HASSAN1980-001 - ethnomusicology monograph
Erbil Turkmen warwara bullroarer
Iraq - Erbil Governorate - Iraqi Kurdistan - Near East - Mesopotamia
Play / practical
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
Page references
pp. 47-48, fig. 8; p. 96
- Toy / secular survival