The Bullroarer Atlas

JSTEWARD1941-001 - primary ethnography

Fish Springs Northern Paiute wooden toy bullroarer

United States - Fish Springs, Owens Valley, Inyo County, California - North America - Great Basin

Play / practical

Zuni wooden bullroarer with its surviving cord, Penn Museum 22610.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Zuni wooden bullroarer with its surviving cord, Penn Museum 22610. Image source

Source term: Bull-roarer

In the Owens Valley the bullroarer was a child's toy: a flat wooden slat swung on a thong from a short handle stick, whirled for the noise it made. Not horn — the mountain-sheep-horn blade belonged to Death Valley, over the range — and not weather. Steward found the Great Basin divided on this instrument, the southern half using it as a plaything, the northern half swinging it to make the wind blow. Fish Springs lies on the southern side of that line, and denied the wind outright.

Object
A whirrer of wood, not the mountain-sheep-horn form.
Function
A toy; the wind-making use was denied here.
Source
Julian H. Steward, Culture Element Distributions: XIII Nevada Shoshoni, Anthropological Records 4:2 (1941), printed p. 307, element 1870 'Bull-roarer' + for column FS, with sub-elements 1871 'whirrer of wood' +, 1872 'of sheep horn' -, 1873 'used as toy' +, 1874 'used to make wind blow' -. Informant dossier, printed p. 214: 'TS, Northern Paiute man, born…
Source location
Page references

printed p. 307, element 1870 and sub-elements 1871-1874 (column FS); informant p. 214

Source confidence
medium to high Fish Springs, Owens Valley, Inyo County, California. Territory anchor for the named people; not a use site.

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