DRUCKER1937-002 - ethnographic attestation
Desert Cahuilla (Wontcaktamyahwic clan), Tuva
United States - Tuva - Fish Springs, Salton Sink, Southern California - North America
Sacred / spirit
Source term: bull-roarer
Tuva stood at the southern edge of Desert Cahuilla country, near the springs above the Salton Sink, and it was home to the Wontcaktamyahwic clan. There the bullroarer belonged to ceremony alone - whirled to call the people together, and put to no other use. Ramon Razon, a man of the clan itself, gave that account in the mid-1930s; the surname was Fig Tree John's, of the same clan and the same desert villages.
- Function
- Ceremonial use only; whirled to assemble the people.
- Map confidence
- medium - Tuva, the southernmost Desert Cahuilla village in living memory, at Fish Springs just south of the Riverside-Imperial county line near the Salton Sea, per Strong 1929, pp. 49-50. Drucker's printed p. 5 glosses Tuva as the site of Agua Dulce (present Oasis, some miles north), following Barrows; Strong 1929, p. 49 n. 119 treats that identification as probably an error, and Strong did the village-by-village mapping with Desert Cahuilla informants. Not a documented sounding site.
- Source location
Page references
printed pp. 5, 25; items 924, 926