Malerualik miniature antler bullroarer

Source term: bull roarer / Svirrer

Svirrer: Danish 'whirrer', the National Museum of Denmark's catalogue term for a bullroarer.

House ruin 13 at Malerualik, on the south coast of King William Island, gave up a sliver of antler less than seven centimetres long and seven millimetres wide — flat, pointed, nicked along both edges, with a small knob at the butt where a cord would be tied. Therkel Mathiassen had no doubt what he was holding: a miniature, a toy version of the bullroarer used across the Inuit world, made small and made carefully. The house supplies only a broad Thule context, roughly AD 1000–1400; the object itself is not dated. Copenhagen still files it under a single Danish word: Svirrer, whirrer.

Pl. 84.9 (P 12.171) is a miniature specimen (toy) of the bull roarer so widely used among natives and many present-day Eskimo tribes; this small, carefully made specimen is of antler and quite flat.

Mathiassen 1927:319

Particulars

Object

Very small, carefully made antler blade, 6.9 x 0.7 cm, quite flat and pointed, notched along the edges, with a small knob at the butt end; Danish National Museum P12.171. Mathiassen calls it a miniature or toy specimen.

Function

A toy: Mathiassen publishes it as a miniature specimen of the bull roarer widely used among Eskimo peoples.