырга): a trumpet used to call the maral stag. tezim tüngür (тезим тюнгюр): the shaman's drum.

A rectangular plate of wood, whirled until it hums, was one of the sound toys of Telengit children in the high valleys of the southeastern Altai. They called it kyrlyush, and gave the same name to a second toy, a spinning buzzer that once had a part in funeral rites. Both belonged to a herders' world full of working sounds: a trumpet to lure the maral stag, a willow whistle for the chipmunk, a call for the roe deer, bells on horses, cows and goats, a shepherd's rattling staff, and the shaman's drum, its handle carved as a human figure, for speaking with spirits.

вращаемая гуделка-аэрофон из прямоугольной деревянной пластины

a rotated hummer-aerophone made of a rectangular wooden plate

O. E. Dobzhanskaya, «Музыкальная культура», in Тюркские народы Сибири (2006), p. 530.

Particulars

Object

A rectangular wooden plate whirled to make it hum.

Function

Children's sound toy.