The Bullroarer Atlas

SASIA-007 - secondary catalog

Santal / Singhbhum and Monghyr Districts

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 — again a generic type, not the Santal bull-roarer from a Monghyr village...
Representative image. A wood blade with a forked tail at its wide end and serrated sides — again a generic type, not the Santal bull-roarer from a Monghyr village that Roy notes was notched for tying its string rather than perforated. © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1953.10.128) 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
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
At Baha Parab, boys carry bullroarers with drums, cymbals, and bugle behind spirit-possessed participants rushing to the sacred grove; the instrument also survives as a children's toy.
Map confidence
medium - Munger/Monghyr District regional anchor because Roy specifically says he found a Santal bull-roarer in an unnamed Monghyr village; the same summary also names Singhbhum District.
Source location
Man in India vol. 7 printed p. 63 | Roy, JBORS XIII (1927), pp. 54-61 | Biswas 1956:141

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