VOEGELIN1942-004 - ethnographic attestation
Valley Maidu bullroarer
United States - Sacramento Valley, vicinity of Chico, Butte County, California - North America
Function not recorded
Source term: bull-roarer
At Chico the Sacramento Valley Maidu — the michopdo, moved down from near Dayton onto John Bidwell's land — kept a bullroarer of wood and refused every use offered for it: not a boys' toy, not for amusement, no power over weather or sickness, no shaman's monopoly, and no rule keeping it from women. That last is the strange one, since some restriction of that kind follows the instrument across most of the world. Both upland Maidu divisions, Mountain and Foothill, said they had never had one at all. In the valley the object was remembered and its purpose was not.
- Object
- Wooden bullroarer; no dimensions, cord detail, or Maidu name recorded.
- Function
- Affirmed as present and as made of wood; every use put to the informant was denied -- not a boys' toy, not for amusement, not weather-making, not sickness-making, not restricted to shamans or to males.
- Source
- Erminie W. Voegelin, Culture Element Distributions: XX, Northeast California, Anthropological Records 7:2 (1942). MV (Maidu, Valley (NW), vicinity of Chico) column: 2116 bull-roarer +, 2117 wood +, 2118 bone or horn -, 2119 produces storm or wind -, 2120 produces sickness -, 2121 only shamans use -, 2122 only boys, men use -, 2123 for amusement, boys -…
- Source location
Page references
pp. 50, 94 (elements 2116-2123)
- Source confidence
- medium to high Chico, Butte County, California. Territory anchor for the named people; not a use site.