The Bullroarer Atlas

NAMER-008 - museum specimen

Hopi, Mishongnovi (Second Mesa), Arizona

United States - Arizona - Hopi Reservation - Second Mesa - Mishongnovi (Musangnuvi) - North America - Southwest

Weather / fertility magic

The Hopi bull-roarer itself: a flat wooden blade with a braided cord and stick handle, collected at Mishongnovi on Second Mesa by R. B....
The Hopi bull-roarer itself: a flat wooden blade with a braided cord and stick handle, collected at Mishongnovi on Second Mesa by R. B. Townshend in 1903. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1903.36.42) Image source
Inside the Antelope kiva at Mishongnovi during the Snake-Antelope ceremony, a Kalehtaka at right whirls the bullroarer.
Representative image. Inside the Antelope kiva at Mishongnovi during the Snake-Antelope ceremony, a Kalehtaka at right whirls the bullroarer. Dorsey and Voth, The Mishongnovi Ceremonies of the Snake and Antelope Fraternities (1902), pl. CI Public domain Image source

Source term: Thunder-Stick

A Hopi bullroarer from Mishongnovi (Musangnuvi), on Second Mesa in northern Arizona, catalogued by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History under the name "Thunder-Stick." The Hopi whirl such a flat, corded stick to make the low humming roar of thunder. Stewart Culin recorded the bullroarer, or whizzer, as "used ceremonially by the Hopi, Zuni, Navaho, Apache, and other tribes," the child's toy being borrowed from the implement of the rites; in Hopi practice it is sounded to call the monsoon rains that arrive in July and August. Dorsey and Voth’s account of the Mishongnovi Snake-Antelope ceremony shows a Kalehtaka sounding the bullroarer inside the Antelope kiva. For this particular stick the record keeps the village and the thunder name but writes down no rite.

The bull-roarer, or whizzer, used ceremonially by the Hopi, Zuni, Navaho, Apache, and other tribes, is employed in the same form as a child's toy, the latter being presumably borrowed from the implement used in religious rites.

Culin, Games of the North American Indians, 24th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1907), p. 750
Object
Smithsonian NMNH anthropology record for a Hopi thunder-stick/bullroarer from Mishongnovi; companion thunder-stick rows are folded as support.
Function
Function not recorded for this specimen. Among the Hopi the bullroarer is whirled to imitate the sound of thunder and summon the monsoon rains.
Map confidence
medium_high - Representative Mishongnovi / Second Mesa public community anchor.
Source location
NMNH ark:/65665/3aba18a80-78f3-440e-af45-f9349a36b23b

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