{"id":"GAMBLE2025-001","label":"Muwu cache of three bullroarers","people_or_site":"Muwu, VEN-11 (Chumash)","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"California / Ventura County / Mugu Lagoon-Point Mugu","macroregion":"North America / California","local_name":"ʔalaxtəməmə / ʔaxtəməmənəʔəš","source_term":"bullroarers","source_language":"English","object_description":"Three bullroarers recovered from a cache with eight deer-tibia whistles decorated with asphaltum and beads.","function_summary":"Three bullroarers cached with eight decorated deer-tibia whistles. A regional archaeoacoustics study identifies bullroarers and bone whistles as sacred objects for south-central Californian Native peoples; the exact rite represented by this cache is not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"gamble_2025_muwu_ven11_bullroarers","source_type":"academic_article","source_url":"https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-dynamics/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2025.1606256/full","page_or_plate":"Gamble 2025, fig. 7 and caption; cited to Hudson and Blackburn 1986, pp. 358-360","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Mugu Lagoon centroid, Point Mugu cluster, Ventura County; Gamble publishes only the label \"Muwu, VEN-11,\" and Van Valkenburgh (1935, reported in the NPS Chumash cultural-affiliation report p. 74) states CA-VEN-11 was itself historically Wihatset/Wixatset, \"erroneously known as Muwu\" -- no precise village or cache find-spot coordinate is published, so this pins the lagoon cluster, not an exact site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At Muwu, on the marshy shore of Mugu Lagoon in Ventura County, a Chumash cache held three bullroarers beside eight bone whistles. In the Ventureño Chumash spoken along this coast the bullroarer was ʔalaxtəməmə, a word built on the verb 'to buzz' — the sound of a bee or a fly. The whistles survive in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History: deer tibiae about 22 to 26 centimetres long, decorated with asphaltum and beads. Among the Chumash, bullroarers and whistles alike are sacred things, to be studied only with tribal consent.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"ʔalaxtəməmə, ʔaxtəməmənəʔəš: Ventureño Chumash words for the bullroarer, recorded by J. P. Harrington, built on axtəməmə 'to buzz', a verb also used of a bee or a fly.","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"assemblage","date_display":"c. 1500–1800 AD","date_qualification":"VEN-11 site horizon; cache undated.","date_basis":"site_horizon","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"gamble_2025_muwu_ven11_bullroarers, Gamble 2025 fig. 7 caption; Stanton, Douglass, and Reddy eds. 2016, People in a Changing Land vol. 4 p. 41, citing Gamble 1995 p. 21","sources":[{"citation":"Lynn H. Gamble, \"Navigating cooperative marketplaces: the Chumash Indians and the dynamics of hunting/gathering/fishing economies,\" Frontiers in Human Dynamics 7 (2025), article 1606256, fig. 7 and caption","url":"https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-dynamics/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2025.1606256/full","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251113220649/https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-dynamics/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2025.1606256/full"},{"citation":"Hudson and Blackburn, The Material Culture of the Chumash Interaction Sphere, vol. IV (1986), pp. 358-360, via Gamble 2025, fig. 7"}],"source_citations":"Lynn H. Gamble, \"Navigating cooperative marketplaces: the Chumash Indians and the dynamics of hunting/gathering/fishing economies,\" Frontiers in Human Dynamics 7 (2025), article 1606256, fig. 7 and caption; Hudson and Blackburn, The Material Culture of the Chumash Interaction Sphere, vol. IV (1986), pp. 358-360, via Gamble 2025, fig. 7","source_display":"Lynn H. Gamble, \"Navigating cooperative marketplaces: the Chumash Indians and the dynamics of hunting/gathering/fishing economies,\" Frontiers in Human Dynamics 7 (2025), article 1606256, fig. 7 and caption; Hudson and Blackburn, The Material Culture of the Chumash Interaction Sphere, vol. IV (1986), pp. 358-360, via Gamble 2025, fig. 7","date_citation_display":"Gamble 2025 fig. 7 caption; Stanton, Douglass, and Reddy eds. 2016, People in a Changing Land vol. 4 p. 41, citing Gamble 1995 p. 21","object_display":"Three bullroarers recovered from a cache with eight deer-tibia whistles decorated with asphaltum and beads.","function_display":"Three bullroarers cached with eight decorated deer-tibia whistles. A regional archaeoacoustics study identifies bullroarers and bone whistles as sacred objects for south-central Californian Native peoples; the exact rite represented by this cache is not recorded.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"muwu","display_name":"Muwu cache of three bullroarers","image":{"full":"assets/objects/NAMER-006_hearst_lan295_1-242541.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/NAMER-006_hearst_lan295_1-242541_thumb.jpg","alt":"Saw-toothed wooden bullroarer excavated from a Chumash-area cave in Los Angeles County.","credit":"Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley (1-242541)","license":"© Hearst Museum of Anthropology, UC Berkeley","source_page":"https://portal.hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/catalog/db6299df-7da7-4346-b1bd-7c587ca464cc","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Saw-toothed wooden bullroarer excavated from a Chumash-area cave in Los Angeles County."},"slug":"gamble2025-001-muwu-ven-11-chumash"}