RIESTER1972-001 - primary ethnography
Guaraŝug'wä (exonym Pauserna), Santa Anita village
Bolivia - Campo Grande - Suvivuhu, northern Velasco Province, Santa Cruz Department - South America - Amazonia
Play / practical
ivirapähĩm̃'ne German
Source term: Schwirrholz, ivirapähĩm̃'ne
ivirapähĩm̃'ne: the Guaraŝug'wä (Pauserna) name for the bullroarer, recorded by Riester at Santa Anita, 1964-65
When Jürgen Riester came to live with the Guaraŝug'wä in 1964, the whole people fit into a single settlement: seven houses called Santa Anita, on a low rise in the Campo Grande grassland between the Paraguá and the Guaporé. The ivirapähĩm̃'ne still sounded there — a cedar blade barely a hand-span long on well over a metre of totaí-palm cord, whirled in circles overhead until its dull note carried far across the pampa. Making one remained the men's work; swinging one had become the business of boys, who kept the instrument alive as a toy.
Die Herstellung des „ivirapähĩm̃'ne" obliegt den Männern. Das Schwirrholz wird heute als Spielzeug der Knaben verwendet.
Making the ivirapähĩm̃'ne falls to the men. Today the bullroarer is used as a toy by the boys.
Riester 1972:171
- Object
- Cedar blade 19 by 5.5 cm, pierced at the blunt end and knotted to a single 135 cm cord of totaí palm fibre; exact measured figure (Riester fig. 98).
- Function
- Made by the men; by Riester's 1964-1965 stay, swung by boys as a toy. Whirled in circles overhead on its cord, sounding a dull note audible at a distance as the blade spun on its axis.
- Map confidence
- high - Santa Anita village position read from Riester's own Karte III (printed p. 14), a sketch map on a one-degree grid between the Paraguá and Itenes (Guaporé) rivers; village-level in intent but precise only to a few kilometres, and the settlement is absent from modern gazetteers.
- Source location
- printed pp. 170-171, fig. 98; Karte III p. 14
- Toy / secular survival