The Bullroarer Atlas

RUSIN-004 - secondary catalog

Khanty

Russia - Kazym river, Beloyarsky district, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug; dialect terms also from the Salym, Vakh-Vasyugan and Surgut Khanty - Asia - West Siberia

Weather / fertility magic

Representative—not this record’s object: a bullroarer from the mouth of the Mackenzie River.
Representative—not this record’s object: a bullroarer from the mouth of the Mackenzie River. © The Trustees of the British Museum, Am1929,0412.54 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

вот вохты (Kazym); пэрхэттэх (Salym); пухлы (Vakh-Vasyugan); коркимох (Surgut) Russian

Source term: жужжалка: вихревая (пропеллер) и вращаемая

вот вохты (vot vokhty, Kazym) = "to ask for wind"

Etymology. вот вохты (vot vokhty): Kazym Khanty вот "wind" (cognate with Mansi вōт of the wind-calling flying board) + вохты "to ask"; the source glosses the compound «ветер просить». (high confidence)

On the Kazym River, the Khanty called the whirler vot vokhty—“to ask for wind.” A blade circling on its line turned that request into sound. By the time the name was recorded, the weather-maker survived chiefly as a children’s toy.

2 разновидности жужжалки, вихревая (пропеллер) и вращаемая, имеют одно название... вот вохты («ветер просить»).

Two varieties of the buzzer — a whirring propeller and a swung one — bear a single name... vot vokhty ("to ask for wind").

«Музыка хантов», Arctic Megapedia (Sheikin school), Wayback 2019-03-09
Object
A blade swung on a line to produce a whirring sound.
Function
Wind-summoning sound instrument, later chiefly a children’s toy; its Kazym name means “to ask for wind.”
Map confidence
medium - Kazym river regional anchor (the dialect whose name encodes wind-asking)
Source location
Arctic Megapedia «Музыка хантов» (Wayback 2019-03-09)

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