JSTEWARD1941-012 - primary ethnography
Ruby Valley Shoshoni bullroarer
United States - Ruby Valley, Elko County, northeastern Nevada - North America - Great Basin
Function not recorded
wutiŋgubbüü'u (as MM "thought")
Source term: Bull-roarer
wutiŋgubbüü'u: the Ruby Valley word MM (RVJ's daughter and interpreter) thought was the bullroarer's; the near-identical wutiŋgubi'ut is the SLING at Smith Creek and Snake River (Steward 1941, p. 250, Sling entry).
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.
- Source
- Steward 1941, printed p. 307, element 1870 'Bull-roarer' + for column Sm. Informant dossier, printed pp. 213-214: 'RVJ, full-blood Shoshoni man, born ca. 1840 or 1845 in Ruby Valley; early life spent near Overland in Ruby Valley and near Medicine Springs in the Cedar Mountains; Extremely well informed, coöperative, and reliable; but English poor and is…
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 307, element 1870 (column Sm); informant pp. 213-214
- Source confidence
- high Centroid of Ruby Valley, Elko County, Nevada. Territory anchor for the named people; not a use site.