GRIGSON1938-001 - ethnographic attestation

Hill Maria (Abujhmarh Maria)

Abujhmarh, Bastar State - Central Provinces - South Asia - Central India

Play / practical

In the Abujhmarh hills the Hill Maria boys' roarer is called *ait*: a strip of split bamboo, one end sharpened and notched just below the point to take a bark string. The string loops round a finger and the blade goes round counter-clockwise until it roars. It is never pierced — where the roarers of Chota Nagpur are drilled and swung from a whip-handle, the Bastar blade is only notched, and spins from the fingers. There is no rite in it, no secret and no spirit. The *ait* sits with the spinning-top and the jew's-harp among the handful of amusements open to Hill Maria youth.

…the bull-roarers, which Hill Maria boys call ait and make of a strip of split bamboo, pointing one end and notching it near the point for a bark string, with which, looped round one finger, they whirl the bull-roarer round counter-clockwise.

W. V. Grigson, The Maria Gonds of Bastar (1938), p. 183

Object

A strip of split bamboo, one end pointed and notched near the point to take a bark string; the string is looped round one finger and the blade whirled counter-clockwise. Grigson notes that none of the examples made for him were holed at the bottom.

Function

A boys' toy, made on request at various camps and whirled for the noise; Grigson found no religious or magical use for it, and lists it among the few recreations of Hill Maria youth alongside spinning-tops and the jew's-harp.

Map confidence

medium_high - Abujhmarh hills centroid, Narayanpur district, Chhattisgarh; Grigson gives no single village for the bull-roarers, which he saw made at several camps.

Source location

Page references

Grigson 1938, p. 183 (printed index: 'Bull-roarers, 183.'; running head 'DANCING 183'); also p. 187 (running head 'RECKONING TIME 187'); glossary entry for ait

• Toy / secular survival

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