The feathered Gosiute whirrer of Skull Valley

Source term: bull-roarer

The Gosiute of Skull Valley lived at the few springs of a dry valley west of the Great Salt Lake, and theirs is the only bullroarer in Steward's northern survey with a feather on it. It is also the only one whose material he never recorded. It hung from a wooden handle, but the blade was not wood, and not the sheep horn every informant in the volume denied outright. So what actually whirred at the end of that cord goes unnamed. Children played with it, and it was swung to bring the warm wind; whether only someone born in summer could do that, as at Promontory across the lake, the old man could not say.

Gosiute are indistinguishable from Western Shoshoni. Their name is from gosip (dust).

Steward, Culture Element Distributions: XXIII, Northern and Gosiute Shoshoni (1943), p. 265

Particulars

Object

A whirrer carrying a feather, fitted with a wooden handle; the blade material is not recorded.