{"id":"VOEGELIN1942-001","label":"Eastern Achomawi shamans' bone bullroarer","people_or_site":"Eastern Achomawi (Hammawi band)","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"West's Valley and Alturas, upper Pit River country, northeastern California","macroregion":"North America / California","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bullroarer of bone or horn, not wood. The soul-loss doctor's form was one or two flat bones tied on an elder stick, swung to a whirr.","function_summary":"Only shamans used it; it produced storm or wind, and the soul-loss doctor whirled the bone form while curing.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"voegelin1942_ne_california","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84125","page_or_plate":"pp. 48-49, 94 (elements 2116-2123), 158 and 246 (element 5099)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"West Valley Reservoir anchor inside Voegelin's six-mile West's Valley near Alturas; Sam Fox's natal village site is unrecovered and this is not an object findspot.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In West's Valley the bullroarer belonged to the doctors, and it was not made of wood. Sam Fox, a Hammawi Achomawi born there, told Erminie Voegelin in 1936 that only shamans used it, that it was of bone or horn, and that it produced storm or wind. For a patient whose soul had strayed, the soul-loss doctor swung his own form of the instrument — one or two flat bones tied to an elder stick, whirring as he worked the cure.","pull_quote":"One or two flat bones, tied on elder stick; stick swung around, bones make whirring sound.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Voegelin 1942:246, note to element 5099.","term_gloss":"","cls":"weather","class_label":"Weather / fertility magic","color":"#2F6FA3","is_candidate":false,"flags":["weather"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Erminie W. Voegelin, Culture Element Distributions: XX, Northeast California, Anthropological Records 7:2 (1942)","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84125","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013032403/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/84125"}],"source_citations":"Erminie W. Voegelin, Culture Element Distributions: XX, Northeast California, Anthropological Records 7:2 (1942)","source_display":"Erminie W. Voegelin, Culture Element Distributions: XX, Northeast California, Anthropological Records 7:2 (1942)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bullroarer of bone or horn, not wood. The soul-loss doctor's form was one or two flat bones tied on an elder stick, swung to a whirr.","function_display":"Only shamans used it; it produced storm or wind, and the soul-loss doctor whirled the bone form while curing.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"eastern achomawi","display_name":"Eastern Achomawi shamans' bone bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_penn-na10426.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/HAD1898-009_penn-na10426_thumb.jpg","alt":"Point Barrow bone bullroarer with short rows of sawtooth notches near its narrow end, linked by sinew to a long wooden handle.","credit":"Object NA10426. Courtesy of the Penn Museum","license":"Penn Museum terms — research/educational use with credit; rehost low-res","source_page":"https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/112178","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Point Barrow bone blade on sinew beside its wooden handle","pool_id":"auto-HAD1898-009_penn-na10426"},"slug":"voegelin1942-001-eastern-achomawi-hammawi-band"}