Roncal Valley shepherds

furrumbla (matalobos)

furrumbla: Roncal Valley name for the swung-tablet bullroarer, also called matalobos, "wolf-killer" — a name it shares with the poisonous plant aconite.

Etymology. furrumbla is the Roncal bullroarer name; the paired name matalobos explicitly means wolf-killer and frames the instrument as an animal-scarer.

In the Roncal Valley of eastern Navarre, shepherds carried a thin wooden tablet, three to five millimetres thick and cut in a great variety of shapes, with a fine cord fixed to one end; swung through the air it gave off an intermittent, penetrating drone said to carry some 250 metres to a human ear and farther still to a wolf's. In the Roncal they called it the furrumbla, or matalobos — "wolf-killer" — and used it to drive predators off the flock. The same name belongs to the plant aconite, the Aconitum napellus that Navarrese herders also called matalobos. Jose Miguel de Barandiaran, who recorded the related bramadera in the Basque country, judged that such a board "se debía de utilizar para espantar animales" ("must have been used to frighten animals off"). In Roncal the furrumbla outlasted its working life as a herder's tool and passed down to children as a plaything.

Un instrumento similar, luego de uso infantil, recibe en el Roncal (N) el nombre de furrumbla o matalobos.

A similar instrument, later used by children, is called furrumbla or matalobos in Roncal.

Atlas Etnografico de Vasconia, Ganaderia y pastoreo en Vasconia, p. 617, Burruna/Bramadera section

Particulars

Object

Thin wooden tablet (matalobos = wolf-killer) 3-5mm thick, swung on cord for intermittent penetrating sound; later relegated to children's toy.

Function

Wolf-scaring acoustic device (and later a child's plaything).