The Bullroarer Atlas

HASSAN1980-001 - ethnomusicology monograph

Erbil Turkmens

Iraq - Erbil Governorate - Iraqi Kurdistan - Near East - Mesopotamia

Play / practical

Representative—not this record’s object: a Saharan Arab bull-roarer (‘SAYID’) in the Pitt Rivers Museum, shown for the general Arab-world form;...
Representative—not this record’s object: a Saharan Arab bull-roarer (‘SAYID’) in the Pitt Rivers Museum, shown for the general Arab-world form; Hassan’s figure 8 remains in copyright. © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 2005.61.1) Image source

warwara / wighwagha / gafgafa French

Source term: rhombe

warwara, wighwagha, and gafgafa are sound-imitating Erbil Turkmen names; no literal gloss is given.

The Turkmen children of Erbil named the bullroarer after its own drone: warwara, wighwagha, gafgafa. In Scheherazade Qassim Hassan's survey of Iraqi instruments — the only systematic one ever made, built on fieldwork across the country in the early 1970s — it is a plain rectangular board, drilled once at the end for its cord, drawn complete with its rig in her figure 8. She is equally plain about its station: children make it themselves, adults do not touch it, and no magic attaches to it.

Une planchette rectangulaire en bois ... un orifice est percé à l'une des extrémités pour permettre le passage d'une cordelette.

A rectangular wooden board ... is pierced at one end to pass a small cord.

Hassan 1980, pp. 47-48, fig. 8.
Object
Rectangular wooden board with one perforation at one end for a cord; Hassan's Fig. 8 shows the whole rig.
Function
Children's toy, made by children; not used by adults and not invested with magic.
Map confidence
high - Erbil named directly for the Turkmen terms; city anchor, not a player or object findspot.
Source location
pp. 47-48, fig. 8; p. 96

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