SA-Z1953-036 - secondary catalog
Motilones ritual bullroarer
Colombia; Venezuela - Circum-Caribbean - Sierra de Perija - South America
Restricted
Source term: Schwirrgerät / Schwirrholz / bullroarer
Among the Motilones of the Sierra de Perijá, on the Colombia–Venezuela border, the bullroarer was a thin rectangular plate of white wood with a small projecting tab where the cord was tied, its two faces covered in pyrographed designs. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, who recorded it as director of the 1944 Instituto Etnológico Nacional expedition, found it to be a strictly ritual instrument and forbidden to women. He could say little more, noting that he lacked the comparative data to treat so interesting an object properly. Zerries, citing him in 1953, guessed its place might be in the tribe's elaborate funeral rites, or that it belonged — as among the related Caribs of Guiana — to the equipment of the medicine man.
El zumbador, instrumento estrictamente ritual para los Motilones, es tabú para las mujeres. Desgraciadamente me faltan datos comparativos detallados para poder tratar de este elemento tan interesante.
The bullroarer, an instrument strictly ritual for the Motilones, is taboo to women. Unfortunately I lack detailed comparative data to be able to treat this most interesting element.
Reichel-Dolmatoff 1945:44, quoted in Zerries 1953:290
- Function
- Strictly ritual bullroarer; taboo to women; decorated rectangular wooden plate
- Map confidence
- high - regional_anchor: Representative Sierra de Perija coordinate; exact ritual details sparse but taboo/ritual status strong
- Source location
Page references
Reichel-Dolmatoff 1945:44, Lámina VII fig. 4 (in Zerries 1953:290)
- Initiation rite
- Forbidden to women