{"id":"RIDINGTON1976-001","label":"Giant Spider's whirled lure (Dunne-za)","people_or_site":"Dunne-za (Beaver, Northern Athapaskan)","country_current":"Canada","historic_region":"Peace and Prophet River drainages, northeastern British Columbia","macroregion":"North America / Subarctic","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Swung on a line around the head, its voice that of a stretched spider thread.","function_summary":"In story, swung by the cannibal Giant Spider on a mountain top to draw people within reach, whereupon he killed them and drank their body fluids. Among living people the corollary is a prohibition: anyone whose power comes from Giant Spider must not hear the sound of a stretched string or a stretched hide, or he becomes wechuge.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"ridington1976_wechuge","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://cas-sca.journals.uvic.ca/index.php/anthropologica/article/view/1493","page_or_plate":"Anthropologica 18(2):115-116; Little Bit Know Something pp. 167-170","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Prophet River, northeastern British Columbia -- a Dunne-za community in Ridington's fieldwork area. Dunne-za territory runs across the Peace and upper Fort Nelson drainages; the story is not localised to a site and this is a people anchor, not a performance place.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In Dunne-za story, the Giant Spider lured people to a mountain top by whirling a roarer around his head. Drawn by the sound of his stretched thread, they approached; he killed them and sucked out their body fluids. Among the Dunne-za, a person whose power came from Giant Spider could not hear any sound made by a stretched string or hide: it could wake the monster within him and make him wechuge, a cannibal. When Ridington put country music on the car radio while driving the Dreamer Charlie Yahey, a young man reached over and switched it off. Once in a cafe a jukebox began playing guitar music and Yahey grew 'too strong'; he was hustled into the bush, where another person sang a medicine song to overcome the monster emerging inside him.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Robin Ridington, 'Wechuge and Windigo: A Comparison of Cannibal Belief among Boreal Forest Athapaskans and Algonkians', Anthropologica n.s. 18(2) (1976): 107–129, pp. 115–116","url":"https://cas-sca.journals.uvic.ca/index.php/anthropologica/article/view/1493","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260118203844/https://cas-sca.journals.uvic.ca/index.php/anthropologica/article/view/1493"},{"citation":"Robin Ridington, Little Bit Know Something: Stories in a Language of Anthropology (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre; Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990), pp. 167–170","url":"https://archive.org/details/littlebitknowsom0000ridi"}],"source_citations":"Robin Ridington, 'Wechuge and Windigo: A Comparison of Cannibal Belief among Boreal Forest Athapaskans and Algonkians', Anthropologica n.s. 18(2) (1976): 107–129, pp. 115–116; Robin Ridington, Little Bit Know Something: Stories in a Language of Anthropology (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre; Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990), pp. 167–170","source_display":"Robin Ridington, 'Wechuge and Windigo: A Comparison of Cannibal Belief among Boreal Forest Athapaskans and Algonkians', Anthropologica n.s. 18(2) (1976): 107–129, pp. 115–116; Robin Ridington, Little Bit Know Something: Stories in a Language of Anthropology (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre; Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990), pp. 167–170","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Swung on a line around the head, its voice that of a stretched spider thread.","function_display":"In story, swung by the cannibal Giant Spider on a mountain top to draw people within reach, whereupon he killed them and drank their body fluids. Among living people the corollary is a prohibition: anyone whose power comes from Giant Spider must not hear the sound of a stretched string or a stretched hide, or he becomes wechuge.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"dunne beaver","display_name":"Giant Spider's whirled lure (Dunne-za)","image":{"full":"assets/objects/EXH2026-009.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/EXH2026-009_thumb.jpg","alt":"Unfinished bullroarer blank made by George Bain at Fort Nelson, British Columbia: a broad leaf-shaped board with a squared-off end, shown with scale and color chart.","credit":"Yale Peabody Museum, YPM ANT 057335","license":"CC0 (Yale Peabody)","source_page":"https://lux.collections.yale.edu/view/object/9480cfba-1422-495a-b4bb-0e53dc2ed2f2","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Unfinished bullroarer blank made by George Bain at Fort Nelson","pool_id":"auto-EXH2026-009","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-08-12"},"slug":"ridington1976-001-dunne-za-beaver-northern-athapaskan"}