{"id":"LOEB1929-033","label":"Klamath boy's paddle bullroarer","people_or_site":"Klamath","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Oregon / Klamath region","macroregion":"North America / Plateau","local_name":"sqiˑwʼ","source_term":"sqiˑwʼ","source_language":"Klamath (Klamath-Modoc, Oregon)","object_description":"","function_summary":"A toy for boys, swung for amusement.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"loeb1929","source_type":"comparative_secondary","source_url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82839/files/ucp025-004.pdf","page_or_plate":"p. 284","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"representative coordinate for named people, place, or region in Loeb","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"The Klamath bullroarer was a plain thing — a paddle of unornamented wood about fourteen inches long, notched at the narrow end for its cord — and Leslie Spier's informants dismissed it as a boy's plaything. The whirred sound that carried real power belonged to a different instrument: a buzzer of deer astragalus spun on a sinew cord, its drone shaped into the words poke'wot poke'wot, \"drive the deer out.\" It was a hunting charm, echoing the drives near Pelican Bay where deer were forced into the water and women waited in canoes to kill them.","pull_quote":"The bullroarer is a boy's plaything; it has no significance.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Leslie Spier, Klamath Ethnography (UCPAAE 30, 1930), p. 83","term_gloss":"sling; bull-roarer","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,"etymology":"Barker's Klamath Dictionary glosses sqiˑwʼ as \"sling; bull-roarer\" — one informant described a children's missile-throwing sling, the Pompey informants \"a kind of noisemaker you whirl around your head.\" The word names the instrument by its whirled-noise function.","literal_gloss":"","semantic_cluster":"motion_sound","etymology_confidence":"medium","sources":[{"citation":"Edwin M. Loeb, Tribal Initiations and Secret Societies, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 25(3) (1929), pp. 249-288; Leslie Spier, Klamath Ethnography, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 30 (1930), pp. 83-84","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82839/files/ucp025-004.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250411091854/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82839/files/ucp025-004.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Edwin M. Loeb, Tribal Initiations and Secret Societies, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 25(3) (1929), pp. 249-288; Leslie Spier, Klamath Ethnography, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 30 (1930), pp. 83-84","source_display":"Edwin M. Loeb, Tribal Initiations and Secret Societies, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 25(3) (1929), pp. 249-288; Leslie Spier, Klamath Ethnography, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 30 (1930), pp. 83-84","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"A toy for boys, swung for amusement.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"klamath","display_name":"Klamath boy's paddle bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-008_nmai_18-9685_karuk.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-008_nmai_18-9685_karuk_thumb.jpg","alt":"A Karuk bone bullroarer with fine diamond-chevron engraving and fibre cord wound around one end.","credit":"National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (18/9685)","license":"Usage Conditions Apply (NMAI)","source_page":"https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/object/NMAI_202773","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Karuk bone bullroarer incised with fine diamond chevrons and wound with fibre cord.","pool_id":"auto-MUS2026-008_nmai_18-9685_karuk"},"slug":"loeb1929-033-klamath"}