RAY1942-003 - ethnographic attestation
Kutenai (Ktunaxa)
Canada - Upper Kootenay River, southeastern British Columbia - North America - Plateau
Weather / fertility magic
Source term: bull-roarer
At the eastern edge of the Plateau, where the Kootenay runs down toward the Rockies, the bullroarer is built differently. Every other people in the region whirled the cord from the bare hand; the Kutenai alone swung theirs from a handle, a stick to whirl it by. Otherwise the Kutenai instrument did everything a Plateau roarer could do — wooden, of cedar, a child's toy, an influence on the weather; it called the Chinook and brought rain, and children sounded it when the old people asked them to. No other people on the Plateau held every one of those uses at once.
- Object
- A wooden blade whirled on a cord, fitted with a handle.
- Function
- Swung from a handle to call the Chinook; also a child's toy.
- Map confidence
- medium - Upper Kootenay River near Cranbrook, southeastern British Columbia -- territory anchor, not a findspot.
- Source location
- printed p. 184, elements 4094-4103
- Weather magic
- Toy / secular survival