MUS2026-345 - museum specimen
Baniwa Taracuá complete handled rig
Brazil - Taracuá, Rio Uaupés - South America - Amazonia
Play / practical
Source term: Vinare
Taracuá stands on the Uaupés, in the heartland of the Kuwai or Jurupari cult, where a sacred voice is kept from women and revealed only to initiated men. That voice belongs to the great paxiuba-palm flutes and trumpets, said to be the body of a slain creator-child — not to the whirled blade. Otto Zerries went hunting for a link between the bullroarer and Jurupari and reported plainly that he could not find one anywhere in the literature. The Gothenburg catalogue calls this eighty-one-centimetre rig, blade and cord and handle still together, a bullroarer and a toy.
- Object
- An 81 cm assembly preserving the long wooden blade, cord and separate wooden handle.
- Function
- A toy.
- Source
- Världskulturmuseerna 1928.01.0117; Taracuá, Rio Uaupés; blade, cord and handle
- Source location
- 1928.01.0117
- Source confidence
- medium Taracuá locality anchor.