No. SEDER1952-OW-002
Umatilla bone bullroarer
United States · Columbia Plateau, Oregon · North America
Weather / fertility magic
On the Columbia Plateau the Umatilla stood in the small company of North American peoples who made their bullroarer from bone — theirs cut from bone or a deer rib as well as cedar. Across most of the continent the instrument was cedar or pine; only a scatter of peoples, the Achomawi and Arapaho among them, turned the skeleton of the hunt into the sound itself.
...bone or deer rib was found among the Achomawi, Arapaho, Mono, Panamint, Kittitas, and Umatilla.
Seder, 'Old World Overtones in the New World', University Museum Bulletin 16.4 (1952), p. 54
Particulars
- Object
- Cut from bone or a deer rib, and also from cedar.
- Function
- A child's toy that also worked on the weather, sometimes to bring rain.
Source
Theodore A. Seder, 'Old World Overtones in the New World,' University Museum Bulletin 16(4) (1952), pp. 51-54; Verne F. Ray, 'Culture Element Distributions: XXII, Plateau,' Anthropological Records 8:2 (1942), p. 184, elements 4094-4103