{"id":"MUS2026-008","label":"Incised Karuk bone roarer","people_or_site":"Karok (Karuk)","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Klamath River, California","macroregion":"North America / California","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bull-roarer of the Karok (Karuk), in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"smithsonian_nmai","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ws6f450874c-e041-475e-9a06-d1bda7281c42","page_or_plate":"National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate culture/locality centroid","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Worked from incised animal bone rather than wood, this bull-roarer comes from the Karuk of the Klamath River — one of the northwestern California nations of whom Alfred Kroeber wrote that the bull-roarer \"was not used.\" Strung on cord and marked with carving and a single perforation, it entered the Museum of the American Indian in 1936, bought from the collector Margaret Alta Richards. Nothing of its own life was recorded: who made it, when, or how it was sounded is unknown. In a corner of California where the whirring instrument had no place, the survival of a Karuk example is itself the puzzle.","pull_quote":"The bull-roarer has been reported from several scattered tribes. As might be expected, its function is religious, but is not well known and seems to have varied. To the Luiseno it was a summons. It was not used by the northwestern nations.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California (BAE Bulletin 78, 1925), p. 824","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":"Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, object 18/9685","url":"http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ws6f450874c-e041-475e-9a06-d1bda7281c42"},{"citation":"A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 78 (1925), p. 824"}],"source_citations":"Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, object 18/9685; A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 78 (1925), p. 824","source_display":"Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, object 18/9685; A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 78 (1925), p. 824","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bull-roarer of the Karok (Karuk), in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"karok","display_name":"Incised Karuk bone roarer","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":false,"caption":"Karuk bone bullroarer incised with fine diamond chevrons and wound with fibre cord."},"slug":"mus2026-008-karok-karuk"}