JSTEWARD1941-006 - primary ethnography
Great Smoky Valley Shoshoni bullroarer
United States - Great Smoky Valley, Nye County, Nevada - North America - Great Basin
Function not recorded
Source term: Bull-roarer
Great Smoky Valley lies under the Toiyabe range, in the middle of the Nevada Shoshoni country, and the bullroarer here is a plain wooden whirrer on a cord. It sits at the hinge of the instrument's two lives in the Great Basin: south of it the roarer was a child's plaything, north of it, on the Humboldt, it was swung in early spring to bring the warm wind. Which of the two this valley knew was never recorded.
- 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 Sd. Informant dossier, printed p. 213: 'JK, full-blood Shoshoni woman, born ca. 1875 at Hot Springs in Great Smoky Valley, married a man from the Kawich region to the east, but spent most of her life among white people and has lived for some time at Fallon; Very amiable and coöperative…
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 307, element 1870 (column Sd); informant p. 213
- Source confidence
- low to medium Darrough Hot Springs, Great Smoky Valley, Nye County. Territory anchor for the named people; not a use site.