The Bullroarer Atlas

MINE2026-083 - historical text

Native Hawaiian / Hawaiian Islands general

United States - Hawaiian Islands - Oceania - Polynesia

Play / practical

Representative—not this record’s object: Buck’s drawing of an Aitutaki leaflet bullroarer.
Representative—not this record’s object: Buck’s drawing of an Aitutaki leaflet bullroarer. Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter Buck), The Material Culture of the Cook Islands (Aitutaki) (1927), fig. 281 Public domain Image source

O-e-o-e English

Source term: bullroarer

O-e-o-e: Hawaiian name recorded by Culin for the wooden toy bullroarer.

At the close of the nineteenth century, Stewart Culin recorded the O-e-o-e as a Hawaiian children’s toy: a piece of wood pierced at one end, threaded with a cord, and whirled through the air.

O-e-o-e: BULLROARER. - This is made of wood, with a hole in one end through which is passed a cord with which it is whirled. It is known to my informants as a toy.

Stewart Culin, 'Hawaiian Games' (1899), p. 220, item 41.
Object
End-pierced wooden blade with a whirling cord.
Function
Culin's Hawaiian informants knew it as a toy.
Map confidence
high - Hawaiian Islands general; placed on Oahu as an on-land archipelago anchor, not a source-named island or play site.
Source location
p. 220, item 41

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