Coso Animal Master figure

Source term: bullroarer

A patterned being stands in the Coso rock art with taloned bird feet and a long, bulb-tipped rod. Garfinkel and his co-authors read figures of this kind as possible images of the Animal Master, a supernatural keeper of game within a hunting religion and its animal ceremonies. The rod may be a bullroarer — or a club, rattle, or hunting bolo. Its religious world is clearer than the object in its hand.

Sometimes the long rod is attached to a bulbous object that may be meant to depict a club, bullroarer, rattle or hunting bolo (Fig. 6h).

Garfinkel, Austin, Earle and Williams, Rock Art Research 26.2 (2009), p. 182

Particulars

Object

Pecked petroglyph, Patterned Body Anthropomorph (PBA) Fig. 6h: a patterned, cross-hatched torso figure with taloned, bird-like feet and outstretched arms. The bent right arm ends in a long, slender rod attached to a bulbous terminal object; a separate wavy line descends from the other arm. No cord, no arc of motion, and no separate performer are shown; the object is one element held by the figure itself.

Function

The possible bullroarer is held by a Coso Patterned Body Anthropomorph interpreted as a supernatural Animal Master within a hunting-religion complex; the rod could also be a club, rattle or bolo.