Lenape children's roaring wood

Source term: bull-roarer

A flat piece of wood on a string, whirled until it gave a loud, roaring noise, was a plaything of Lenape children in the Delaware valley. The English called them Delawares; they called themselves Lenni Lenape, 'original men'. The roarer shared their games with a whirligig, a wooden button that hummed on a twisted string, with wooden tops spun by the fingers, corn-husk dolls, toy bows like their fathers', a game of tossing peach and plum stones into a basket, and a winter contest of sliding long sticks down a gutter of ice made in the snow.

When the string was whirled around, the wood made a loud, roaring noise.

C. A. Weslager, A Brief Account of the Indians of Delaware (1953), p. 27.

Particulars

Object

A flat piece of wood fastened to a string.

Function

Children's toy.