The Bullroarer Atlas

HAD1898-009 - secondary catalog

Point Barrow Eskimo toy bullroarer

United States - Point Barrow, Alaska - North America - Arctic

Play / practical

Murdoch’s drawing of a Point Barrow whizzing stick with cord and wooden handle.
Murdoch’s drawing of a Point Barrow whizzing stick with cord and wooden handle. · Public domain Image source
A whale-shaped baleen imigdlugtaoq from Point Barrow, its serrated flukes at one end and the cord hole at the other.
A whale-shaped baleen imigdlugtaoq from Point Barrow, its serrated flukes at one end and the cord hole at the other. · Public domain Image source
A baleen bullroarer from Utkiavik — Van Valin's Wanamaker Expedition, 1919.
A baleen bullroarer from Utkiavik — Van Valin's Wanamaker Expedition, 1919. Image source
Murdoch's specimen itself: red-painted notch-edged blade and banded rod handle, inked 'Ooglaamie Apr 4 '83' (USNM E89800-0).
Murdoch's specimen itself: red-painted notch-edged blade and banded rod handle, inked 'Ooglaamie Apr 4 '83' (USNM E89800-0). Image source

Source term: bull-roarer

At Utkiavwĭñ, near Point Barrow, the naturalist John Murdoch obtained the well-known "whizzing-stick" the children often played with: a thin board of pine wood, painted with black lead and red ocher and fastened by about a foot of braided sinew to a slender rod that served as a handle. Swung rapidly round, it made a loud, whizzing sound. The Eskimo called it ĭmĭglúta. Murdoch knew the instrument as the one found in widely distant parts of the world and often used in religious ceremonies, but recorded that here it was nothing of the kind: "This appears to be purely a child's toy and has no mystical signification. I never saw one in the hands of an adult." The specimen (no. 89800), collected for the International Polar Expedition of 1881-1883, had been made and brought over for sale by a lad about thirteen or fourteen years old. Alfred Haddon later reproduced the Point Barrow example, citing Murdoch, in his 1898 survey of the bull-roarer.

It is the well known "whizzing-stick" found among savages in so many widely distant parts of the world, and often used in religious ceremonies. The Eskimo name is ĭmĭglúta. ... This appears to be purely a child's toy and has no mystical signification. I never saw one in the hands of an adult. This specimen was made and brought over for sale by a lad about thirteen or fourteen years old.

Murdoch 1892, "Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition," Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology:379, Fig. 377 (the "whizzing-stick," ĭmĭglúta)
Object
A thin board of pine, painted with black lead and red ocher, fastened by about a foot of braided sinew to a slender rod handle.
Function
Ellipsoidal notched bullroarer reported as a child's toy.
Map confidence
medium - representative coordinate for named people, place, or region in Haddon
Source location
Page references

p. 379, Fig. 377 ("Whizzing stick"; specimen no. 89800 [1331], Utkiavwĭñ)

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