{"id":"MINE2026-074","label":"Saline Valley Shoshoni wooden bullroarer","people_or_site":"Saline Valley Shoshoni","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Saline Valley, eastern California","macroregion":"North America / Great Basin","local_name":"wumuitui","source_term":"wooden whirrer for bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Serrated oval wooden whirrer, pierced at one end and tied by a 15-inch buckskin thong to a 10-inch stick handle.","function_summary":"A boy's toy.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"STEWARD1941_NEVADA_SHOSHONI_FIG4F","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84152/files/ucar004-003.pdf","page_or_plate":"p. 225, Fig. 4f; description printed p. 250","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Named Saline Valley locality anchor; the figure does not specify a findspot within the valley.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In the southern Great Basin the bull-roarer was a plaything, and this wumuitui was a boy's toy and nothing more: a compact oval whirrer, notched like a saw along both edges and pierced at one end for its buckskin thong. Wilbur Patterson of Saline Valley made it for Harvard's Peabody Museum in 1935. Only farther north, at Elko, Battle Mountain and on the Snake River, did Shoshoni whirl it to bring the wind, and only beyond the Basin did it call rain.","pull_quote":"wooden whirrer for bull-roarer, Saline Valley Shoshoni","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Steward 1941:225, Fig. 4f.","term_gloss":"wumuitui: Saline Valley Shoshoni name Steward records for the wooden whirrer he figured.","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, 'Culture Element Distributions: XIII, Nevada Shoshoni,' Anthropological Records 4:2 (1941), p. 225, fig. 4f, and p. 250","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"}],"source_citations":"Julian H. Steward, 'Culture Element Distributions: XIII, Nevada Shoshoni,' Anthropological Records 4:2 (1941), p. 225, fig. 4f, and p. 250","source_display":"Julian H. Steward, 'Culture Element Distributions: XIII, Nevada Shoshoni,' Anthropological Records 4:2 (1941), p. 225, fig. 4f, and p. 250","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Serrated oval wooden whirrer, pierced at one end and tied by a 15-inch buckskin thong to a 10-inch stick handle.","function_display":"A boy's toy.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"saline valley","display_name":"Saline Valley Shoshoni wooden bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MINE2026-074_mine2026-074-steward1941-fig4f.png","thumb":"assets/objects/MINE2026-074_mine2026-074-steward1941-fig4f_thumb.jpg","alt":"Drawing of the serrated Saline Valley Shoshoni wumuitui: a broad oval blade with jagged edges and a looped cord at its narrow end.","credit":"Julian H. Steward, Culture Element Distributions XIII: Nevada Shoshoni (1941), p.225, fig.4f; specimen made by WP for Peabody Museum, Harvard","license":"Rights reserved / copyright status unverified (University of California, 1941); rehosted for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84152/files/ucar004-003.pdf","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Drawing of the serrated Saline Valley Shoshoni wumuitui."},"slug":"mine2026-074-saline-valley-shoshoni"}