MUS2026-122 - museum specimen
Nahukúá "Kleiner Blitz" bullroarer, coll. Karl von den Steinen (EM Berlin)
Brazil - Upper Xingu (Steinen expeditions of 1884 and 1887-88) - South America
Play / practical
"Kleiner Blitz" (main-catalog gloss, German: "little lightning") German
Source term: Schwirrholz
Etymology. The Berlin main catalog's gloss for the Nahukúá bullroarer, "Kleiner Blitz" (little lightning), ties the instrument to the storm — the recurring lightning/thunder association of the bullroarer in lowland South America. (medium confidence)
“Little Lightning” is the name attached to this Nahukúá bullroarer from the upper Xingu. Its broad 38.5-centimetre blade flashes with black and red paint—a storm-name for an instrument built to split the air with sound. Karl von den Steinen, who carried it home, watched such blades whirled openly on the village square, women looking on — mask-dance gear and plaything at once, with none of the secrecy the instrument keeps elsewhere.
Schwirrholz, schwarz und rot bemalt... [main catalog:] Kleiner Blitz.
Bull-roarer, painted black and red... [main catalog:] Little Lightning.
Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, historic card and main catalog for V B 2505
- Object
- Broad wooden bullroarer, 38.5 × 9 cm, painted black and red and catalogued as “Kleiner Blitz” (“Little Lightning”). Ethnologisches Museum Berlin V B 2505.
- Function
- Whirled openly — von den Steinen, this object's own collector, watched upper-Xingu bullroarers swung on the village square with the women looking on, serving the mask dances and doubling as a toy; nothing about them was hidden.
- Map confidence
- medium - Upper Xingu expedition-region anchor; specific people not stated on the record
- Source location
- EM Berlin Ident-Nr. V B 2505
- Toy / secular survival