The Bullroarer Atlas

LIMA1971-001 - ethnographic attestation

Recomendação das Almas group of São Manuel

Brazil - São Manuel, São Paulo - South America

Sacred / spirit

Representative—not this record’s object: a painted Wauja bullroarer from Brazil.
Representative—not this record’s object: a painted Wauja bullroarer from Brazil. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (25/4970) Image source
Ajoukuma Wauja's supernatural matapu-kuma: fish-spirit blade, cord, and long whirling pole.
Ajoukuma Wauja's supernatural matapu-kuma: fish-spirit blade, cord, and long whirling pole. Ajoukuma Wauja, drawing of matapu-kuma (2000), in Aristoteles Barcelos Neto 2021, fig. 9 CC BY 4.0 Image source

berra-boi Portuguese

berra-boi = local name in the São Manuel field report

On Lenten nights in São Manuel, praying bands walked the streets and back roads to plead for the souls trapped in purgatory, and the low hum of a whirled board — the berra-boi — carried ahead of them, doubled by the clack of a matraca. In the end the town gave the instrument up out of dread: people swore that even after Lent had passed its eerie whistling kept sounding on into the dark, until the very players who swung it grew afraid.

o berra-boi, feito de tabuinha com barbante amarrado na extremidade, que rodada no ar produz forte zumbido

the berra-boi, made from a small board with string tied at the end, which when rotated in the air produces a strong hum

Rossini Tavares de Lima, 'Folclore paulista' (1971), pp. 47–71, section 'Grupo religioso'
Object
Small board with cord tied at the end, rotated in the air for a strong hum.
Function
Instrument used in the local Recomendação das Almas alongside a matraca.
Map confidence
high - São Manuel municipal-seat anchor; the field report identifies the municipality but not a route coordinate.
Source location
pp. 47–71, section 'Grupo religioso'

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