No. STEWART1942-001
Deep Creek Goshute toy bullroarer
United States · Deep Creek Valley · Ibapah, western Utah, edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert · North America · Great Basin
Play / practical
Source term: Bull-roarer: whirrer of wood
In the dry valleys under Ibapah Mountain, on the southwestern edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert, Goshute children whirled a wooden roarer purely for the sound of it. Stewart's chief witness was Commodore, a blind man of about ninety-six who had lived his whole life near Ibapah — he refused to be interviewed at first, then, after overhearing a younger man's answers, decided he alone could tell the truth about the old ways. In his country the whirrer was a plaything and nothing more, with none of the wind-working powers the Ute bands claimed for it.
Particulars
- Object
- Whirrer of wood; the wooden handle on a string used by the Ute bands was denied.
- Function
- Whirled as a toy; no weather or ritual use recorded.
Source
Omer C. Stewart, Culture Element Distributions: XVIII, Ute-Southern Paiute, Anthropological Records 6(4) (1942), p. 291, elements 2792-2802; band and informant notes pp. 236, 238