{"id":"GIFFORD1940-008","label":"A death omen on the cord","people_or_site":"Eastern Navajo / Diné","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Tohatchi, New Mexico","macroregion":"North America","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Blade of lightning-struck wood, about 8 by 1.25 inches, whirled on a cord about four feet long.","function_summary":"Whirled in curing; if it came off the cord or failed to sound, the patient was held to be doomed.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"gifford1940_eastern_navajo","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84148/files/ucar004-002.pdf","page_or_plate":"pp. 58-59, 151-152","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Tohatchi community anchor.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"The instrument gave the verdict. Among the Eastern Navajo around Tohatchi, under the Chuska range in northwestern New Mexico, a curer whirling the bullroarer over a patient was also reading it: if the blade slipped its cord, or if it turned in the air and made no sound at all, the sick person was doomed. It was a small thing to carry that much weight — eight inches of lightning-struck wood, an inch and a quarter wide, on four feet of cord — and its silence was the answer nobody wanted.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","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,"sources":[{"citation":"E. W. Gifford, 'Culture Element Distributions: XII, Apache-Pueblo,' Anthropological Records 4:1 (1940), pp. 58-59 and 151-152","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84148/files/ucar004-002.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013035153/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84148/files/ucar004-002.pdf"}],"source_citations":"E. W. Gifford, 'Culture Element Distributions: XII, Apache-Pueblo,' Anthropological Records 4:1 (1940), pp. 58-59 and 151-152","source_display":"E. W. Gifford, 'Culture Element Distributions: XII, Apache-Pueblo,' Anthropological Records 4:1 (1940), pp. 58-59 and 151-152","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Blade of lightning-struck wood, about 8 by 1.25 inches, whirled on a cord about four feet long.","function_display":"Whirled in curing; if it came off the cord or failed to sound, the patient was held to be doomed.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"eastern navajo","display_name":"A death omen on the cord","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_03/GIFFORD1940-008_matthews1887_fig56_whizzer.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_03/thumbs/GIFFORD1940-008_matthews1887_fig56_whizzer_thumb.jpg","credit":"Washington Matthews, “The Mountain Chant: A Navajo Ceremony”, BAE 5th Annual Report (1887), fig. 56, p. 436","license":"Public domain (published 1887)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/annualreportofbu1887smit/page/n513/mode/1up","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Matthews’s engraving of a Navajo whizzer, three pale inlays and a knotted cord."},"slug":"gifford1940-008-eastern-navajo-dine"}