The Bullroarer Atlas

MINE2026-078 - ethnographic attestation

Saint-Hippolyte / Louis Martin

France - Saint-Hippolyte, Charente-Maritime - Western Europe

Play / practical

A German wooden Schwirrholz toy, a smooth pale oval blade strung with a cord through holes at each end — the same folk-toy design as the rhombe...
Representative image. A German wooden Schwirrholz toy, a smooth pale oval blade strung with a cord through holes at each end — the same folk-toy design as the rhombe Louis Martin demonstrated at Saint-Hippolyte, whose own field photographs were never digitized. Spielzeugmuseum der Stadt Nürnberg (Museum Lydia Bayer), 1974.253 — via Europeana CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

Source term: rhombe

rhombe: French technical/common term for a whirled sounding slat (bullroarer).

In 1969, Louis Martin of Saint-Hippolyte recalled a childhood game: making a rhombe, the wooden slat tied to a string and whirled until it hummed. He had no special name for it, calling it only la petite planche, and did not recognize the bromouère the researchers proposed. At eighty-six he could still cut one with his knife, and did — Marcel-Dubois and Pichonnet-Andral documented both the game and the making.

il jouait, enfant, a fabriquer des rhombes

as a child, he played at making rhombes

Francoralite, Episode 1: Comptines et jeux d'enfants (Louis Martin, Saint-Hippolyte).
Object
Louis Martin described and demonstrated making a rhombe: a shaped wooden slat tied to a string and whirled to sound. No original specimen is retained in the public record.
Function
Louis Martin recalled making rhombes as a child. The local record gives no ritual, magic, or protective use.
Map confidence
high - Saint-Hippolyte commune anchor for the named 1969 informant locality, not a particular childhood play site.
Source location
EHESS dossier; Francoralite episode 1 | MNATP 1972-112-85; UPOI_ATP_0001_0009_022

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