Khizabarui Khizami bullroarer

Source term: bull-roarer

Khizabarui: a village of the Khizami Angami, as Roy spelled it in 1928.

A thirteen-inch bull-roarer from Khizabarui, an eastern Angami village of the Khizami, lived the double life these hills gave such things. Boys swung it on its cord for the sheer roar; carried up to the field-houses and hillside machans where families guarded the ripening crop, the same blade turned working tool, its noise flushing birds off the grain. Sarat Chandra Roy pictured it in 1928 among the bull-roarers J. H. Hutton had gathered across Angami country — game and bird-scarer in a single strip of wood.

Angami bull-roarer from Khizabarui. (Khizami sub-tribe) used as a toy or bird-scarer. (13 in.)

Sarat Chandra Roy, Oraon Religion and Customs (1928), Illustration 17 item 2

Particulars

Object

Thirteen-inch bullroarer used both as a toy and to scare birds.

Function

Toy or bird-scarer