The Bullroarer Atlas

VANSTONE1961-001 - museum specimen

Northern Ute

United States - Uintah and Ouray Reservation - Utah - North America

Function not recorded

Northern Ute bullroarer 60974 with its buckskin line, collected by George A. Dorsey in 1900; Field Museum, fig. 37f.
Northern Ute bullroarer 60974 with its buckskin line, collected by George A. Dorsey in 1900; Field Museum, fig. 37f. Field Museum of Natural History (60974; negative 113080), via Biodiversity Heritage Library CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Image source

Source term: bull-roarer

No Northern Ute name is recorded

On the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, a Northern Ute hand cut a rough rectangular board, narrowed it at one end, and tied on a buckskin line — a toy, VanStone judged, made to be twirled for the pleasure of its own roar.

Attached at this notch is a length of buckskin line. Presumably the toy was activated by twirling the piece of wood while holding the buckskin line.

VanStone 1961:15
Object
Crudely shaped rectangular wooden board narrowing to a notched proximal end, with one buckskin line attached at the notch; exact specimen photograph survives.
Function
Probably used as a twirled toy; no firsthand occasion is recorded.
Map confidence
medium - Uintah and Ouray Reservation regional anchor; the catalog does not assign object 60974 to the Uintah/Whiterocks or Uncompahgre/Ouray subset.
Source location
printed p. 15; Figure 37f printed p. 48; FMNH negative 113080

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