The Bullroarer Atlas

No. MUS2026-167

St Paul's Parish Norwich Buzzer bullroarers

United Kingdom · Norfolk · Norwich · St Paul's Parish · Europe

Play / practical

First of two Norwich Buzzer bullroarers from St Paul’s Parish: a small pale wooden slat with cord wrapped around one end (Pitt Rivers Museum 1913.24.2).
Plate I. The first of two Norwich Buzzer bullroarers from St Paul's Parish, Pitt Rivers Museum 1913.24.2. Image source
Two dark wooden Basque furrun-farra boards, hanging side by side with rounded heads, long notched blades and cords through the top.
Plate II. Representative — not this record’s object. Basque furrun-farra with its corded wooden blade. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Image source
Second Norwich Buzzer bullroarer from St Paul’s Parish: a plain narrow wooden blade with a rounded end, cord looped through its squared end and a museum number below.
Plate III. The second Norwich Buzzer bullroarer from St Paul's Parish, Pitt Rivers Museum 1913.24.3. Image source

Buzzer

Source term: Bullroarer

Buzzer: the Norfolk name for the bullroarer, in full the 'humming buzzer.'

Two long wooden blades from St Paul's Parish, Norwich, carried the plain English name Buzzer. Their broad, slightly irregular forms preserve a city toy otherwise known across Norfolk as the humming buzzer — and in Mid-Norfolk as plain 'buzz.'

where it is called “humming buzzer,” or simply “buzzer”

Haddon 1898:278

Particulars

Object
Two long wooden terminal-cord slats, 240 x 41 mm and 233 x 54 mm.
Function
Boys' toy — Haddon records the Norfolk 'humming buzzer,' or simply 'buzzer,' among the bullroarer toys of English boys, with specimens of his own from around the county.

Sources

  1. Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, accession 1913.24.2 View · archived
  2. Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, accession 1913.24.3
  3. Pitt Rivers Museum, Annual Report (1913)
  4. A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), p. 278

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.