{"id":"NA-S1952-004","label":"Wimönuntci Ute women's-taboo bullroarer","people_or_site":"Wimonuntci Ute","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Great Basin / Colorado Plateau","macroregion":"North America","local_name":"kwiemtinömpö","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Whirrer of wood swung on a string with a wooden handle.","function_summary":"Taboo to women; whirled to make wind blow and clear away clouds, effective only for people born in summer.","attestation_type":"secondary_catalog","source_key":"seder1952oldworld","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://www.penn.museum/sites/bulletin/3526/","page_or_plate":"Seder pp. 51-54; Stewart 1942 printed p. 291 (els. 2792, 2795, 2796, 2799, 2800, 2802), p. 315 (el. 4087), p. 347 note, p. 352 vocabulary","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"La Sal Mountains anchor, eastern Utah — the base camp Stewart was told of (p. 237); informant John Taylor was born near Moab at the foot of the La Sals. Supersedes the earlier broad Seder regional anchor.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"The Wimönuntci — the Weeminuche, southernmost of the Colorado Ute, whose base camp lay in the La Sal Mountains of eastern Utah — forbade the bull-roarer to women, and only the summer-born could make it work at all. Whirled on its handled string, the wooden kwiemtinömpö raised wind and cleared away clouds. One shaman needed no arm for it: his bull-roarer hung tied outside the dwelling and whirled by itself whenever he wished it to.","pull_quote":"Bull-roarer tied outside; it whirled by itself whenever wished by shaman to do so.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Stewart 1942:347 (Culture Element Distributions: XVIII, Anthropological Records 6:4), note to element 4087, Wimönuntci list","term_gloss":"kwiemtinömpö: the Wimönuntci word for the bull-roarer.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["women_taboo","weather"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Omer C. Stewart, “Culture Element Distributions: XVIII, Ute-Southern Paiute,” Anthropological Records 6(4) (1942), pp. 239, 291, 315, 347, 352","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/83548","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013023604/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/83548"},{"citation":"Theodore A. Seder, 'Old World Overtones in the New World,' Museum Bulletin (University of Pennsylvania) XVI(4) (1952), pp. 51-54","url":"https://www.penn.museum/sites/bulletin/3526/","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250316040643/https://www.penn.museum/sites/bulletin/3526/"}],"source_citations":"Omer C. Stewart, “Culture Element Distributions: XVIII, Ute-Southern Paiute,” Anthropological Records 6(4) (1942), pp. 239, 291, 315, 347, 352; Theodore A. Seder, 'Old World Overtones in the New World,' Museum Bulletin (University of Pennsylvania) XVI(4) (1952), pp. 51-54","source_display":"Omer C. Stewart, “Culture Element Distributions: XVIII, Ute-Southern Paiute,” Anthropological Records 6(4) (1942), pp. 239, 291, 315, 347, 352; Theodore A. Seder, 'Old World Overtones in the New World,' Museum Bulletin (University of Pennsylvania) XVI(4) (1952), pp. 51-54","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Whirrer of wood swung on a string with a wooden handle.","function_display":"Taboo to women; whirled to make wind blow and clear away clouds, effective only for people born in summer.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"secondary catalog","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"wimonuntci ute","display_name":"Wimönuntci Ute women's-taboo bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_15/VANSTONE1961-001_fmnh60974_fig37f.png","thumb":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_15/thumbs/VANSTONE1961-001_fmnh60974_fig37f_thumb.png","alt":"Northern Ute bullroarer 60974, collected by George A. Dorsey in 1900: a flat blade with a long buckskin line bent into a large angular loop above it.","credit":"Field Museum of Natural History (60974; negative 113080), via Biodiversity Heritage Library","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 3.0","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/ethnographiccoll28vans","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Northern Ute bullroarer 60974 with buckskin line, collected by Dorsey in 1900.","pool_id":"auto-review_2026_07_15--VANSTONE1961-001_fmnh60974_fig37f"},"slug":"na-s1952-004-wimonuntci-ute"}