The Bullroarer Atlas

No. STIBBE1921-001

Ambon snorhout play

Indonesia · Ambon, Maluku (Moluccas) · Southeast Asia

Play / practical

A wooden bull-roarer blade and its separate long stick handle lie apart, joined by a cord; the flat blade widens to a point.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. A wooden bull-roarer with a separate carved stick handle CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Image source

Source term: snorhout (Dutch); snorrebot

snorhout / snorrebot: Dutch names for the bullroarer ('whirring wood', 'whirring bone'); no Ambonese term recorded. héla rotan: tug-of-war with rattan.

On Ambon the whirring slat was a game. The snorhout, a strip of wood spun on a cord until it whished and hummed, was among the island's favourite pastimes, alongside tug-of-war with rattan, héla rotan, and the 'enchanted bamboo', a pole held by a crowd of players who follow wherever its own movements take them. Across the Dutch East Indies the same toy turned up on Java, among the Toba Batak of Sumatra and in the Minahasa. A little farther east, in New Guinea, the identical sound still kept women away from the circumcision grounds.

Particulars

Object
A slat on a cord, whirled to make a whishing or humming sound; the Ambon form is not described.
Function
A popular game on Ambon, listed among the island's pastimes with the 'enchanted bamboo' and tug-of-war (héla rotan).

Sources

  1. D. G. Stibbe (ed.), Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië, 2nd ed., IV (1921), 'Spelen', p. 55 View
  2. D. G. Stibbe (ed.), Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië, 2nd ed., IV (1921), 'Spelen', p. 58 View

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