DRUCKER1950-009 - ethnographic attestation
China Hat (Xaihais) bullroarer
Canada - Klemtu - Swanson Bay, central British Columbia coast - North America - Northwest Coast
Play / practical
Source term: bullroarer
At Klemtu the Xai'xais held the northern end of the Wakashan coast, with southern Tsimshian beyond them on the outer shores. Their bullroarer was a handled slat and a plaything — the same answer given by every neighbour for hundreds of kilometres in both directions, Kwakiutl to the south and Tsimshian to the north. The older Xai'xais world had by then, as Drucker put it, been only a memory for many years.
- 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.
- 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 Klemtu, central British Columbia coast -- territory anchor, not a findspot.
- Toy / secular survival