(Fr. rhombe; Ger. Schwirrholz).
An instrument made from a spatulate piece of wood tied to a string which is knotted into a hole close to one end. To produce sounds the player whirls the blade through the air, holding it by the free end of the string (fig.1). Blades vary in size (15 to 75 cm), shape, material and decoration. The shapes range from lanceolate to narrowly rectangular, with straight, sometimes waisted, or often serrated edges. One of the two surfaces is usually uneven as a result of patterns carved in relief; experiments have indicated that this one-sided unevenness may be essential to make the blade rotate around its axis when whirled through the air. The most common material is wood, but stone, bone and similar materials (and very rarely iron) are also used. The acoustic functions of these manifold ergological elements have apparently not been studied comprehensively; many bullroarers simply serve as ritual objects, and are never used for sound. In general, smaller bullroarers give a high noise when whirled, while larger specimens sound low in pitch. The speed of rotation and length of the string also affect volume and pitch.
The oldest surviving specimen is presumably the prehistoric (Magdalenian) bullroarer from a site in the Dordogne, carved from a reindeer antler (fig.2b and see Schaeffner). Its edges are smooth, and one surface has an incised geometrical pattern. Prehistoric rock paintings from several parts of Africa show figures using bullroarers, presumably in ritual. The bullroarer’s distribution has been described as ‘confined to a few widely scattered localities’ (see Sachs, 1929; Hornbostel, p.270), i.e. it has survived in a remarkable number of areas. The pattern suggests polygenesis rather than monogenesis of the instrument. Haddon reported that the word ‘bullroarer’ was itself of English folk origin. Other terms recorded by him in England and from various countries in Europe are ‘bummer’, ‘buzzer’, ‘humming-buzzer’, ‘thunderbolt’, ‘thunder-spell’ and ‘swish’. The term ‘bullroarer’ was universally adopted in 1880 as the technical term in English. In ancient Greece the bullroarer was used in the Dionysian mysteries. Its Greek name, rombos, possibly the source of the geometrical term ‘rhombus’, survives in the French term ‘rhombe’.
Ethnologists have associated the bullroarer mainly with Oceanian specimens and Oceanian ritual practices. A function often referred to is that of frightening away women from ceremonies that are taboo for them. In many areas where bullroarers are still found the roaring noise serves to frighten away marauding animals from plantations; Haddon described this use by young herdsmen in Galicia, Poland: ‘The noise excites pasturing cattle. As soon as the bullroarers are started, calves stretch out their tails into the air and kick out their hind legs as if they were dancing. After some time the old cattle follow the young ones, and there is a general stampede’. It is likely that bullroarers are still in use in many other regions besides those hitherto reported.
SachsH
MGG1(‘Schwirrholz’; M. Schneider)
A.C. Haddon: ‘The Bull-Roarer’, The Study of Man (London and New York, 1898/R), 277–307
C. Sachs: Real-Lexikon der Musikinstrumente (Berlin, 1913/R, 2/1964)
C. Sachs: Geist und Werden der Musikinstrumente (Berlin, 1929/R)
E.M. von Hornbostel: ‘The Ethnology of African Sound Instruments’, Africa, vi (1933), 129–57, 277–311
A. Schaeffner: Origine des instruments de musique (Paris, 1936, rev. 1994 by N. Cousin and G. Léothaud)
H. Fischer: Schallgeräte in Ozeanien: Bau und Spieltechnik, Verbreitung und Funktion (Strasbourg,1958/R; Eng. trans., 1983, 2/1986)
K.A. Gourlay: Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society: a Study of Esoteric Instruments and their Role in Male–Female Relations (Port Moresby and Canberra, 1975)
A. Dundes: ‘A Psychoanalytic Study of the Bullroarer’, Man, new ser., xi (1976), 220
D. Reimer: Bumerang und Schwirrholz: eine Einführung in die traditionelle Kultur australischer Aborigines (Berlin, 1985)
KLAUS WACHSMANN
