The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-140 - museum specimen

Forest Finns (metsäsuomalaiset)

Sweden - Norway (Finnskogen belt) - Värmland–Hedmark Finnskogen (Forest Finn settlement belt) - Northern Europe

Play / practical

The seäntikku itself — a plain pale board with one curved shoulder, a coarse two-ply cord looping generously from the hole drilled at its corner.
The seäntikku itself — a plain pale board with one curved shoulder, a coarse two-ply cord looping generously from the hole drilled at its corner. Finnish Heritage Agency / Suomen kansallismuseo (SU5161:130) CC BY 4.0 Image source

seäntikku Finnish

Source term: suhistuspuu; seäntikku (tilapäinen nimitys — provisional name)

seäntikku = local Forest Finn name recorded by the cataloguer (tikku, stick)

In the Forest Finn settlements along the Swedish–Norwegian border, children spun the seäntikku until it buzzed: a pale wooden board only twelve centimetres long, pierced at one corner and threaded with coarse cord. Karl Persson made this surviving example.

Leikkikalu, suhistuspuu. Tilapäinen nimitys seäntikku. Pyöritettiin nuorasta niin että surisi.

A toy, a whirring-wood. Provisional name seäntikku. It was whirled on a cord so that it buzzed.

Suomen kansallismuseo, catalogue entry SU5161:130 (via Finna)
Object
Pale 12 cm wooden board pierced at one corner and threaded with coarse two-ply cord; made by Karl Persson.
Function
Children’s toy, whirled on its cord until it buzzed.
Map confidence
low - Östmark–Nyskoga parish cluster, Värmland Finnskog: SU5161 is Astrid Reponen's summer-1932 collection (130 objects, accessioned 1933), whose documented localities concentrate in Östmark and Nyskoga parishes with a secondary node at Grue Finnskog, Norway; object :130's own parish exists only in the museum's paper Pääluettelo (per Sappinen 2021, which cites sibling objects with parish entries). Inquiry to the Kansallismuseo curator pending.
Source location
SU5161:130

View source Open this point on the interactive map