Attorney General was called in to get to the bottom of 'dumb bull' incident

Man pulling a string through a dumb bull.

One of my favorite magazines is “The Backwoodsman,” which comes out six times a year. Published out of Bandera, Texas, each issue is chock full of stories about woodslore, history, homesteading, muzzle loading, primitive living skills, self reliance and survival. My friend Bobby Drew put me on to this magazine several years ago, and I read one and haven’t missed an issue since.

In the latest issue, a reader from Indiana wrote a letter to the editor in which he mentioned a “bullroarer,” “The Legend of Boggy Creek,” Bigfoot and a “skunk ape.” He’d run across references to all of these things in back issues of the magazine and was wanting to know if the editor would elaborate on a Bigfoot experience he mentioned some time ago.

The editor, Charlie Richie Sr., responded by saying that the Bigfoot he encountered as a kid was the “Real McCoy,” but he isn’t sure if there are any skunk apes in Texas.

What caught my eye in all of this was the mention of a “bullroarer.” I don’t know if the letter-writer had another definition in mind, but a “bullroarer” is an ancient musical instrument that can be heard over long distances. Most of you reading this have seen them on television in shows about Australia, where native people swing them over their heads and make a loud whirring sound.

When I saw the word “bullroarer” it made me think about dumb bull, which is something the people used to make to create a racket that you could hear from a long way off. I’ve never seen one in person, but my understanding is that you get an open-ended barrel and cover one end with a tight cover. You then poke a small hole in the cover and draw a greased leather thong through the hole, which I’ve heard makes a loud, ungodly noise.

Years ago, I ran across a series of stories in old editions of The Courant where some boys, unbeknownst to the community, had made one of these dumb bulls and had folks so scared that they wouldn’t leave the house at night. These pranksters had everyone in the community scared that a lion or some such beast had escaped from the circus and was roaming the countryside at night. At the time, it was a big thing and was widely reported in the newspaper.

On one occasion these boys hid on the limb of a tree that hung out over a road not far from one of our local churches. Sure enough, when church let out, a young man was walking a young lady home and when they passed under the tree the devilish boys let loose with their dumb bull. The not-so-brave young man took off running, leaving the young lady behind to deal with the “monster,” which pretty much ruined his attempts at further romance.

Eventually, law enforcement got involved, and I ran across one story where the State Attorney General even came to Conecuh County to get to the bottom of the “monster” that was roaming the countryside. For the life of me, earlier this week, I couldn’t find the stories that detailed all of this, but I believe it all occurred in the 1930s. I do remember that when officers finally figured out what was going on and identified the culprits, their names were not published in the newspaper.

Years ago, not too long after reading about all of this for the first time, I got to talking about it with Butch at the newspaper, and I began to go on and on about how I was going to make a dumb bull. Butch, who is always full of good advice, finally told me that I was going to get my *** in trouble if I didn’t knock it off, and this reality check ended my plans to make a dumb bull. With that said, if anyone in the reading audience has one they’d like to demonstrate for me, let me know because I’d like to see it.

In the meantime, I’ll do a little digging to see if I can find those old dumb bull stories in the newspaper. It was an ongoing thing for weeks, and the stories were very entertaining to read.