JSTEWARD1941-005 - primary ethnography
Lida Shoshoni bullroarer
United States - Lida, Esmeralda County, Nevada - North America - Great Basin
Function not recorded
Source term: Bull-roarer
Lida stands in open desert between Death Valley and the Toiyabe, and its bullroarer is one more in an unbroken run of them up the western edge of Nevada: the same flat wooden slat on a thong, whirled from the Owens Valley to the Humboldt. What it was called here, and what it was for, went unasked — though in this southern stretch of the Basin the answer given everywhere else was a toy.
- Object
- Not described; the Great Basin form is a flat wooden slat swung on a cord from a short handle stick.
- Function
- Not recorded.
- Source
- Steward 1941, printed p. 307, element 1870 'Bull-roarer' + for column Sc. Informant dossier, printed p. 214: 'JS, full-blood Shoshoni man, born ca. 1850 at Lida, Nevada, but was raised at Belmont in Ralston Valley north of Tonopah, returning to Lida at the age of 15; now lives at Cow Camp near Silver Peak, Nevada; Coöperative, intelligent, speaks fair…
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 307, element 1870 (column Sc); informant p. 214
- Source confidence
- medium Lida, Esmeralda County, Nevada. Territory anchor for the named people; not a use site.