No. BARRETT1933-001North America
Yosemite Valley pine bullroarers
United States · California · central Sierra Nevada · Yosemite Valley · North America
Function not recorded
Source term: bull-roarer
At Ahwahnee, just below Yosemite Valley, the Southern Miwok bullroarer was a wooden plaything reserved to men; elsewhere among the Southern Sierra Miwok it was a boy's toy, and a profane one. This pair of pine blades, collected in Yosemite Valley by Dr. J. W. Hudson for Chicago's Field Museum, was reputed to be Southern Miwok — which would make them toys of that kind, not voices hidden inside a ceremony.
As a toy, usually used by boys, its use was profane.
Robert F. Heizer, 'Some Prehistoric Bullroarers from California Caves' (1960), p. 7
Particulars
- Object
- A pair of pine bullroarers from Yosemite Valley.
- Function
- Not recorded.
Source
S. A. Barrett and E. W. Gifford, Miwok Material Culture: Indian Life of the Yosemite Region, Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 2(4) (1933), p. 251; Robert F. Heizer, 'Some Prehistoric Bullroarers from California Caves' (1960), p. 7; B. W. Aginsky, 'Culture Element Distributions: XXIV, Central Sierra,' Anthropological Records 8:4 (1943), pp. 394, 425, elements 1233-1244 (column M1, Southern Miwok of Ahwahnee)