GIFFORD1940-008 - ethnographic attestation
A death omen on the cord
United States - Tohatchi, New Mexico - North America
Sacred / spirit
Source term: bull-roarer
The instrument gave the verdict. Among the Eastern Navajo around Tohatchi, under the Chuska range in northwestern New Mexico, a curer whirling the bullroarer over a patient was also reading it: if the blade slipped its cord, or if it turned in the air and made no sound at all, the sick person was doomed. It was a small thing to carry that much weight — eight inches long, an inch and a quarter wide, on four feet of cord — and its silence was the answer nobody wanted.
EN if bull-roarer came off cord or did not sound, sick person doomed.
Gifford 1940:152, note to element 2215.
- Object
- Blade about 8 by 1.25 inches, whirled on a cord about four feet long.
- Function
- Whirled in curing; if it came off the cord or failed to sound, the patient was held to be doomed.
- Source
- Gifford 1940 EN column and note 2215
- Source location
- pp. 58-59, 151-152
- Source confidence
- medium Tohatchi community anchor.