Carib Wun-wun medicine-man bullroarer

Source term: Schwirrgerät / Schwirrholz / bullroarer

Wun-wun / wun-wun: the Carib (Kalina) name for the bull-roarer, onomatopoeic for the roaring buzz it makes when whirled. puyei (piai, piaiman): the Carib shaman or medicine-man. warimbo (waruma): the Ischnosiphon cane reed split for the blade, also used in Carib basketry.

Among the Carib (Kalina) of the Guianas the bull-roarer is the Wun-wun, an instrument of the puyei or medicine man. The Dutch missionary-ethnographer W. Ahlbrinck, who worked among the Maroni and Cottica Carib, described it plainly: a string to which is tied a foot-long stalk of warimbo, the cane reed. At nightfall, when the puyei means to work his magic, he whirls the warimbo in a circle so that it gives off the roaring buzz that names it -- wun-wun. He does this so that the evil spirit will know of it; the spirit dislikes the noise and flees when it hears it. Boys bold enough to take the instrument up as a plaything are told by the adults that "this is not done."

When the Piai at nightfall begins with his magical actions he whirls at first the bull-roarer, "that the evil spirit know it (ahiwano-uhu-tome)". The evil spirit is said to dislike this noise and to flee from it. When the children want to handle the bull-roarer as a plaything, they are forbidden to do so by the adults.

Zerries 1953:289 (reporting Ahlbrinck 1931:405), "The Bull-Roarer Among South American Indians," Revista do Museu Paulista N.S. VII

Particulars

Function

Medicine man whirls Wun-wun at night to repel evil spirits; children forbidden to handle it as plaything