The Bullroarer Atlas

THOMPSON1930-001 - ethnographic attestation

Mopan Maya

Belize - Toledo District - Americas - Mesoamerica

Play / practical

Representative—not this record’s object: a Pipil bullroarer from Nahuizalco, El Salvador.
Representative—not this record’s object: a Pipil bullroarer from Nahuizalco, El Salvador. Statens museer for varldskultur / Etnografiska museet (1900.03.0493) CC BY 4.0 Image source

Source term: bull-roarer

bull-roarer = Thompson's English classification; no Mopan term recorded

San Antonio’s children claimed the bullroarer as their own: a small toy amid a village soundscape of musical bows, four-hole flutes, council drums, marimba, and tin-can dance rattles. The archaeologist J. Eric S. Thompson recorded it during repeated 1927–29 field visits built around accounts from named Mopan collaborators.

A small bull-roarer is also used by children as a toy.

Thompson 1930, p. 102
Object
A small bull-roarer; material and construction are not described.
Function
Children's toy
Map confidence
high - San Antonio village anchor
Source location
p. 102

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