{"id":"JSTEWARD1941-002","label":"Ash Meadows Southern Paiute bullroarer","people_or_site":"Ash Meadows Southern Paiute (SP-Ash)","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Ash Meadows, Amargosa Valley, Nye County, Nevada","macroregion":"North America / Great Basin","local_name":"","source_term":"Bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Not described; the Great Basin form is a flat wooden slat swung on a cord from a short handle stick.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"steward1941_ced4_nevada_shoshoni","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84152/files/ucar004-003.pdf","page_or_plate":"printed p. 307, element 1870 (column SM); informants pp. 213-214","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Ash Meadows, in the Amargosa Valley of Nye County, Nevada - the named survey locality and the couple's residence.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Ash Meadows stood at the northwestern edge of native farming in the desert West. Its Southern Paiute families planted corn, squash, beans and sunflowers in small plots on moist ground by the springs, owned their own groves of mesquite and screw bean, and destroyed a field when its owner died, even with the harvest days away. The bullroarer was known here too. Most of what was remembered of this life came from a Southern Paiute woman raised at Pahrump who spoke little English; her husband passed it on.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","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,"sources":[{"citation":"Julian H. Steward, 'Culture Element Distributions: XIII, Nevada Shoshoni,' Anthropological Records 4:2 (1941), p. 307, element 1870; informant notes pp. 213-214; also p. 231","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84152/files/ucar004-003.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013012733/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84152/files/ucar004-003.pdf"},{"citation":"Julian H. Steward, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 120 (1938), pp. 182-183","url":"https://archive.org/details/basinplateauabor00stew_0/page/182/mode/1up"}],"source_citations":"Julian H. Steward, 'Culture Element Distributions: XIII, Nevada Shoshoni,' Anthropological Records 4:2 (1941), p. 307, element 1870; informant notes pp. 213-214; also p. 231; Julian H. Steward, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 120 (1938), pp. 182-183","source_display":"Julian H. Steward, 'Culture Element Distributions: XIII, Nevada Shoshoni,' Anthropological Records 4:2 (1941), p. 307, element 1870; informant notes pp. 213-214; also p. 231; Julian H. Steward, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 120 (1938), pp. 182-183","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Not described; the Great Basin form is a flat wooden slat swung on a cord from a short handle stick.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"ash meadows","display_name":"Ash Meadows Southern Paiute bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MINE2026-079_prm_1911_86_95_yavapai.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MINE2026-079_prm_1911_86_95_yavapai_thumb.jpg","alt":"A Yavapai medicine bullroarer from Fort McDowell: a broad blunt-ended wooden board incised with lightning zigzags and attached to a long looped cord.","credit":"Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 1911.86.95 (Freire-Marreco collection)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum — non-commercial/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39588","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Yavapai medicine bullroarer with lightning incisions and cord, Pitt Rivers Museum.","pool_id":"american-west-yavapai-lightning","last_modified":"2026-08-11"},"slug":"jsteward1941-002-ash-meadows-southern-paiute-sp-ash"}