FABREVASSAS1987-001 - ethnographic attestation
Modena frullo, the swineherds' whirled bone
Italy - Modena countryside, Emilia - Europe
Play / practical
frullo
Source term: frullo - 'l'os qui vire' (Fabre-Vassas 1987)
A bone on a cord, whirled until it hums — a sound likened to the rustle of the wings of a bird kept from flying. With the frullo the boy swineherds of the Modena plain drove pigs off the sown fields, scared away wild boar, and kept off the malefic beings that threatened herd and herdsman alike. Stock control and spirit control in one motion of the wrist.
Le vrombissement de l'os qui vire appele frullo dans la region de Modene... permet aux jeunes porchers d'ecarter les cochons des champs cultives, de faire fuir les sangliers et aussi les 'etres malfaisants' qui menacent le troupeau et son gardien.
The droning of the whirled bone called frullo in the Modena region... lets the young swineherds drive pigs away from the cultivated fields, put wild boar to flight, and also the 'malefic beings' that threaten the herd and its keeper.
Claudine Fabre-Vassas, 'Du cochon pour les morts,' Etudes rurales 105-106 (1987), printed p. 204, after Vecchi 1964
- Object
- A whirled bone on a cord. The hole position is not recorded.
- Function
- Herding and apotropaic in one motion: the frullo's hum drove pigs off the sown fields, put wild boar to flight, and repelled the 'etres malfaisants' - the malefic beings that threatened herd and herdsman alike.
- Source
- Claudine Fabre-Vassas, 'Du cochon pour les morts,' Etudes rurales 105-106 (1987): 181-212, transmitting Vecchi 1964: 157 for the Modena record
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 204 (folio '204' and running head 'CL. FABRE-VASSAS' verified on the rendered Persee page)
- Source confidence
- low to medium Modena anchor for the surrounding countryside named by the source.