VOEGELIN1942-003 - ethnographic attestation
Upper Sacramento Wintu bullroarer
United States - Upper Sacramento River canyon, Shasta County, northern California - North America
Play / practical
Source term: bull-roarer
On the upper Sacramento the bullroarer was a wooden blade that boys swung for the noise of it and that only boys and men handled — and it had not been there long: every answer given about it was marked as a recent introduction. The neighbours make the point. Over the divide at Hayfork the same instrument was old enough to be credited with raising storm and wind; on the McCloud River, the next drainage east, the Wintu said there had never been one. Three Wintu valleys, three different answers.
- Object
- Wooden bullroarer; no dimensions, cord detail, or Wintu name recorded.
- Function
- Whirled by boys for amusement, and handled only by boys and men; recorded as a comparatively recent introduction. Storm-making, sickness-making and shamanic use all denied.
- Source
- Erminie W. Voegelin, Culture Element Distributions: XX, Northeast California, Anthropological Records 7:2 (1942). WS (Wintu, Sacramento River, upper) column: 2116 bull-roarer R, 2117 wood R, 2122 only boys and men use R, 2123 for amusement, boys R; 2118 bone or horn, 2119 produces storm or wind, 2120 produces sickness and 2121 only shamans use all minus…
- Source location
Page references
pp. 49-50, 94 (elements 2116-2123)
- Source confidence
- medium Dunsmuir, Siskiyou County. Territory anchor for the named people; not a use site.
- Toy / secular survival