The Bullroarer Atlas

No. SASIA-007

Santal Monghyr-Singhbhum children's bull-roarer

Bihar and Orissa · Chota Nagpur · South Asia · East India

Sacred / spirit

A wood blade with a forked tail at its wide end and serrated sides.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. A wood blade with a forked tail at its wide end and serrated sides. Image source

Source term: Bull-roarer

At Baha Parab, spirit-possessed participants rushed toward the sacred grove while boys followed with bullroarers, drums, cymbals, and a bugle. The roaring toy entered the festival as part of a dense moving wall of sound, then survived beyond the rite in children's hands.

The Santal Bull-roarer that the author discovered in a village in the Monghyr District in Bihar is not perforated but notched to form a neck for tying the string on.

Roy, "The Bull-Roarer in India," Man in India vol. 7 (1927), p. 63

Particulars

Object
Roy reports Santal bull-roarer use in Singhbhum and Monghyr Districts, including a Monghyr village specimen that was notched for tying the string rather than perforated.
Function
Carried by boys in the Baha Parab procession; otherwise a children's toy.

Source

Sarat Chandra Roy, 'The Bull-Roarer in India,' Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society 13(1) (1927): 54-61; summarized in Man in India 7 (1927), p. 63; Biswas 1956, p. 141

View the source

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.