JSTEWARD1941-012 - primary ethnography
Ruby Valley Shoshoni (S-RubV)
United States - Ruby Valley, Elko County, northeastern Nevada - North America - Great Basin
Function not recorded
Source term: Bull-roarer
Ruby Valley lies under the east face of the Ruby Mountains, the last well-watered country before the Utah salt desert, and the bullroarer was at home in it — a flat wooden slat whirled on a thong. Nothing of its use was recorded here. Eastward, among the Gosiute at Skull Valley, the same instrument carried a feather on the blade and was swung both by children and to bring the warm wind; westward on the Humboldt it was weather-working too. Ruby Valley sits squarely in that northern half of the Basin, and kept its own answer to itself.
- Object
- Not described; the Great Basin form is a flat wooden slat swung on a cord from a short handle stick.
- Function
- Not recorded.
- Map confidence
- high - Centroid of Ruby Valley, Elko County, Nevada. Territory anchor for the named people; not a use site.
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 307, element 1870 (column Sm); informant pp. 213-214