The Bullroarer Atlas

SASIA-001 - ethnographic attestation

Khasi / Khasia

Khasi Hills - South Asia - Northeast India

Function not recorded

Bamboo bullroarer from the Jainta and Khasi Hills, Pitt Rivers Museum 1923.85.447.
Bamboo bullroarer from the Jainta and Khasi Hills, Pitt Rivers Museum 1923.85.447. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1923.85.447) Image source
Roy's 1928 plate of bull-roarers supplied by J. H. Hutton; no. 4, fifteen inches long and said to cause pestilence, is the Khasia and Jaintia...
Roy's 1928 plate of bull-roarers supplied by J. H. Hutton; no. 4, fifteen inches long and said to cause pestilence, is the Khasia and Jaintia Hills instrument matching the bamboo bull-roarer collected among the Khasi. S. C. Roy, Oraon Religion and Customs (1928), illustration 17 — specimens supplied by J. H. Hutton Public domain Image source

Source term: bamboo bull-roarer

A fifteen-inch bamboo blade from the Khasi and Jaintia Hills was believed, when swung on its cord, to carry pestilence into the hills — a bullroarer remembered not as play but as a bringer of sickness.

bamboo bull-roarer, Khasia Hills

Pitt Rivers Museum, Annual Report 1927, Accessions by Loan (J.P. Mills collection)
Object
Bamboo bullroarer from the Khasia and Jaintia Hills; Roy's 1928 Hutton plate is supported by PRM 1923.85.447, a separate 310 mm bamboo terminal-cord slat from the Jainta and Khasi Hills.
Function
Believed to cause pestilence (Roy 1928 plate caption for the Khasia-Jaintia Hills specimen, from J.H. Hutton)
Map confidence
medium - Shillong/Khasi Hills public regional anchor not museum
Source location
1927 Annual Report, Accessions presented by J.H. Hutton | Roy 1928, plate (Hutton specimens), item 4; PRM 1923.85.447

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