The Bullroarer Atlas

BIRKET1953-001 - ethnographic attestation

Chugach spring bullroarers

United States - Prince William Sound, Alaska - North America - Arctic

Weather / fertility magic

Representative—not this record's object: a Bristol Bay blade and handle, Alaska.
Representative — not this record’s object. · a Bristol Bay blade and handle, Alaska. Image source
Birket-Smith's calendar of sun-games: the buzz and the spring bull roarers.
Birket-Smith's calendar of sun-games: the buzz and the spring bull roarers. Image source

Source term: bull roarers

Among the Chugach of Prince William Sound, play kept time with the sun. After the winter solstice tops were spun on the ice to hasten its return, and put away as soon as the first salmon ran. At winter's end a buzz disc with scalloped edges was whirled to make the sun come quicker, and bullroarers too belonged to the spring. The summer hand game was welcome because it slowed the sun, and in autumn string figures were made to tangle its legs and delay its going.

A buzz, consisting of a disk scalloped on the edges was also used at the end of the winter to make the sun come quicker. Bull roarers likewise belonged to the spring season.

Kaj Birket-Smith, The Chugach Eskimo (1953), p. 104
Object
Bullroarer; no form, size or material is recorded.
Function
Belonged to the spring season, in a round of games each meant to hasten or delay the sun.
Source
Kaj Birket-Smith, The Chugach Eskimo (Nationalmuseets Skrifter, Etnografisk Række 6; Copenhagen: Nationalmuseets Publikationsfond, 1953), pp. 103-104
Source location
Page references

pp. 103-104 (Games and Pastimes)

Source confidence
medium
Location note
Old Chenega on Chenega Island, home of Birket-Smith's Chenega informant, within Prince William Sound; the source localises the game calendar to the Chugach as a whole.

Regions: The Americas · North America

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