FEKETE1922-001 - primary ethnography
Hajdúszoboszló, Hajdú county
Hajdú district, Kingdom of Hungary - Central Europe
Play / practical
zúgattyú (Fekete's Hajdúszoboszló term); regional synonyms búgató (Csallóköz), búgattyú (Alföld/Great Plain), bungató (Balaton), zungatyú (Heves), per Tolnai 1920 Hungarian
Source term: zúgattyú
zúgattyú: Hungarian, 'the buzzing/droning thing,' from zúg 'to hum, buzz, roar' plus an instrumental suffix; regional synonyms recorded by Tolnai include búgató (Csallóköz), búgattyú (the Great Plain/Alföld), bungató (Lake Balaton), and zungatyú (Heves) — all onomatopoeic.
A board thin as a shingle, pierced at one end and tied to a meter of cord: swing it in a wide circle and it spins on its own long axis, rising into a drone. Péter Fekete grew up whirling one like this on Hungary's Great Plain at Hajdúszoboszló, careful even as a boy to keep it separate from two other backyard buzzers — a button and a drilled cane rod, both spun on twisted thread — that hummed by pinching rather than swinging. Neighboring regions called the same board búgató, bungató, or zungatyú.
Másfél-kétaraszos deszkalemez, szélessége három-négyujjnyi, vastagsága lehető csekély... keskeny végén vagy lyuk van, vagy egy kis nyélszerü nyakacska, melyre fél vagy egész méter jóféle madzag köthető... Már most a madzag szabad véginél, vagy a nyelénél fogva az egészet nagy körben forgatják, hajtják, miközben a falemez hosszanti tengelye körül sebesen pörögve zúgó, búgó hangot hallat.
A board one-and-a-half to two spans long, three to four fingers wide, as thin as possible... at its narrow end there is either a hole or a small neck-like handle, to which half a meter or a full meter of good cord can be tied... Now, holding the cord's free end or its handle, the whole thing is swung in a big circle, driven around, while the board, spinning rapidly about its long axis, gives off a droning, humming sound.
Tolnai Vilmos, 'Zúgattyú,' Ethnographia 31 (1920), p. 114, quoted and reprised by H. Fekete Péter, 'Zugattyú-bogattyó,' Ethnographia 33 (1922), p. 104, recalling his own Hajdúszoboszló boyhood.
- Object
- A hardwood board about one-and-a-half to two spans long (roughly 30-50 cm), three to four fingers wide, thin as a stout book cover, its edges usually parallel though a well-made example narrows paddle-like toward one end; the narrow end carries either a hole or a small neck, to which half a meter to a meter of cord is tied.
- Function
- Held by the cord's free end or a handle and driven in a wide circle so the board spins rapidly about its own long axis, giving off a rising droning hum; Fekete recalled it from his own Hajdúszoboszló boyhood and explicitly distinguished it from two other, unrelated two-hole button/rod buzzers spun on twisted thread.
- Map confidence
- high - Hajdúszoboszló town center, Hajdú-Bihar county, Hungary — the town Fekete names as his own childhood setting.
- Source location
- Fekete 1922, Ethnographia 33:104; Tolnai 1920, Ethnographia 31:113-114
- Toy / secular survival