folk toys are back again - popular science magazine ... - Arvind Gupta

thorough researcher, he's found that noneof these playthings are peculiar to theAppalachian South. The whimmydiddle,for example, has been reported fromSweden and China. And a Czechoslovakianbook on early Central European toysdescribes many such items.The important thing is not who inventedthese toys, or what they're called.It's the fact that they are bringing employmentto one small Southern mountainsettlement. The profits of Folk Toys Industry,Beech Creek, N. C, go into thelocal work of the Council of the SouthernMountains, an organization dedicatedto helping rural families.And now, just in case you don't knowwhat a whimmydiddle is—or a flipperdinger,fly killer, bullroarer, or cornstalkfiddle—here's a rundown:Gee-haw whimmydiddle, also called aziggerboo (Tenn.), geehaw (Ga.),hoodoostick (Cherokee Indians), and lie detector(Ohio). In the Folk Toys' version,it's made of rhododendron twigs, strippedto the smooth inner bark. Its two partsare a notched stick with a spinner—orwhirligig—pivoted on one end, and asmaller rubbing stick.In operating the whimmydiddle, the146 POPULAR SCIENCE MARCH 1960object is to make the whirligig spinsmoothly to the right (gee), or to theleft (haw), seemingly at your spokencommand. To do this, you must holdboth parts lightly to produce maximumvibration. This vibration is set up whenyou stroke the rubbing stick rapidly backand forth across the notches. If, at thesame time, you let the tip of your indexfinger slide along the far side of thenotches, the whirligig will twirl unfailinglyto the right. To reverse its direction,you simply bring your thumb tobear on the near side of the notches. Witha little practice, you can switch contactsso inconspicuously that anyone whodoesn't know the trick will have a hardtime guessing why the whirligig responds.Flipperdinger. This is a hollow-reedblower with a plug in one end, and anozzle, made of a smaller reed, projectingfrom it just behind the plug. In onemodel, an acorn cup with its center boredout is cemented over the nozzle. In another,a little "basketball ring" bent fromcopper wire is aligned with the nozzleabout three inches above the tip. Bothmodels come with a featherweight ballformed from cornstalk pith.To work the first flipperdinger, you