No. VOEGELIN1942-001
Eastern Achomawi shamans' bone bullroarer
United States · West's Valley and Alturas, upper Pit River country, northeastern California · North America
Weather / fertility magic
Source term: bull-roarer
In West's Valley the bullroarer belonged to the doctors, and it was not made of wood. Sam Fox, a Hammawi Achomawi born there, told Erminie Voegelin in 1936 that only shamans used it, that it was of bone or horn, and that it produced storm or wind. For a patient whose soul had strayed, the soul-loss doctor swung his own form of the instrument — one or two flat bones tied to an elder stick, whirring as he worked the cure.
One or two flat bones, tied on elder stick; stick swung around, bones make whirring sound.
Voegelin 1942:246, note to element 5099.
Particulars
- Object
- Bullroarer of bone or horn, not wood. The soul-loss doctor's form was one or two flat bones tied on an elder stick, swung to a whirr.
- Function
- Only shamans used it; it produced storm or wind, and the soul-loss doctor whirled the bone form while curing.
Source
Erminie W. Voegelin, Culture Element Distributions: XX, Northeast California, Anthropological Records 7:2 (1942)