The Bullroarer Atlas

DRUCKER1950-008 - ethnographic attestation

Bella Bella (Heiltsuk), Oyalit division

Canada - Milbanke Sound, central British Columbia coast - North America - Northwest Coast

Play / practical

Penn Museum 22127 preserves the long whirling-stick assembly.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Penn Museum 22127 preserves the long whirling-stick assembly Image source

Source term: bullroarer

By the 1930s missionaries had been among the Heiltsuk of Milbanke Sound for sixty years, and no dance had been performed there in over fifty. The bullroarer was still in the village: a slat on a cord fastened to a handle, in children's hands. These were the people who drove the Wikeno out of Rivers Inlet and dominated the central coast; whatever place the instrument once had in their ceremonial went with the dancing. The toy outlasted it.

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; no ceremonial use recorded.
Map confidence
low_medium - Milbanke Sound / Bella Bella, central British Columbia coast -- territory anchor, not a findspot.
Source location
Page references

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

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