Nordeste Brazil folk rói-rói (zunidor)

rói-rói (Nordeste) / zunidor (Rio de Janeiro) / berra-boi / sonidor / zumbidor

Source term: zumbidor; rói-rói (Nordeste)

Onomatopoeic Portuguese folk names for the whirled board — rói-rói in the Nordeste, zunidor ("buzzer," from zunir, to whir) in Rio de Janeiro, with sonidor, zumbidor, and berra-boi ("ox-beller") alongside.

Etymology. Berra-boi is the ox-beller, from berrar, to bellow, and boi, ox: named for a sound like the lowing of an ox or the creak of an ox-cart.

In the open-air markets of the Brazilian Northeast the whirled board is sold as a children's toy: a scrap of wood, bone or plastic tied to the end of a cord, that hums when swung overhead. Câmara Cascudo, cataloguing it in his Dicionário do Folclore Brasileiro, sorts its names by region: in the Nordeste it is the rói-rói, while zunidor is its name in Rio de Janeiro; sonidor, zumbidor, and berra-boi run alongside, several of them onomatopoeic for the lowing of an ox or the creak of an ox-cart. Farther south, as the berra-boi, the same whirled board goes out in Lent and Holy Week with the Encomendação das Almas, the nighttime soul-commendation in which penitents pass through houses, cemeteries, and crossroads asking prayers for the dead.

No Nordeste do Brasil vê-se muito em feiras e tem diversos nomes: rói-rói, sonidor, zumbidor, zunidor.

In the Northeast of Brazil it is seen a great deal at the markets and goes by various names: rói-rói, sonidor, zumbidor, zunidor.

MUSIS organology reference, s.v. "berra-boi"

Particulars

Object

A scrap of wood, or a plate of bone, ivory, metal or plastic, on the end of a cord, sounding as it is whirled in a circle.

Function

Children's plaything and noisemaker, sold at the feiras.