DRUCKER1950-012 - ethnographic attestation
Gilutsa Tsimshian bullroarer
Canada - Lower Skeena and Port Simpson, northern British Columbia coast - North America - Northwest Coast
Play / practical
Source term: bullroarer
Among the Tsimshian proper of the lower Skeena and Port Simpson the bullroarer was a handled slat swung by children, with no ceremonial use. Nothing hedged it: no secrecy, no exclusion of the uninitiated, no bar on women. Anyone might pick it up and swing 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.
- 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 Port Simpson / lower Skeena, northern British Columbia coast -- territory anchor, not a findspot.
- Toy / secular survival