JSTEWARD1941-013 - primary ethnography
Snake River Shoshoni (S-SnRv)
United States - Snake River, southern Idaho - North America - Great Basin
Weather / fertility magic
Source term: Bull-roarer
On the Snake River the bullroarer was swung to make the wind blow — the northernmost of the three places in Steward's survey where it was a weather instrument, with Elko and Battle Mountain on the Humboldt below it. Against that stand flat denials from the south, in Death Valley and the Owens Valley, where it was a child's plaything and nothing more. Steward made the split a general one: the southern Great Basin used the roarer as a toy, the northern to bring the wind.
- Object
- Recorded as present without description of the object itself.
- Function
- Used to make the wind blow. The Snake River is one of only three localities in the survey where Steward recorded the weather use.
- Map confidence
- medium - Bliss, on the Snake River in Gooding County, Idaho. Territory anchor for the named people; not a use site.
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 307, element 1870 and sub-element 1874 (column Sn); informant p. 213
- Weather magic