No. GIFFORDKROEBER1937-003
Kabedile maamati and the ghosts
United States · California, Mendocino County, head of Sherwood Valley · North America
Restricted
maamati
Source term: bull-roarer
maamati: the Kabedile Northern Pomo name for the bullroarer; djaduwel: 'ghost', the ghost impersonators; Kabedile: the northernmost Pomo community, at the head of Sherwood Valley.
At Kabedile, the northernmost Pomo community, the bullroarer was the maamati, and it was swung in the assembly house where women and children were not allowed to see it. It sounded when the ghosts came. In summer an old man with a cocoon rattle sat on the roof of the assembly house and sang to call them; the djaduwel came out of the wooded hills, baskets on their heads and brush screens over painted faces of white clay and charcoal, and jumped down through the smoke hole. Then the maamati was swung inside. Kabedile stood in a forest clearing at the head of Sherwood Valley, and its people kept their own trail to a summer camp on the Pudding Creek lagoon by the sea.
Called maamati. Women and children not allowed to see. Swung in assembly (dance) house.
Gifford and Kroeber, "Culture Element Distributions: IV—Pomo" (1937), p. 186, n. 543.
Particulars
- Object
- A bullroarer called maamati, swung in the Kabedile assembly (dance) house.
- Function
- Swung in the assembly house, including when the ghost impersonators came in through the smoke hole; women and children were not allowed to see it.
Source
E. W. Gifford and A. L. Kroeber, 'Culture Element Distributions: IV—Pomo', University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 37(4) (1937): 117–254, pp. 120, 123, 145, 186, 206