Do you Hui?

I came across this little item cleaning out the buffet drawers prior to moving it for the new floor installation. It's a Hui Machine. It's pronounced who eee.  Joe picked it up while serving in Syria ,many moons ago. 

A light weight wooden stick with notches cut out and a propeller on one end. There's also another slimmer stick that you use to rub those notches back and forth with. If you do it right, the propeller twirls. If you're real good you can go in one direction and then make it switch to rotate the other way.
 

Stupid kid's game!    :(     I couldn't make it work.