The Bullroarer Atlas

HEIZER1960-001 - archaeological find

Hurricane Deck cave region, San Rafael Mountains (Chumash traditional territory)

United States - California - Santa Barbara County - Hurricane Deck - North America

Function not recorded

A weathered, saw-toothed wooden bull-roarer excavated at site CA-LAn-295 in West Hills, Los Angeles County — shown for the southern-California...
Representative image. A weathered, saw-toothed wooden bull-roarer excavated at site CA-LAn-295 in West Hills, Los Angeles County — shown for the southern-California archaeological form; the three Hurricane Deck staves themselves are in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley (1-242541) Image source

Source term: bullroarer

Deep in the sandstone backcountry of Santa Barbara County — the ridge country called Hurricane Deck, above the upper Sisquoc River — a cave yielded three wooden bullroarers, now in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History: flat staves up to 42 centimetres long, each drilled at one end with a small hole for its cord, one with a notched edge. The archaeologist Robert Heizer, surveying California's bullroarers in 1960, observed that Hurricane Deck lies in Chumash country, where the old religion turned on the ritual drinking of the narcotic toloache (Datura), and suggested these staves may have been ceremonial paraphernalia secreted in the cave. The Chumash whom the missions left knew the bullroarer only as a boys' toy; Heizer thought the early destruction of the native religion had let a sacred instrument dwindle into play.

Since the Chumash (in whose traditional territory the Hurricane Deck country lies) are known to have practiced the ritual taking of the narcotic coloache (Datura or jimson weed), these examples may be a part of some ceremonial paraphernalia which had been secreted in a cave.

R. F. Heizer, 'Some Prehistoric Bullroarers from California Caves', Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey 50 (1960), p. 8.
Object
Three prehistoric wooden bullroarers in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, from a cave in the Hurricane Deck region: a complete stave 42 cm long, a 14 cm hole-end fragment, and a 34.6 cm example with edge-notching; each pierced with a 0.5 cm string-hole.
Function
Not recorded. Heizer suggests the staves may have been ceremonial paraphernalia of the Chumash toloache (Datura) religion secreted in the cave; the decultured Chumash survivors knew the bullroarer only as a toy.
Map confidence
medium - Representative point on the Hurricane Deck ridge (San Rafael Wilderness, upper Sisquoc drainage); the source names only 'a cave in the Hurricane Deck region'.
Source location
pp. 6-8, fig. 3b-d

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