The Bullroarer Atlas

NA-S1952-004 - secondary catalog

Wimonuntci Ute women's-taboo bullroarer

United States - Great Basin - Colorado Plateau - North America

Restricted

Northern Ute bullroarer 60974 with its buckskin line, collected by George A.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Northern Ute bullroarer 60974 with its buckskin line, collected by George A. · CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Image source

kwiemtinömpö English

Source term: bullroarer

kwiemtinömpö: the Wimönuntci term for the bull-roarer in Stewart's comparative vocabulary (1942, p. 352); no literal gloss is given.

The Wimönuntci — the Weeminuche, southernmost of the Colorado Ute, whose base camp lay in the La Sal Mountains of eastern Utah — forbade the bull-roarer to women, and only the summer-born could make it work at all. Whirled on its handled string, the wooden kwiemtinömpö raised wind and cleared away clouds. One shaman needed no arm for it: his bull-roarer hung tied outside the dwelling and whirled by itself whenever he wished it to.

Bull-roarer tied outside; it whirled by itself whenever wished by shaman to do so.

Stewart 1942:347 (Culture Element Distributions: XVIII, Anthropological Records 6:4), note to element 4087, Wimönuntci list
Object
Whirrer of wood swung on a string with a wooden handle.
Function
Taboo to women; whirled to make wind blow and clear away clouds, effective only for people born in summer. A shaman kept one tied outside the dwelling, where it whirled by itself whenever he wished.
Map confidence
medium - La Sal Mountains anchor, eastern Utah — the base camp Stewart was told of (p. 237); informant John Taylor was born near Moab at the foot of the La Sals. Supersedes the earlier broad Seder regional anchor.
Source location
Page references

Seder pp. 51-54; Stewart 1942 printed p. 291 (els. 2792, 2795, 2796, 2799, 2800, 2802), p. 315 (el. 4087), p. 347 note, p. 352 vocabulary

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