{"id":"MINE2026-077","label":"Northern Saulteaux hunting-wind bullroarer","people_or_site":"Northern Saulteaux (Ojibwe)","country_current":"Canada","historic_region":"Northern Saulteaux country, northwestern Ontario","macroregion":"North America / Subarctic","local_name":"","source_term":"bull roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Edge-serrated wooden blade on roughly a yard of cord, swung around the head from a short hand grip.","function_summary":"Carried by hunters to bring the wind, especially the north wind valued for hunting; also sounded for amusement.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"SKINNER1911_NORTHERN_SAULTEAUX","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://archive.org/stream/notesoneasterncr00skin/notesoneasterncr00skin_djvu.txt","page_or_plate":"pp. 141, 148","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Natural Resources Canada official Wabigoon Lake geographic-name record; a documented locality of Skinner's fieldwork used as a regional anchor - the bullroarer passage itself names no community.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A Northern Saulteaux legend tells where the winds came from: a woman bore four sons at a single birth and died leaving them, and each grew into one of the four winds and travelled off to his own quarter — the eldest south to bring warm weather, the youngest north to send the bitter cold. Of the four it was that north wind the hunters wanted, the best hunting wind, and to raise it they carried a serrated wooden bullroarer on a yard of cord and sat up through the night swinging it overhead — its rushing hum, Skinner guessed, standing in for the rush of the wind. The same blade could also be sounded simply for amusement. These were Ojibwe communities of the lake-and-forest country north of Lake Superior, close kin to the Eastern Cree.","pull_quote":"Bull roarers of several kinds not only serve as amusements but are carried by hunters, who use them to bring the wind.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Alanson Skinner, Notes on the Eastern Cree and Northern Saulteaux (1911), p. 141; north-wind context p. 148.","term_gloss":"","cls":"weather","class_label":"Weather / fertility magic","color":"#2F6FA3","is_candidate":false,"flags":["weather","toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Alanson Skinner, Notes on the Eastern Cree and Northern Saulteaux (AMNH Anthropological Papers 9(1), 1911), pp. 117-118, 141 and 148","url":"https://archive.org/stream/notesoneasterncr00skin/notesoneasterncr00skin_djvu.txt"}],"source_citations":"Alanson Skinner, Notes on the Eastern Cree and Northern Saulteaux (AMNH Anthropological Papers 9(1), 1911), pp. 117-118, 141 and 148","source_display":"Alanson Skinner, Notes on the Eastern Cree and Northern Saulteaux (AMNH Anthropological Papers 9(1), 1911), pp. 117-118, 141 and 148","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Edge-serrated wooden blade on roughly a yard of cord, swung around the head from a short hand grip.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"northern saulteaux","display_name":"Northern Saulteaux hunting-wind bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MINE2026-077_cmh_iii_g_372_lac_seul.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MINE2026-077_cmh_iii_g_372_lac_seul_thumb.jpg","alt":"Anishinaabe bullroarer from Lac Seul, with a scalloped blade and handle.","credit":"Canadian Museum of History, III-G-372 a-b","license":"© Canadian Museum of History — non-commercial research/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://www.historymuseum.ca/collections/","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Anishinaabe bullroarer from Lac Seul, with a scalloped blade and handle."},"slug":"mine2026-077-northern-saulteaux-ojibwe"}