Promontory and Cache Valley newUkivo, swung for weather

newUkivo

Source term: bull-roarer (newUkivo)

Among the Shoshoni of Promontory Point and Cache Valley the bullroarer was not a toy. Alone among the Northern Shoshoni in Julian Steward's account, they kept it for the weather and not for play, and gave the work to one kind of person only: someone born in summer. Of the summer-born at Fort Hall, who went out to observe the summer rain, Steward was careful to add that the distinction conferred nothing else - it bought no standing, no calling, no rank, and stopped at the edge of the weather. The Promontory name for the instrument, newUkivo, has nothing in common with the booming compounds of Fort Hall and the Bannock, and he left it untranslated.

This distinction of summer and winter-born people is not carried beyond this slight control of weather.

Steward 1943, p. 384, on the summer-born at Fort Hall.

Particulars

Object

Wooden whirrer fitted with a wooden handle.

Function

Swung to bring warm wind, by a person born in summer; the toy use is denied.