The Bullroarer Atlas

DRUCKER1950-003 - ethnographic attestation

Clayoquot (Tla-o-qui-aht)

Canada - Clayoquot Sound, west coast of Vancouver Island - North America - Northwest Coast

Sacred / spirit

Nuu-chah-nulth bullroarer, 1912: leaf-shaped cedar blade with cord and grooved handle stick.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Nuu-chah-nulth bullroarer, 1912: leaf-shaped cedar blade with cord and grooved handle stick. Image source

Source term: bullroarer

The Clayoquot were the richest and most powerful tribe of the central Nootkan province — their chiefs all drawn from one closely related family, and with the Ahousat and the Moachat the most ardent whale hunters on the coast. Their bullroarer was a Wolf Dance instrument, swung from a handle, and never a plaything: here the roarer belonged to a whaling aristocracy, and the peoples who called it a toy lived north of them.

Object
A wooden slat swung on a cord fastened to a handle, the standard form all along this coast. Neither dimensions nor material recorded.
Function
Sounded in the Wolf Dance; not a child's toy.
Map confidence
medium - Clayoquot Sound, west coast of Vancouver Island -- territory anchor, not a findspot.
Source location
Page references

printed p. 199, elements 854-857; notes printed p. 268

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