The Bullroarer Atlas

SA-Z1953-031 - ethnographic attestation

Mataco; Choroti; Ashluslay

Argentina; Paraguay; Bolivia - Gran Chaco - South America

Play / practical

Mataco (Wichí) bull-roarer, Gran Chaco — a reddish-brown slat with a small perforated tab and a long plaited cord, unmarked apart from its...
Mataco (Wichí) bull-roarer, Gran Chaco — a reddish-brown slat with a small perforated tab and a long plaited cord, unmarked apart from its accession label; the documented culture group (koyék), not the specific object cited here. Världskulturmuseet, Göteborg (1936.04.0358) CC BY 4.0 Image source

koyék (-quyeq) Wichí (Mataco; Mataco-Mataguaya family)

Source term: koyék [-quyeq]

"the toy that repeats the song of Welán" (Welán = a shamanic divinity, name literally "metamorphosed"; Wichí gloss "moonstruck/mad/cannibal")

Etymology. The Wichí name for the bullroarer, koyék (-quyeq), belongs to the laquyeq ("toy/plaything") class — a derivative of the verb iquy, "to play." Califano defines the instrument as "the toy that repeats the song of Welán," the shamanic divinity whose name means "metamorphosed." (medium confidence)

In the Gran Chaco the bullroarer was mostly a child's plaything. Erland Nordenskiöld, living among the Chaco peoples around 1910, saw it whirled only as a rare toy by the Choroti and Ashluslay, two subtribes of the Mataco (Indianerleben, p. 70). Karl Gustav Izikowitz, sifting the South American sound-instruments in 1935, could place it among the true Chaco tribes only with the Mataco — known from Sten Rydén's field collection — and the Caduveo, whose specimen Manizer had recorded; whether they used it in ceremony was a question he declined to press. Ritual use was fixed to that one people, the Mbaya-Caduveo, whose roarers were carved with the elaborate designs that mark their work; Alfred Métraux reported they "are said to whirl them during funeral ceremonies, but like the Mataco, they give them to the children as playthings." A separate Toba device sat at the edge of the category — a forked stick that slung out a corded stick to spin and buzz in the air, used by the medicine man to keep too much rain from falling.

The Mbaya-Caduveo have bullroarers decorated with their characteristically involved designs. They are said to whirl them during funeral ceremonies, but like the Mataco, they give them to the children as playthings.

Métraux 1946:343, quoted in Zerries 1953:288
Function
Choroti and Ashluslay rare toy use; Mataco/Caduveo are true Chaco groups with instrument; mostly toy status
Map confidence
medium - regional_anchor: Cluster row; not a full ritual confirmation
Source location
Nordenskiöld 1912/1913:70 (Choroti/Ashluslay toy); Izikowitz 1935:211-212 (Mataco = Rydén field info; Caduveo = Manizer 1934:329; Toba fork-sling roarer = Rydén); Métraux 1946:343 (Caduveo); as compiled in Zerries 1953:288-289

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