{"id":"LOEB1932-002","label":"Coyote Rock ghosts of the Southern Pomo","people_or_site":"Southern Pomo (Gallinomero) of Healdsburg","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"California, Sonoma County, Russian River valley (Healdsburg)","macroregion":"North America / California","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarers","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bullroarers used in the Southern Pomo winter Ghost ceremony; their form and their own name were not remembered.","function_summary":"Used during dowi kabe hebi, the four-day winter Ghost initiation, when the hilatui ghosts ran down from the hills each night.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"loeb_1932_western_kuksu","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucp033-002.pdf","page_or_plate":"pp. 1–2, 101–102","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Healdsburg, home of Loeb's Southern Pomo informants Henry and Josephine Maximilian (p. 2); Loeb gives no site for the ghost dance house, said to be built every seven years or so 'in a particular locality' (p. 102).","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"For four nights each winter the Southern Pomo ghosts, the hilatui, came running down from the hills to the dance house, some with fire blazing from their hair, carrying long sticks painted black and white. Bullroarers sounded in this rite, beside the foot drum, though by 1930 no one could recall the instruments' own name. The ceremony was dowi kabe hebi, 'coyote rock get-him', the Ghost initiation of the boys. Some said the ghosts brought snakes down with them. Among these people of the Russian River around Healdsburg, Coyote was the only creator: the maker of people, of fire and of the lights in the sky.","pull_quote":"Bullroarers were said to have been used, but my informants forgot the name of these instruments.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Loeb, \"The Western Kuksu Cult\" (1932), p. 102 (Southern Pomo).","term_gloss":"dowi kabe hebi, 'coyote rock get-him': the Southern Pomo winter Ghost ceremony; hilatui: the ghost impersonators; haten: the foot drum. Gallinomero: older name for the Southern Pomo of the Russian River.","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["snake","initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"Edwin M. Loeb, 'The Western Kuksu Cult', University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 33(1) (1932): 1–137, pp. 1–2, 101–102","url":"https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucp033-002.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Edwin M. Loeb, 'The Western Kuksu Cult', University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 33(1) (1932): 1–137, pp. 1–2, 101–102","source_display":"Edwin M. Loeb, 'The Western Kuksu Cult', University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 33(1) (1932): 1–137, pp. 1–2, 101–102","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bullroarers used in the Southern Pomo winter Ghost ceremony; their form and their own name were not remembered.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"southern pomo","display_name":"Coyote Rock ghosts of the Southern Pomo","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/boas1897_fig189_koskimo_whirring_stick.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/thumbs/boas1897_fig189_koskimo_whirring_stick_thumb.jpg","alt":"Boas’s 1897 drawing of the Koskimo whirring stick, Berlin IV A 1488: a long flat board linked by cord to a separate handle.","credit":"Franz Boas, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895; Washington, 1897), fig. 189, p. 611","license":"Public domain (published 1897)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/socialorganizati00boas","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Boas’s 1897 drawing of the Koskimo whirring stick, Berlin IV A 1488","pool_id":"auto-museum_harvest--boas1897_fig189_koskimo_whirring_stick","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"loeb1932-002-southern-pomo-gallinomero-of-healdsburg"}