{"id":"HEIZER1960-001","label":"Hurricane Deck cave bullroarers (Santa Barbara County)","people_or_site":"Hurricane Deck cave region, San Rafael Mountains (Chumash traditional territory)","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"California / Santa Barbara County / Hurricane Deck","macroregion":"North America / California","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Three prehistoric wooden bullroarers in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, from a cave in the Hurricane Deck region: a complete stave 42 cm long, a 14 cm hole-end fragment, and a 34.6 cm example with edge-notching; each pierced with a 0.5 cm string-hole.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"HEIZER1960","source_type":"archaeological_report","source_url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84332/files/ucas050-004.pdf","page_or_plate":"pp. 6-8, fig. 3b-d","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Representative point on the Hurricane Deck ridge (San Rafael Wilderness, upper Sisquoc drainage); the source names only 'a cave in the Hurricane Deck region'.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Deep in the sandstone backcountry of Santa Barbara County — the ridge country called Hurricane Deck, above the upper Sisquoc River — a cave yielded three wooden bullroarers, now in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History: flat staves up to 42 centimetres long, each drilled at one end with a small hole for its cord, one with a notched edge. The archaeologist Robert Heizer, surveying California's bullroarers in 1960, observed that Hurricane Deck lies in Chumash country, where the old religion turned on the ritual drinking of the narcotic toloache (Datura), and suggested these staves may have been ceremonial paraphernalia secreted in the cave. The Chumash whom the missions left knew the bullroarer only as a boys' toy; Heizer thought the early destruction of the native religion had let a sacred instrument dwindle into play.","pull_quote":"The notched edge … is barely present in one of the three pieces from the Hurricane Deck region—this feature is not reported in any ethnographic specimens (cf. Kroeber, 1925, Pl. 44) but is attested elsewhere by Spier (1928:290-91) for the Arapaho and Havasupai.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"R. F. Heizer, 'Some Prehistoric Bullroarers from California Caves', Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey 50 (1960), p. 8.","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"Before c. AD 1770","date_qualification":"Heizer's prehistoric label; object undated.","date_basis":"catalogue_attribution","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"HEIZER1960, pp. 6–8, fig. 3b–d; Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Chumash Life timeline","sources":[{"citation":"Robert F. Heizer, 'Some Prehistoric Bullroarers from California Caves', Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey 50 (1960): 5-9. Specimens in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (acknowledgment to P. C. Orr)","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84332/files/ucas050-004.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013012357/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84332/files/ucas050-004.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Robert F. Heizer, 'Some Prehistoric Bullroarers from California Caves', Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey 50 (1960): 5-9. Specimens in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (acknowledgment to P. C. Orr)","source_display":"Robert F. Heizer, 'Some Prehistoric Bullroarers from California Caves', Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey 50 (1960): 5-9. Specimens in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (acknowledgment to P. C. Orr)","date_citation_display":"Heizer 1960, pp. 6–8, fig. 3b–d; Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Chumash Life timeline","object_display":"Three prehistoric wooden bullroarers in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, from a cave in the Hurricane Deck region: a complete stave 42 cm long, a 14 cm hole-end fragment, and a 34.6 cm example with edge-notching; each pierced with a 0.5 cm string-hole.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"hurricane deck","display_name":"Hurricane Deck cave bullroarers (Santa Barbara County)","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_03/HEIZER1960-001_heizer1960_fig3bd.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_03/thumbs/HEIZER1960-001_heizer1960_fig3bd_thumb.jpg","alt":"Drawing of three archaeological bullroarers from Hurricane Deck, each pierced near the top; one is a broken fragment, and one has a notched edge.","credit":"R. F. Heizer, “Some Prehistoric Bullroarers from California Caves”, UCAS Reports 50 (1960), fig. 3 b–d","license":"Rights reserved; rehosted for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucas050-015.pdf","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Three archaeological bullroarers from Hurricane Deck, each pierced near the top; one is a fragment, one has a notched edge."},"slug":"heizer1960-001-hurricane-deck-cave-region-san-rafael-mountains-chumash-traditional-territo"}