No. WALLACE1952-001
Comanche yuane 'warm wind' medicine bullroarer
United States · Comancheria · southwestern Oklahoma · North America · Plains
Sacred / spirit
yuane (yu'anee)
yuane / yu'anee — 'warm wind.'
The Comanche called it the warm wind. Yu'anee was a cedar slat, its edge sometimes cut into notches to be the beaver's tail, and it belonged to the medicine men, who used it in curing the sick. At the Beaver Ceremony it swung at the tipi to call the people in; in war it rode near the shield, and in the moment of danger a man whirled it to feel his power — a bullet, they said, would come straight, and miss.
Particulars
- Object
- A cedar slat, sometimes with notches along one edge to represent the beaver's tail.
- Function
- Medicine: curing, summoning to the Beaver Ceremony, and protection in war.
Source
Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains (1952), pp. 175-176; Thomas W. Kavanagh (ed.), Comanche Ethnography: Field Notes of E. Adamson Hoebel, Waldo R. Wedel, Gustav G. Carlson, and Robert H. Lowie (2008), pp. 169-170