The Bullroarer Atlas

WELCH2013-001 - archival ethnography

Potter Valley Pomo (Northern Pomo)

United States - Potter Valley - Mendocino County, California - North America

Weather / fertility magic

Representative—not this record’s object: Nevada Shoshoni wumuitui drawing (Steward 1941), shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this...
Representative—not this record’s object: Nevada Shoshoni wumuitui drawing (Steward 1941), shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. Steward, Culture Element Distributions: XIII, Nevada Shoshoni (Anthropological Records 4:2, 1941), Fig. 4f Public domain Image source

Source term: bullroarer / Thunder stick

A' la hai' tcil: Hudson's Northern Pomo name for the Thunder Ceremony, glossed by him as a ceremony for rain and praying; no separate local instrument name is given.

About May first, the Potter Valley Pomo gathered at dusk in the assembly house while four Thunder-stick wielders took position at the four cardinal points. At high priest Yum-ta's signal, the drummer sprang onto his foot drum and rolled it with his heels, the lightning-stick clapper struck a loud slap, and the bullroarers roared for about two minutes to draw the gods' attention. When the noise stopped, Yum-ta prayed for rain. Ukiah physician John Hudson, who left medicine to record Pomo life and later married painter Grace Hudson, named it A' la hai' tcil — Thunder Ceremony, or ceremony for rain and praying.

A' la hai' tcil. Thunder Ceremony or ceremony for rain and praying.

John W. Hudson, reproduced in Welch 2013:159
Object
Wooden staves swung in circles to produce a thunderous sound. Welch gives approximately 8 by 30 cm and manzanita, Fremont's cottonwood, and oak in a paragraph citing Barrett; these are Northern Pomo context, not Hudson's measurements of the exact Potter Valley instruments.
Function
In A' la hai' tcil, the May Thunder Ceremony for rain and prayer, four Thunder-stick wielders at the cardinal points whirled for about two minutes to attract the gods' attention; the high priest then prayed.
Map confidence
high - Potter Valley community anchor; the source identifies the community and assembly-house ceremony but not one surviving performance site.
Source location
printed p. 159; local PDF p. 176

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