Whanganui (huhū, the buzzing toy)

huhū

Source term: huhu, the bull-roarer, a toy

huhū: Whanganui name for the bullroarer, from the Maori verb huhū 'to hiss, whiz, buzz, whirr, hum'. Distinct from short-u huhu, the huhu grub (Prionoplus reticularis) — a homophone across a vowel-length boundary, not the source of the name.

On the Whanganui River the bull-roarer was huhū, and the name is simply the sound: huhū is the ordinary Maori verb for hissing, whizzing, whirring and humming, and the same word names the humming top. On the Whanganui it was, plainly, a toy. Among Ngati Porou of the East Cape the same instrument under the same name was no plaything at all: there it belonged to a rain rite, and children were scolded for sounding it, because to sound it would bring on a storm. Two hundred miles apart, one instrument was a weather-maker and a game.

huhu, the bull-roarer, a toy. An example of onomatopeia. Whanganui.

"Word list. Containing words or meanings not included in published dictionaries of the Maori tongue," Journal of the Polynesian Society 35, no. 139 (1926), p. 244.

Particulars

Object

Not described; only the name huhū is recorded.

Function

A toy, explicitly so. The name is onomatopoeic — huhū is the Maori verb 'to hiss, whiz, buzz, whirr, hum'. District: Whanganui.