BOURKE1892-002 - ethnographic attestation
Apache / San Carlos Agency context
United States - San Carlos Agency, Arizona - North America
Sacred / spirit
tzi-ditindi English
Source term: tzi-ditindi; sounding wood; rhombus / bull roarer
tzi-ditindi: the Apache name for the bull-roarer, glossed by Bourke as "the sounding wood."
Etymology. Bourke records the Apache name for the bull-roarer as tzi-ditindi and glosses it in apposition as "the 'sounding wood'" — the wood that produces sound when whirled. Bourke does not decompose the term morpheme-by-morpheme; the gloss is a whole-word equivalence. (high confidence)
In 1884 the season near the San Carlos Agency in Arizona had been unusually dry and the crops were parched, so the Apache medicine-men arranged a procession, two of its features being a long-handled cross and a rhombus, or bull-roarer. Captain John G. Bourke, who recorded the rite, had first seen the instrument at the snake dance of the Tusayan (Hopi) in the village of Walpi in August 1881, where the medicine-men twirled it about the head until it "faithfully imitat[ed] the sound of a gust of rain-laden wind"; by making this sound, he was told, they compelled the wind and rain to come to the aid of the crops. He found the Apache using it for the same purpose. They called it tzi-ditindi, "the sounding wood," an oblong of pine some seven or eight inches long, one end rounded to rudely represent a human head. The painted lines on its front, the Apache explained, were the entrails of their wind god, and those on the back his hair, which was of several colors and represented the lightning. Bourke was led to believe the wood itself was taken from pine or fir struck by lightning on the mountain tops, such wood being held in the highest estimation and worked into amulets of especial efficacy.
The Apache explained that the lines on the front side of the rhombus were the entrails and those on the rear side the hair of their wind god. The hair is of several colors, and represents the lightning.
Bourke 1892, The Medicine-Men of the Apache (Ninth Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology):477
- Object
- Apache medicine-men used the rhombus during drought near San Carlos Agency in 1884.
- Function
- Bourke says the Apache used it for the same rain/crop purpose as the Walpi rhombus; he gives the Apache name as tzi-ditindi, the sounding wood, and connects it with lightning-struck mountain wood and the wind god.
- Map confidence
- medium - representative coordinate for named people, place, or broad region in Bourke
- Source location
- printed pp. 476-478
- Spirit voice
- Weather / fertility magic