The Bullroarer Atlas

HAD1898-043 - secondary catalog

East Derbyshire, England

United Kingdom - East Derbyshire - England - Europe - British Isles

Play / practical

Haddon’s East Derbyshire bummer, fig. 38 no. 5.
Haddon’s East Derbyshire bummer, fig. 38 no. 5. · Public domain Image source
Haddon's full plate of bullroarers from the British Islands.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Haddon's full plate of bullroarers from the British Islands. · Public domain Image source

bummer / buzzer English

bummer / buzzer: East Derbyshire sound-names for the bull-roarer; 'buzzer' here names the cord-whirled slat itself, not the doubled-cord spinning toy.

Nearly every English bullroarer Alfred Haddon handled had its string through a drilled hole; the one he got from East Derbyshire did not. Its cord is tied into a nick cut in each side near the squared end, and only the far half of the slat, down to its rounded tip, is toothed - a plano-convex board just over ten inches long. Boys there whirled it on that side-lashed cord, and the noise it made earned both of its local names: 'bummer' and 'buzzer.'

In East Derbyshire it is known as a 'bummer' or 'buzzer.' My Derbyshire specimen is plano-convex, the string end is square and the other rounded.

A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), pp. 278-280
Object
Haddon's own East Derbyshire specimen: a plano-convex wooden slat, 257 x 47 mm, square at the string end and rounded at the free end; the single cord is tied into a nick cut in each side near one end, and only the opposite half and the free end are serrated (Fig. 38 no. 5).
Function
A boys' whirring toy; the East Derbyshire names 'bummer' and 'buzzer' record its sound.
Map confidence
high - East Derbyshire regional anchor (Chesterfield-Alfreton-Bolsover belt); Haddon localizes the specimen only to 'East Derbyshire'.
Source location
pp. 278-280; Fig. 38 no. 5

View source Open this point on the interactive map