The Bullroarer Atlas

NAMER-007 - museum specimen

Hopi / Songoopavi, Second Mesa

United States - Arizona - Hopi Reservation - Second Mesa - Songoopavi (Shongopovi) - North America - Southwest

Sacred / spirit

Cötokinunwû katcina holding the whizzer (bull-roarer) — painted by a Hopi artist, Fewkes 1903, pl. LVIII. Ceremonial-use image; not a specimen...
Cötokinunwû katcina holding the whizzer (bull-roarer) — painted by a Hopi artist, Fewkes 1903, pl. LVIII. Ceremonial-use image; not a specimen photograph. J. W. Fewkes, Hopi Katcinas Drawn by Native Artists (21st ARBAE, 1903), pl. LVIII Public domain Image source

Source term: Bullroarer (Image withheld)

A Hopi bullroarer from Songoopavi (Shongopovi) on Second Mesa, held by the National Museum of the American Indian as catalog 23/6128. The record names it plainly as a bullroarer and gives the village, but the museum withholds the image as a culturally sensitive object, and the entry notes no maker, collector, or date. Among the Hopi the bullroarer is the tovokìnpi: at the Snake dance a warrior of the Bow priesthood trails the line of Antelope priests, twirling the whizzer at critical times in the ceremony — 'to imitate the thunder which accompanies the rain' of the July-to-September monsoon storms the rite calls down. Whether this particular blade served that purpose the record does not say.

Object
NMAI object record NMAI_251482 / catalog 23/6128, a Hopi bullroarer from Songoopavi with image withheld.
Function
Museum object; among the Hopi the tovokìnpi is twirled by the kalektaka warrior in the Snake dance to imitate the thunder that accompanies the rain (Fewkes 1897; 1900). Whether this blade served so, the record does not say.
Map confidence
high - Representative Songoopavi / Second Mesa public community anchor.
Source location
NMAI_251482 / catalog 23/6128

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