No. VOEGELIN1942-004
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.
Particulars
- 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); informant Amanda Wilson of Chico, interviewed 24-28 October 1936