The Bullroarer Atlas

DRUCKER1950-014 - ethnographic attestation

Massett Haida bullroarer

Canada - Massett, Graham Island, Haida Gwaii - North America - Northwest Coast

Play / practical

Oglala tateka yuhmunpi from Pine Ridge, figured by Culin in 1907.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Oglala tateka yuhmunpi from Pine Ridge, figured by Culin in 1907 · Public domain Image source

Source term: bullroarer

Massett, on Graham Island, is the northern limit of the bullroarer in the Americas: beyond Haida Gwaii, among the Tlingit, it is simply absent. Here it was a handled slat and a child's toy. Down the same archipelago at Skedans it was no toy at all but a ceremonial voice sounded out of sight — the sharpest disagreement between close neighbours anywhere on this coast, and both answers Haida.

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. The northernmost bullroarer on the coast.
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
low to medium Massett, northern Graham Island, Haida Gwaii -- territory anchor, not a findspot.

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