DRUCKER1950-010 - ethnographic attestation
Xaisla bullroarer
Canada - Kitimat, head of Douglas Channel, British Columbia - North America - Northwest Coast
Play / practical
Source term: bullroarer
The Haisla lived at the heads of Douglas and Gardner channels, cut off from their Wakashan relatives to the south by Tsimshian holding the outer coasts — eulachon people at Kitimat and Kitlope, and about as isolated as anyone on the coast. Their bullroarer had the usual handle and belonged to children, with no ceremonial use. It came from the older life up the river, before the move down to salt water.
- 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 Kitimat, head of Douglas Channel, British Columbia -- territory anchor, not a findspot.
- Toy / secular survival