STEWART1942-003 - primary ethnography
Timpanogots Ute horn-bladed bullroarer
United States - Utah Lake shores and Wasatch canyons, Utah - North America - Great Basin
Sacred / spirit
nia'monöpö English
Source term: Bull-roarer: of mt. sheep horn; of rawhide
nia'monöpö: the Timpanogots term for the bull-roarer in Stewart's comparative vocabulary (shared with the Taviwatsiu); no literal gloss is given.
The fish-eaters of Utah Lake — the Lagunas whom Escalante met in 1776 — cut their bull-roarer blades not from wood but from mountain-sheep horn or rawhide. Children swung the nia'monöpö for fun; the summer-born swung it in earnest, to raise wind and sweep clouds from the sky, for it obeyed no one born in any other season. It also lay among a shaman's paraphernalia, beside the doctor's stick, tobacco, and pollen.
Used effectively only by people born in summer.
Stewart 1942:291, element 2802
- Object
- Whirrer cut from mountain-sheep horn or rawhide, swung on a string with a wooden handle; a wooden blade was denied.
- Function
- A toy; also whirled to make wind blow and clear away clouds, effective only for people born in summer, and kept among a shaman's paraphernalia.
- Map confidence
- medium - Eastern Utah Lake shore anchor near Provo; the band occupied the lakeshore and the canyons and mountains to the east (Stewart p. 236).
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 291 (els. 2793, 2794, 2795, 2797, 2799, 2800, 2802 +; 2792 wood -); p. 315 (el. 4087 +); vocabulary p. 352; band p. 236; informants p. 238
- Weather magic
- Toy / secular survival