{"id":"DRUCKER1950-007","label":"Bella Coola kusiut bullroarer","people_or_site":"Bella Coola (Nuxalk)","country_current":"Canada","historic_region":"Bella Coola valley, central British Columbia coast","macroregion":"North America / Northwest Coast","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A wooden slat swung on a cord fastened to a handle, the standard form all along this coast. Neither dimensions nor material recorded.","function_summary":"Part of the paraphernalia of the kusiut, the Nuxalk masked winter ceremonial society; also a children's toy.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"drucker1950_northwest_coast","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucar009-004.pdf","page_or_plate":"printed p. 199, elements 854-857; notes printed p. 268; Hayden 2018 p. 61 (McIlwraith 1948 II: 28, 250)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Bella Coola valley, central British Columbia coast -- territory anchor, not a findspot.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Salishan speakers set down among Wakashan neighbours, the Nuxalk of the Bella Coola valley faced inland along the grease trails as much as out to sea. Their winters turned on the kusiut, the masked ceremonial society whose dances were inherited property, entered by initiation and danced as the doings of supernatural beings; by the 1920s every Nuxalk, even babes in arms, counted as a kusiut. The bullroarer was part of the society's paraphernalia. Children, meanwhile, swung a handled one in play, a double life recorded for no other people on this coast.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Philip Drucker, 'Culture Element Distributions: XXVI, Northwest Coast,' University of California Anthropological Records 9:3 (Berkeley, 1950), p. 199, elements 854-857, with notes p. 268; Brian Hayden, The Power of Ritual in Prehistory: Secret Societies and Origins of Social Complexity (Cambridge University Press, 2018), ch. 2, p. 61, citing T. F. McIlwraith, The Bella Coola Indians (1948), vol. II, pp. 28, 250","url":"https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucar009-004.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260814094042/https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucar009-004.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Philip Drucker, 'Culture Element Distributions: XXVI, Northwest Coast,' University of California Anthropological Records 9:3 (Berkeley, 1950), p. 199, elements 854-857, with notes p. 268; Brian Hayden, The Power of Ritual in Prehistory: Secret Societies and Origins of Social Complexity (Cambridge University Press, 2018), ch. 2, p. 61, citing T. F. McIlwraith, The Bella Coola Indians (1948), vol. II, pp. 28, 250","source_display":"Philip Drucker, 'Culture Element Distributions: XXVI, Northwest Coast,' University of California Anthropological Records 9:3 (Berkeley, 1950), p. 199, elements 854-857, with notes p. 268; Brian Hayden, The Power of Ritual in Prehistory: Secret Societies and Origins of Social Complexity (Cambridge University Press, 2018), ch. 2, p. 61, citing T. F.…","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A wooden slat swung on a cord fastened to a handle, the standard form all along this coast. Neither dimensions nor material recorded.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"bella coola","display_name":"Bella Coola kusiut bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/prm/prm_39594.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/prm/thumbs/prm_39594_thumb.jpg","alt":"Zuni bullroarer assembly with a long narrow wooden component and coiled cord, Pitt Rivers Museum.","credit":"© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1903.129.4.1)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum — non-commercial/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39594","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Zuni bullroarer with a slender wooden handle and coiled cord.","pool_id":"auto-prm--prm_39594"},"slug":"drucker1950-007-bella-coola-nuxalk"}