The Bullroarer Atlas

No. INC1978-001

Shipibo-Conibo palo zumbador Yarinacocha

Peru · Yarinacocha · Ucayali · South America · Upper Amazon

Function not recorded

A red-stained Matsigenka child’s wooden bullroarer from the Río Urubamba, tapering at both ends, with scattered small surface holes and no attached cord.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. Red-stained wooden rhombe made for a Matsigenka child, Río Urubamba. Image source

Source term: palo zumbador

palo zumbador: Spanish catalogue term for the cord-whirled free aerophone.

A small wooden blade, grooved or pierced at one end and tied by a long cord to a stick: swept in a circle, it spun on its own axis and filled the air with a hum. This palo zumbador — the 'buzzing stick' — belongs to the Shipibo-Conibo, the riverine designers of the Ucayali, whose healers sing medicine songs said to follow the same maze-like kené patterns they paint on cloth, pottery and skin.

Palo Zumbador. Localizacion Cultural: Shipibo-Conibo. PANO.

Palo Zumbador. Cultural location: Shipibo-Conibo. Pano.

Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Mapa de los instrumentos musicales de uso popular en el Peru (1978), p. 462.

Particulars

Object
Small lamina with a terminal groove or hole tied by cord to a stick and whirled in a circle so it turns through the air and hums.
Function
Not recorded.

Source

Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Mapa de los instrumentos musicales de uso popular en el Perú (1978), pp. 461-462

View the source · archived

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.