The Bullroarer Atlas

DRUCKER1950-007 - ethnographic attestation

Bella Coola bullroarer

Canada - Bella Coola valley, central British Columbia coast - North America - Northwest Coast

Play / practical

Zuni bullroarer with a slender wooden handle and coiled cord.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Zuni bullroarer with a slender wooden handle and coiled cord Image source

Source term: bullroarer

Salishan speakers set down among Wakashan neighbours, the Nuxalk of the Bella Coola valley faced inland along the grease trails as much as out to sea. Their bullroarer was a handled slat in the hands of children. A ceremonial use is recorded as well, but only doubtfully and with nothing said about what the ceremony was — the one place on this coast where the instrument may have been both things at once.

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
A child's toy; a ceremonial use is also recorded, but doubtfully and with no ceremony named.
Source
Philip Drucker, Culture Element Distributions: XXVI, Northwest Coast, University of California Anthropological Records 9:3 (Berkeley, 1950). Element 854 Bullroarer with sub-elements 855 With handle, 856 Ceremonial usage, 857 Toy, printed p. 199; ethnographic notes printed p. 268
Source location
Page references

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

Source confidence
medium Bella Coola valley, central British Columbia coast -- territory anchor, not a findspot.

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