The Bullroarer Atlas

INC1978-001 - secondary catalog

Shipibo-Conibo

Peru - Yarinacocha - Ucayali - South America - Upper Amazon

Function not recorded

Representative—not this record’s object: Chacobo bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet.
Representative—not this record’s object: Chacobo bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. Etnografiska museet, Stockholm (1913.11.0128) CC BY 4.0 Image source

Source term: palo zumbador

palo zumbador: Spanish catalogue term for the cord-whirled free aerophone; no Shipibo-Conibo name recovered.

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. Peru's national survey of popular instruments recorded this palo zumbador — the 'buzzing stick' — among 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.
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
Occurrence documented; use not recorded.
Map confidence
medium_high - Laguna Yarinacocha source-area anchor: the bibliography names a 1975 field notebook there, while the instrument entry names only Shipibo-Conibo.
Source location
printed pp. 461-462

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