The Bullroarer Atlas

No. HEIZER1964-001

Tuluwat engraved bone blades

United States · Humboldt Bay, California · Wiyot country · North America

Function not recorded Candidate only

Archaeological datec. 900–1860 ADTuluwat occupation; individual blade undated.
An archaeological plate shows thirteen bone implements with their original letters and descriptions, including four decorated pieces.
Plate I. Tuluwat bone implements, fig. 22. The engraved blades discussed here are a, b and i; the other objects provide context. Image source
Drawing of a bone blade with a knob at left and hatched triangles along both edges, leaving a pale central zigzag; its cross-section appears above.
Plate II. Decorated bone blade and cross-section from Gunther Island, Humboldt Bay; Heizer and Elsasser, fig. 22b. Image source
Two separate photographed bone fragments carry dark geometric engraving; the left fragment preserves a hole and the right a rounded end.
Plate III. Two decorated bone fragments found with burial 2 at Tuluwat: a pierced end at left and a rounded end at right; Loud, plate 20, figures 12–13. Image source
A historical photographic plate displays clay objects and worked bone, with the two decorated Tuluwat fragments numbered 12 and 13 near the bottom.
Plate IV. Comparison plate: Tuluwat finds 1–14 alongside Yurok/Klamath River scratching and hair implements 15–17 (Loud, plate 20). Image source
A Karuk bone bullroarer with fine diamond-chevron engraving and fibre cord wound around one end.
Plate V. Similar: Karuk bone bullroarer, Humboldt County, with cord and engraved triangles and chevrons (NMAI 18/9685); a separate object. Image source

Source term: headscratcher; pendant or headscratcher

Three thin bone blades from the great shellmound at Tuluwat are engraved edge to edge with cross-hatched triangles and chevrons. Two are pierced near one narrow end; the third ends in a rounded knob above an undercut neck, a ready seat for a cord. The excavation report calls them headscratchers, with a confidence that is itself a head-scratcher. A bone bullroarer catalogued as Karuk, from the same county, has the same pierced end and opposed triangles, its cord still attached. Just to the south, Sinkyone and Kato men whirled wooden bullroarers; to the Kato the roar was the voice of thunder, and it brought the storm. Tuluwat is the centre of the Wiyot world and the place of their creation, where each spring hundreds gathered for the World Renewal dances. In 1860, during a break in the ceremony, settlers came in the night and killed nearly a hundred sleeping women, children and elders. The Wiyot danced the World Renewal there again in 2014; in 2019 Eureka returned its remaining share of the island.

Particulars

Object
Three flat, geometrically engraved bone blades: two pierced near one narrow end, the third finished with a rounded knob above an undercut neck.
Function
Not recorded.

Sources

  1. Robert F. Heizer and A. B. Elsasser, Archaeology of Hum-67 (1964), pp. 7–9, 32 and fig. 22a, b, i View · archived
  2. Wiyot Tribe, A Photographic Exploration of Wigi: Tuluwat and Wigi place names View · archived
  3. L. L. Loud, Ethnogeography and Archaeology of the Wiyot Territory (1918), p383 and plate20 View · archived
  4. US Fish and Wildlife Service, Humboldt Bay NWR Complex Comprehensive Conservation Plan (September2009), p61: Tuluwat occupation View
  5. Wiyot Tribe, Tuluwat Project: World Renewal Ceremony and shellmound View
  6. Wiyot Tribe, Landback: Tuluwat creation place, massacre and ceremonial return View
  7. US Environmental Protection Agency, Returning Sacred Land: The Indian Island Superfund Site and the Wiyot Tribe, California (March2018), p19 View
  8. Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, 18/9685: Karuk bone bullroarer, Humboldt County View
  9. M. A. Baumhoff, Excavation of Teh-1 (Kingsley Cave), UCAS Reports 30 (1955), p. 53 and plate 1f View
  10. H. E. Driver, Culture Element Distributions: X, Northwest California, Anthropological Records 1(6) (1939), p. 337, elements 1341–1345 View · archived

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.