MUS2026-343 - museum specimen
Xerente hipã-wave-wazdizé
Brazil - Piabanha, Tocantins region - South America
Function not recorded
hipã-wave-wazdizé
Source term: Vinare
hipã-wave-wazdizé: 'howling of Hipã-wave', the Xerente name for the bullroarer; Nimuendajú writes it hieparo-wawe-wazdize'. Hipã-wave is the night demon who personifies the planet Mars.
The name on this small red-ended oval means howling of Hipã-wave, and Hipã-wave is Mars. Among the Xerente he was a night demon, shaggy and long-haired, lord of the will-o'-the-wisps, chief companion to the anthropomorphised moon, and he showed himself after dark to a lone hunter at his stand. A man who wanted his power had to go and get it: Nimuendajú found that through roughly six days of instruction the pupils carried a bullroarer of exactly this name into the woods inside an elongated lidded calabash, whirled it at the appointed spot, and the demon came at once. Mars' pupils, he added, were reckoned good doctors. Seventeen centimetres of wood, cord and guanaco sinew carry the word here.
- Object
- A 17 cm pointed oval of wood with cord, guanaco sinew and red-painted ends.
- Function
- Not recorded.
- Source
- Världskulturmuseerna 1937.27.0146; wood, cord, guanaco sinew
- Source location
- 1937.27.0146
- Source confidence
- low Broad Piabanha/Tocantins anchor from the historical collection record.