STEWART1941-003 - ethnographic attestation
Tasiget-tuviwarai wimo'to, toy and wind-maker
United States - Winnemucca and Spanish Spring valleys and the Truckee River east of Reno, western Nevada - North America - Great Basin
Weather / fertility magic
wimo'to
Source term: bull-roarer (wimo'to)
Wimo'to: Stewart's survey-wide Northern Paiute element heading for the bullroarer; cf. Kelly's Surprise Valley kwi'mo.
Northeast of Reno, in Tasiget country, the wimo'to did two jobs at once: children swung it for the noise, and it was swung to bring the wind. Further east the two uses come apart, and bands that used the roarer on the weather kept it out of children's hands; here they were one thing, one instrument answering to both.
- Object
- A wooden whirrer; not described further.
- Function
- Swung both as a children's toy and to make the wind blow.
- Source
- Omer C. Stewart, Culture Element Distributions: XIV, Northern Paiute, Anthropological Records 4:3 (1941). Ts column, table p. 401: 1870 bull-roarer +, 1871 whirrer of wood +, 1872 of sheep horn -, 1873 used as toy +, 1874 to make wind blow +. Band and informant, p. 363: the Tasiget-tuviwarai occupied Winnemucca and Spanish Spring valleys northeast of Reno…
- Source location
- Stewart 1941, pp. 363, 401, 403
- Source confidence
- medium Winnemucca Valley northeast of Reno, the core of the territory Stewart assigns the band; not a use site.
- Weather magic
- Toy / secular survival