{"id":"GIFFORDKROEBER1937-004","label":"Buldam–Willits: lie down for the roarer","people_or_site":"Northern Pomo of Buldam and Willits","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"California, Mendocino County, Willits Valley and Big River mouth (Buldam)","macroregion":"North America / California","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A bullroarer swung in the Buldam–Willits assembly (dance) house.","function_summary":"Swung in the assembly house even when women and children were present; spectators lay down to avoid being hit.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"giffordkroeber1937_pomo_ced","source_type":"culture_element_distribution","source_url":"https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucp037-005.pdf","page_or_plate":"pp. 121, 123, 126, 145, 186 n. 543","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Willits Valley: 'Name of central village not recorded, but in vicinity of Willits' (p. 121); the community also owned to the coast at Buldam, Big River mouth, where its people settled when driven out of Willits.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In the assembly house of the Buldam–Willits Pomo the bullroarer was swung even with women and children in the room, and the onlookers lay flat on the floor so the whirling blade would not hit them. Unlike their neighbours at Kabedile and Kalekau, these people did not hide it. Their central village lay near Willits, in the inland valley, and they owned a strip to the sea at Buldam, the mouth of Big River. When white settlers drove them out of Willits Valley, they went down to the coast and settled there; Charlie Snow was born at Buldam soon after the Mendocino reservation opened at Fort Bragg in 1856.","pull_quote":"Swung in assembly (dance) house, even when women and children present. Spectators lie down to avoid being hit.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Gifford and Kroeber, \"Culture Element Distributions: IV—Pomo\" (1937), p. 186, n. 543.","term_gloss":"Buldam: the Northern Pomo settlement at the mouth of Big River, Mendocino coast; Gifford's 'Buldam–Willits' community had its central village near Willits.","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 and A. L. Kroeber, 'Culture Element Distributions: IV—Pomo', University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 37(4) (1937): 117–254, pp. 121, 123, 126, 145, 186","url":"https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucp037-005.pdf"}],"source_citations":"E. W. Gifford and A. L. Kroeber, 'Culture Element Distributions: IV—Pomo', University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 37(4) (1937): 117–254, pp. 121, 123, 126, 145, 186","source_display":"E. W. Gifford and A. L. Kroeber, 'Culture Element Distributions: IV—Pomo', University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 37(4) (1937): 117–254, pp. 121, 123, 126, 145, 186","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A bullroarer swung in the Buldam–Willits assembly (dance) house.","function_display":"Swung in the assembly house even when women and children were present; spectators lay down to avoid being hit.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"northern pomo","display_name":"Buldam–Willits: lie down for the roarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/NAMER-007_fewkes1903_plateLVIII.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/NAMER-007_fewkes1903_plateLVIII_thumb.jpg","alt":"Fewkes’s painted plate of four Hopi katcinas; at upper left, Cotokinuñwû raises a small zigzag lightning whizzer.","credit":"J. W. Fewkes, Hopi Katcinas Drawn by Native Artists (21st ARBAE, 1903), pl. LVIII","license":"Public domain (published 1903)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/hopikatcinasdraw00fewk","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"For the withheld blade: Fewkes’s plate of Cotokinuñwû","pool_id":"auto-NAMER-007_fewkes1903_plateLVIII","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"giffordkroeber1937-004-northern-pomo-of-buldam-and-willits"}