MUS2026-008 - museum specimen
Karok (Karuk)
United States - Klamath River, California - North America
Function not recorded
Source term: bull-roarer
A bullroarer of incised animal bone, strung on cordage and worked with carving, wrapping, and a perforation, attributed to the Karuk of the Klamath River country in Humboldt County, California. It was bought in 1936 by the Museum of the American Indian from Margaret Alta Richards, who had held it in her own collection, and beyond that its history is blank: who made it, when, and how it was sounded went unrecorded. The Karuk and their northwestern-California neighbors, the Yurok and Hupa, are richly documented for their World Renewal dances and sacred song, but the catalog sets down no ceremony for this object at all.
Collection history unknown; formerly in the collection of Mrs. M. Alta Richards (Margaret Alta Richards/Mrs. Harry De Courcy Richards, 1862-1939); purchased by MAI from Mrs. Richards in 1936.
National Museum of the American Indian, catalog no. 18/9685 (Bullroarer, Karuk), Collection History note
- Object
- Bull-roarer of the Karok (Karuk), in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).
- Function
- Not recorded.
- Map confidence
- medium - approximate culture/locality centroid
- Source location
- National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)