{"id":"JSTEWARD1933-001","label":"Owens Valley Paiute boys’ bullroarer","people_or_site":"Owens Valley Paiute","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Owens Valley, Inyo and Mono counties, eastern California","macroregion":"North America","local_name":"","source_term":"Bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A board 12 by 1 by 1/4 inches, holed and swung on a 2-foot string tied to a notch in one end of a small round stick 18 inches long, which serves as the handle.","function_summary":"A small boy’s toy; Steward records no ceremonial or weather use in the valley.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"steward1933_owens_valley_paiute","source_type":"ethnography","source_url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82907/files/ucp033-004.pdf","page_or_plate":"printed p. 278; cross-referenced from the toys section","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Bishop, Owens Valley regional anchor; Steward’s Owens Valley Paiute run the length of the valley from Bishop to Lone Pine and the description is not tied to one settlement.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A foot of thin board, an inch wide and a quarter-inch thick, holed at one end and hung on two feet of string from a notch cut in an eighteen-inch stick - and in Owens Valley that was the whole of it. No rain came of it, no dead spoke through it, no one was kept from seeing it. Grown men there still remembered swinging them as boys. The valley kept no drum and no musical rasp either — rasps belonged to the Paiute up at Pyramid Lake — and the roarer was simply a boy's thing.","pull_quote":"A small, round stick, 18 inches long, serves as handle; a 2-foot string fastened to a notch in one end of it passes through a hole in a board 12 by 1 by 1/4 inch, which is swung. A small boy’s toy.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Steward 1933:278","term_gloss":"","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Julian H. Steward, Ethnography of the Owens Valley Paiute, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 33:3 (1933), p. 278","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82907/files/ucp033-004.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251006224215/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82907/files/ucp033-004.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Julian H. Steward, Ethnography of the Owens Valley Paiute, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 33:3 (1933), p. 278","source_display":"Julian H. Steward, Ethnography of the Owens Valley Paiute, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 33:3 (1933), p. 278","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A board 12 by 1 by 1/4 inches, holed and swung on a 2-foot string tied to a notch in one end of a small round stick 18 inches long, which serves as the handle.","function_display":"A small boy’s toy; Steward records no ceremonial or weather use in the valley.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"owens valley","display_name":"Owens Valley Paiute boys’ bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/expansion_2026_07/HAD1898-014_wereldmuseum_rv362-54.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/expansion_2026_07/thumbs/HAD1898-014_wereldmuseum_rv362-54_thumb.jpg","alt":"Pima bullroarer with blade, cord and handle, Wereldmuseum Leiden.","credit":"Wereldmuseum / NMVW (RV-362-54)","license":"CC BY-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/653087","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Pima bullroarer with blade, cord and handle, Wereldmuseum RV-362-54.","pool_id":"american-west-pima-painted-rig","last_modified":"2026-08-11"},"slug":"jsteward1933-001-owens-valley-paiute"}