The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-191 - museum specimen

San José Xilatzén, Tanlajás municipality, Huasteca, San Luis Potosí (no people recorded)

Mexico - Huasteca - San Luis Potosí - North America

Function not recorded

The San José Xilatzen bullroarer with its henequen-fibre suspension rig intact, collected in the Huasteca by Guy Stresser-Péan.
The San José Xilatzen bullroarer with its henequen-fibre suspension rig intact, collected in the Huasteca by Guy Stresser-Péan. Image source

Guy Stresser-Péan, the great ethnographer of the Huasteca, brought this blade out of San José Xilatzén — a ranchería in the hills outside Tanlajás, in country where Tének is still the language of most households — before 1938. Thirty-three centimetres of wood, rounded at both ends, with its henequen cord still knotted through the top: a complete working rig. The Musée de l'Homme ledger entered it as 'diable ou rhomb' — devil or bullroarer — and stopped there; whose hands whirled it, and to what end, went unwritten.

Object
Wooden bullroarer (rhombe), 33 x 6.5 x 2 cm, 69 g, with rounded spatulate ends and its henequen (agave) fibre suspension cord tied through the upper end, the rig intact.
Function
Not recorded: the museum ledger describes it only as 'diable ou rhomb (bull roares), bois et fibres de henequen' — devil or bullroarer, wood and henequen fibre.
Map confidence
high - San José Xilatzén ranchería, ~4 km west of Tanlajás town (INEGI locality catalogue).
Source location
QB record 135654 (XML capture qb-135654-record.xml)

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