RAY1942-001 - ethnographic attestation
Kittitas bull-roarer
United States - Kittitas Valley, Yakima River, central Washington - North America - Plateau
Weather / fertility magic
Source term: bull-roarer
The Kittitas bullroarer was cedar, sometimes deer rib, whirled on a cord held in the bare hand. It was a child's toy. It influenced the weather. It called the Chinook, the warm wind that comes in off the Pacific and takes the winter apart, and it brought rain. And it was sounded by children at the request of their elders — the entry that undoes the others: the thing was in a child's hands, but the decision to sound it was not the child's to make.
- Object
- Recorded in two forms, a wooden blade of cedar and one of deer rib, whirled on a cord held in the hand without a handle.
- Function
- A child's toy that is also a weather instrument: it calls the Chinook, the warm wind, and brings rain, and children sound it at the request of their elders.
- Source
- Verner F. Ray, "Culture Element Distributions: XXII, Plateau," University of California Anthropological Records 8:2 (Berkeley, 1942), printed p. 184. The bullroarer block is elements 4094-4103 and Ray sub-divides the function, which is unusual: 4094 Bull-roarer; 4097 Deer rib; 4099 Child's toy; 4100 Influences the weather; 4101 "Calls" Chinook (warm) wind…
- Source location
- printed p. 184, elements 4094-4103
- Source confidence
- medium Kittitas Valley, central Washington -- territory anchor, not a findspot.
- Weather magic
- Toy / secular survival