Tewa San Ildefonso kiva bullroarer

Source term: bullroarer

Tewa name for the bullroarer: 'wind call'.

Men kept the roar where women could not see it. At San Ildefonso, kivas were roof-entered ritual chambers, not display rooms: a round plaza kiva gathered the men for announcements and held the Tablita dance, while the Summer and Winter moieties kept their own kivas beside rooms for Kosa secret rites and Buffalo dancers. Their sky held serpents: San Ildefonso people spoke of the Avanyu, serpent deities of the six regions, each with its own colour, and the Tewa placed such serpents in the clouds, where people looking upward sometimes saw them. Below, in the kiva, a whirled slat sounded, a roar heard but not shown.

The Tewa of San Ildefonso used their bull-roarers out of sight, in their kivas, where women could not see them.

Theodore A. Seder, 'Old World Overtones in the New World', Museum Bulletin (University of Pennsylvania) XVI(4) (1952), Bull-Roarer section

Particulars

Function

Whirled in the kivas, out of women's sight.