Campa meromero jaguar bullroarer

mēromēro

Source term: Schwirrholz

mēromēro: the Campa (Asháninka) name for the bullroarer, from Tessmann's list of their games; his German Schwirrholz is literally 'whirring wood'.

Among the Campa — the Asháninka of Peru's Selva Central — the bullroarer lived in the nursery, on both sides of the line between delight and dread. As mēromēro it was a plaything, alongside balls plaited from maize husks; it was also the bogey, whirled to frighten the smallest children. Bigger children, the ethnographer Günter Tessmann adds, graduate to stinging nettles and the rod, their shirts stripped off first.

Sind die Kinder klein, so werden sie mit dem Schwirrholz (das auch Spielzeug ist) erschreckt. Dabei sagt man ihnen, der Jaguar käme.

When the children are small they are frightened with the bullroarer (which is also a toy). As it sounds they are told the jaguar is coming.

Tessmann, Die Indianer Nordost-Perus (1930), pp. 99-100

Particulars

Function

Small children are frightened with the bullroarer — told the jaguar is coming as it sounds — and it is also a toy, listed among Campa games as mēromēro.