MUS2026-007 - museum specimen
Kamia (Kumeyaay)
United States - Imperial Valley, California - North America
Function not recorded
Source term: bull-roarer
The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian holds a bull-roarer of the Kamia, the desert division of the Kumeyaay who raised maize, beans, and teparies on the floodplains of California's Imperial Valley, and the museum withholds its image as a culturally sensitive object rather than displaying it as a toy. That handling is the firmest fact on record. Among the Kumeyaay the ceremonial sound-makers were gourd and turtle-shell rattles and reed flutes, and the boys' initiation centered on the toloache rite, in which they drank a datura infusion, fasted, and danced until the drug brought on a vision meant to guide them for life. What part the roarer played in any specific Kamia rite is not documented; the museum treats it as restricted.
- Object
- Bull-roarer of the Kamia (Kumeyaay), in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).
- Function
- Restricted sacred instrument — the holding museum withholds or flags it as culturally sensitive (a secret/sacred object, not a toy).
- Map confidence
- medium - approximate culture/locality centroid
- Source location
- National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)