The Bullroarer Atlas

BARNETT1937-002 - ethnographic attestation

Chetco bull-roarer

United States - Chetco River, Curry County, Oregon - North America - Northwest Coast

Play / practical

Karuk bone bullroarer incised with fine diamond chevrons and wound with fibre cord.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Karuk bone bullroarer incised with fine diamond chevrons and wound with fibre cord. Image source

Source term: bull-roarer (boy's plaything)

The Chetco bullroarer was a boy's plaything. It could hardly have been anything else: the region's one public ceremony, the girls' puberty dance, was never made on the Chetco river — "the dance wasn't allowed to come farther north than xawunhwut" — so there was no rite on this river for a whirled slat to serve. It belonged to children.

Object
Not described; recorded only as a bull-roarer.
Function
A boy's plaything.
Source
Barnett 1937 Oregon Coast, printed p. 174, element 746
Source location
printed p. 174, element 746
Source confidence
medium Chetco River mouth (Brookings area), Curry County -- territory anchor, not a findspot.

View source Open this point on the interactive map