SA-Z1953-037 - ethnographic attestation
Choco
Colombia; Panama - Choco - Darien - South America
Play / practical
Source term: Schwirrgerät / Schwirrholz / bullroarer
Among the Chocó of the Colombian and Panamanian rainforests the bull-roarer was chiefly a children's toy, roughly made and, in recent years, often painted with aniline dyes. Henry Wassén, working among the Noanamá in the 1930s, recorded its one magical use: an Indian who had to cross the forest alone at night, passing from one place to another, might carry a bull-roarer painted red with bija to frighten away evil spirits. Erland Nordenskiöld, on the Río Sambú, found painted wooden objects hung in the medicine men's huts during certain magical rites — figures of snakes, turtles, iguanas, eagles, and butterflies, some of them oval and giving the impression of bull-roarers, though the genuine whirled ones seemed to serve only as playthings. One Chocó bull-roarer he collected on the Sambú stood about sixteen centimeters high.
The bull-roarer is of course chiefly a toy, but I was told of one occasion where its use corresponds with its magical character among other tribes. An Indian who for some reason or other one night has to pass through the forest from one location to another, may carry with him a bull-roarer, painted red with bija, in order to frighten away evil spirits.
Wassén 1935:65-66 (Notes on Southern Groups of Choco Indians in Colombia), transcribed verbatim in Zerries 1953:290-291
- Function
- Mostly toy; sometimes red-painted bullroarer carried through forest to frighten evil spirits; medicine-hut wooden objects may include bullroarer-like sacra
- Map confidence
- medium - regional_anchor: Representative Choco/Darien coordinate; medicine-hut bullroarer-like objects need separate verification, but plotted Choco occurrence is source-sufficient
- Source location
- Wassén 1935:65-66, fig. 12 D (p. 67); Nordenskiöld 1928:71-73, figs. 53 a-e (fig. 53 e = 16 cm Sambú roarer, p. 73)
- Spirit voice
- Initiation rite
- Weather / fertility magic
- Toy / secular survival