The Bullroarer Atlas

No. WALZ1964-001

Kalinga bingngigan

Philippines · Kalinga-Apayao, Cordillera of far northern Luzon · Southeast Asia

Function not recorded

A long dark wooden bullroarer blade on dark cloth, its cord wound round the blade near the pierced end.
Plate I. Bingngigan, a wooden bullroarer from Kalinga-Apayao, northern Luzon, with its cord wound round the blade. Image source

bingngigan

Source term: bull-roarer

bingngigan: the name recorded with the object. bodong: the Kalinga peace pact between villages.

Swung overhead on its cord, this slender dark blade roars. Called bingngigan, it is about nine inches long, with a little three-pronged notch cut into one end and a hole for the cord at the other. It comes from Kalinga-Apayao in the mountains of far northern Luzon, the country of the Kalinga, whose villages along the Chico River kept the peace with one another through sworn pacts, the bodong.

Particulars

Object
A slender dark wooden blade about 23 cm long, with a three-pronged notch at one end and a cord through a hole at the other.
Function
Not recorded.

Sources

  1. 'Kalinga Bull-Roarer (Bingngigan)', The Luzon Collection: Musical Instruments (Orry C. Walz Collection, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) View
  2. Mapping Philippine Material Culture, 'Bingngigan - Bull-rhorer', Orry C. Walz Collection, Box0001C-0004 View
  3. R. F. Barton, The Kalingas: Their Institutions and Custom Law (University of Chicago Press, 1949)

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