BARRETT1933-001 - museum specimen
Yosemite Valley pine bullroarers
United States - California - central Sierra Nevada - Yosemite Valley - North America
Function not recorded
Source term: bull-roarer
Southern Sierra Miwok boys swung bullroarers as noisy, profane toys. The two pine blades from Yosemite Valley, Field Museum 70201 and 70202, may belong to that world of play: Hudson collected them there, but their Southern Miwok attribution was recorded only as 'reputed.' If the attribution is right, these were children's instruments, 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
- Object
- A pair of pine bullroarers from Yosemite Valley.
- Function
- Southern Sierra Miwok bullroarers were profane boys' toys; this Yosemite pair cannot securely inherit that use because its museum attribution is only 'reputed to be Southern Miwok.'
- Source
- Robert F. Heizer, 'Some Prehistoric Bullroarers from California Caves' (1960), p. 7, explicitly lists Southern Sierra Miwok among peoples using the bullroarer as a toy, usually by boys and profanely
- Source location
- Barrett and Gifford 1933, printed p. 251
- Source confidence
- low to medium Yosemite Valley floor anchor, matching the only locality Barrett and Gifford give. Not a village, camp or collection-event coordinate; no findspot within the valley is recorded.