SA-Z1953-023 - ethnographic attestation
Caripuna
Brazil - Upper Madeira - South America
Sacred / spirit
Source term: Schwirrgerät / Schwirrholz / bullroarer
Among the Caripuna of the upper Madeira, the bullroarer belonged to the dead. The explorer Franz Keller-Leuzinger, whose 1874 travel narrative is the firsthand source here, offered a young Caripuna man a pair of scissors for a curious instrument: a narrow, thin little board, roughly fifty centimeters long, that gave off a whirring tone when swung on a cord threaded through its middle. The youth, visibly agitated, turned to an older man, who answered Keller with grave courtesy. Imitating the instrument's howling sound while pacing solemnly around the burial grounds, the elder explained that such instruments were sounded during their laments for the dead, and for that reason could not be given up as an article of trade. Keller was struck by the reverence with which these people treated even the most trifling objects once they came into any close relation to their dead. Otto Zerries, cataloguing the bullroarer across South America, later set the Caripuna usage alongside that of the Mbaya-Caduveo and the Bororo, who likewise whirled it at funeral ceremonies.
diese Instrumente, deren heulenden Ton er nachahmte, während er zugleich mit feierlichen Schritten die Begräbnisstellen umkreiste, bei ihren Todtenklagen gebraucht würden und aus diesem Grunde keinen Handelsartikel abgeben könnten
these instruments, whose howling tone he imitated while at the same time circling the burial places with solemn steps, were used in their laments for the dead and for that reason could not serve as an article of trade
Keller-Leuzinger 1874, German p. 104; English edition p. 124; quoted by Zerries 1953:288
- Object
- Thin board about half a metre long, with a slender cord drawn through its middle, whirled for a whizzing sound.
- Function
- Sounded during lamentations over the dead and not relinquished as a profane trade object.
- Map confidence
- high - regional_anchor: Representative upper-Madeira coordinate.
- Source location
- Keller-Leuzinger 1874:104 (German original); English edition p. 124; Zerries 1953:287-288