Rofla, the Limousin schoolmaster's roarer

Rofla

Source term: rhombe en bois et ficelle

Rofla: the Limousin Occitan name for the rhombe (bullroarer), among the "jouets rustiques de nos grands-parents", the rustic toys of our grandparents.

A long chestnut board, one edge cut into deep saw-teeth, its cord knotted through one of three holes bored near the end — Pierre Lallet made it in 1980, and the photographer André Pelle found it that same year at Château-Chervix in the Haute-Vienne countryside. The Mucem archive titles the picture with a single word: Rofla. The word belongs to the Limousin's Occitan and to its children: the Institut d'Études Occitanes lists the rofla among the rustic toys of the grandparents' generation, with reed whistles, elder popguns, walnut spinners and bark horns. Lallet, born at Château-Chervix and its schoolmaster for forty years, built his teaching on chestnut-wood handwork, peasant crafts and the Occitan tongue; this is a schoolmaster's roarer, made to be known.

Rofla. Rhombe en bois et ficelle.

Rofla. Wooden bullroarer and string.

Mucem Ph.1983.1.1

Particulars

Object

A rectangular chestnut rhombe tapering at the tip, its sides saw-toothed toward one end, with three holes of which one keeps the cord; made by Pierre Lallet in 1980 and photographed the same year at Château-Chervix by André Pelle (Mucem 1981.54.4; photograph Ph.1983.1.1).