RAY1942-004 - ethnographic attestation
Kalispel bull-roarer
United States - Pend Oreille River, northeastern Washington - North America - Plateau
Play / practical
Source term: bull-roarer
The Kalispel had the bullroarer — cedar, whirled from the hand without a handle — and it was a child's toy, and nothing more: the weather use was denied outright. That refusal is worth as much as an assent. All around the Kalispel are peoples who used the instrument on the sky — the Kittitas and Wenatchi to the west calling the Chinook, the Kutenai to the east doing the same — and here, in between, the weather function stops. It is a boundary drawn from the inside, by people in a position to know, and it means the Plateau's weather province has an edge rather than simply fading out where knowledge does.
- Object
- A wooden blade, of cedar, whirled on a cord held in the hand.
- 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 Pend Oreille River valley, northeastern Washington -- territory anchor, not a findspot.
- Toy / secular survival