JSTEWARD1941-009 - primary ethnography
Hamilton Shoshoni bullroarer
United States - Hamilton, White Pine Range, White Pine County, Nevada - North America - Great Basin
Function not recorded
Source term: Bull-roarer
Hamilton is high in the White Pine Range, a silver camp thrown up over Shoshoni country in the boom of the late 1860s, and the bullroarer was known there: a flat wooden slat swung on a thong. No use was recorded for it. This is the eastern half of the Basin, where the instrument's two careers — plaything in the south, wind-bringer in the north — meet without a clear border.
- 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 Sh. Informant dossiers: printed p. 213, 'HJ, full-blood Shoshoni man, born ca. 1870 or 1875 at Hamilton; information fairly extensive but English poor; is very mercenary, though reasonably reliable.' Printed p. 214: 'JW, full-blood Shoshoni woman, born ca. 1850 near Hamilton; Largely…
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 307, element 1870 (column Sh); informants pp. 213-214
- Source confidence
- medium to high Hamilton, in the White Pine Range, White Pine County, Nevada. Territory anchor for the named people; not a use site.