The Bullroarer Atlas

SA-Z1953-018 - ethnographic attestation

Koto

Northeastern Peru - South America

Play / practical

A Maxakalí bull-roarer bound to its cord-stick, collected by Curt Nimuendajú in 1939 (Museum of World Culture, CC0); not the specific Koto...
Representative image. A Maxakalí bull-roarer bound to its cord-stick, collected by Curt Nimuendajú in 1939 (Museum of World Culture, CC0); not the specific Koto object or culture documented here. Världskulturmuseet, Gothenburg (1946.03.0049); collected by Curt Nimuendajú, 1939 CC0 Image source

wígǫ́ Koto (Orejón; Western Tukanoan), northeastern Peru

Source term: wígǫ́ (Zerries: "wig-o")

wigo = Koto (Orejón, Western Tukanoan) name for the bullroarer, recorded by Tessmann 1930.

Among the Koto (Orejón), a Western Tukanoan people of northeastern Peru, the bullroarer was a children's toy called wígǫ́, the blade rigged to its cord and stick, Tessmann noted, like a fishing rod. The name was recorded by the German ethnographer Günther Tessmann during the fieldwork published as Die Indianer Nordost-Perus (1930), where the Koto whirler appears on pp. 198-199. Otto Zerries carried the entry into his 1953 survey of the South American bullroarer, grouping the Koto with the neighboring Panobo, Lamisto, Tshamikuro, and Aguano, among whom the instrument was likewise whirled only in play.

Ein Schwirrholz = wígǫ́, bei dem das Holz angelartig an Schnur und Stock befestigt ist ... Es ist lediglich Spielzeug.

A bullroarer, wígǫ́, in which the wood is fastened to cord and stick in the manner of a fishing rod ... It is merely a toy.

Tessmann 1930:198-199 (Koto, rubric 47)
Function
Bullroarer known as children's toy
Map confidence
medium - regional_anchor: No live ritual function extracted; map as toy/survival row
Source location
Tessmann 1930:198-199; Zerries 1953:287 (distribution prose p. 302; numbered catalogue entry 18, p. 306)

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