Laguna Pueblo oyamamuts whizzer

oyamamuts

Source term: rhombus (bull-roarer or whizzer)

oyamamuts: the Keres name for the rhombus, or whizzer. mu'sh: Laguna Keres for yucca-root suds.

Laguna stands alone among the Keres pueblos: when Elsie Clews Parsons drew up her great synthesis of Pueblo religion, this was the only Keresan town where the whizzer had ever been noted — and almost the only place east of the mesas, for as she put it, the instrument 'has not been noted among other Keres, or in recent years anywhere in the East.' Here it was swung to produce storm, as at Hopi. And in the rain ceremonial it was given a second, wetter office: dipped into the medicine bowl to stir up the yucca-root suds the Laguna call mu'sh, then wielded as an aspergill, scattering the drops.

It is used to stir suds in rain ceremonial (Laguna), and serves as an aspergill.

Parsons 1939, I:378