The Bullroarer Atlas

RUSIN-008 - ethnographic attestation

Sakha (Yakut)

Russia - Central Yakutia - Asia - East Siberia

Play / practical

Representative—not this record’s object: an antler bullroarer from Dividing Point, Alaska.
Representative—not this record’s object: an antler bullroarer from Dividing Point, Alaska. Yale Peabody Museum, YPM ANT 231820 CC0 Image source

исиирэр (вар. эртйэр) Russian

Source term: гуделка / вращаемый гудящий свободный аэрофон

исиирэр, from an onomatopoeic hiss-whistle root; the archive records эртйэр as a variant name. суугунуур, among the buzzers, is from суугун, 'rustle, light noise.'

Among the Sakha of central Yakutia, the isiirer was the droning member of a family of whirring toys. Unlike button-like buzzers spun on twisted cords, its blade was swung in a full circle on a line. Made quickly from materials at hand, such sound-tools belonged beside the cracking herdsman’s whip and whistling willow switch, then were discarded after use.

…гуделка исиирэр, пластинчатые варганы мас хомус … и жужжалки иэрэгэй, кююгюнююр, суугунуур.

…the isiirer hummer, the plate jaw-harps mas khomus … and the buzzers ieregey, kyugyunyur, suugunuur.

Dyakonova 2019:34 (Традиционная культура 20/4)
Object
Blade swung full-circle on a line to produce a drone.
Function
Children’s droning sound-tool within living memory.
Map confidence
medium - Yakutsk anchor for a people-level central-Yakutia attestation; no specific ulus named by the sources
Source location
Dyakonova 2019, p. 34; AGIKI fonogrammarchiv ethnos page 87 (Wayback 2018-05-17)

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