RAY1942-007 - ethnographic attestation
Lower Thompson (Nlaka'pamux)
Canada - Fraser Canyon below Lytton, southern British Columbia - North America - Plateau
Play / practical
Source term: bull-roarer
The Thompson River people had two whirling instruments, not one. James Teit knew a disc bored with two holes and set spinning by twisting a doubled cord — a buzzer, worked between the hands. The Lower Thompson of the late 1930s had something else besides: a wooden blade of cedar swung on a cord held in the hand, a child's toy — a true bullroarer. Two different objects among one people, each with its own motion and its own noise.
- Object
- A wooden blade, of cedar, whirled on a cord held in the hand.
- Function
- A cedar bullroarer whirled from the hand, a child's toy.
- Map confidence
- medium - Fraser Canyon below Lytton, southern British Columbia -- Lower Thompson territory anchor, not a findspot.
- Source location
- printed p. 184, elements 4094-4103
- Toy / secular survival