Santa Cruz Island ochre-filled bone blades

Source term: bullroarer-like pendant

Q8: Gifford's catalogue class for two bullroarer-like bone pendants

Red ochre picked out the punctured designs on these two bone blades from West ranch, Santa Cruz Island. One design zigzags like lightning; the other forms a ladder-like grid. On each blade the decoration occupies a single face, turning small hollows in pale bone into lines of colour. Gifford filed them among his pendants, but thought their shapes, and the lightning on one, pointed to another use.

Possible use suggested by shape of both, and lightning-like design on 1.

Gifford 1940:175

Particulars

Object

Two flat bone blades with one near-terminal perforation each; a zigzag decorates one and a ladder-like design the other, with red ochre emphasizing punctures on one face of each.

Function

Not recorded.