{"id":"AUSIN-009","label":"Flinders River Mycoolon mobolah","people_or_site":"Mycoololl / Flinders River","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"North Queensland / Gulf country","macroregion":"Australia / Queensland","local_name":"Mobolah","source_term":"Mobolah","source_language":"English","object_description":"Humming stick used at Bora to warn women not to approach","function_summary":"Bora-associated bullroarer with explicit taboo on women and uninitiated youths seeing it","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"MATHEWS_1898_MYCOOLOLL","source_type":"ethnographic_article","source_url":"https://archive.org/download/crossref-pre-1909-scholarly-works/10.2307%252F2842721.zip/10.2307%252F2842848.pdf","page_or_plate":"Mathews 1898, JAI 27:52-60 (citing E. Palmer, Mycoololl / Flinders River)","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Broad Flinders River regional anchor","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Mycoolon of the Flinders River in Queensland, the bullroarer was a \"humming stick\" called mobolah, brought out at Bora times only: a flat piece of wood about nine inches long and two inches broad, thin, and tied to another stick. Its purpose, as the pastoralist Edward Palmer recorded in 1884, was \"to warn the gins not to approach\"; no woman was ever to see it, nor any uninitiated youth. R. H. Mathews quoted Palmer's account in his 1898 survey of Australian bullroarers, where it stands among forms gathered from widely separated parts of the continent—Port Lincoln, the Wiradjuri country, Lake Eyre, the Kimberley—each tied to initiation.","pull_quote":"At the ceremony the boy's arms are tied tightly with a string till they swell, and he is then kept two days without anything to eat; water is given, but no food.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"E. Palmer, \"Notes on Some Australian Tribes,\" Journal of the Anthropological Institute 13 (1884): 295","term_gloss":"Mobolah: the Mycoolon name for the bullroarer or \"humming stick,\" a flat wooden blade swung at Bora to keep women and the uninitiated away.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"R. H. Mathews, 'Bullroarers Used by the Australian Aborigines,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 27 (1898), p. 54, quoting E. Palmer, 'Notes on Some Australian Tribes,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 13 (1884), p. 295","url":"https://archive.org/download/crossref-pre-1909-scholarly-works/10.2307%252F2842721.zip/10.2307%252F2842848.pdf"}],"source_citations":"R. H. Mathews, 'Bullroarers Used by the Australian Aborigines,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 27 (1898), p. 54, quoting E. Palmer, 'Notes on Some Australian Tribes,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 13 (1884), p. 295","source_display":"R. H. Mathews, 'Bullroarers Used by the Australian Aborigines,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 27 (1898), p. 54, quoting E. Palmer, 'Notes on Some Australian Tribes,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 13 (1884), p. 295","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Humming stick used at Bora to warn women not to approach","function_display":"Bora-associated bullroarer with explicit taboo on women and uninitiated youths seeing it","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"mycoololl","display_name":"Flinders River Mycoolon mobolah","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/wmmissed_4.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/thumbs/wmmissed_4_thumb.jpg","alt":"A wooden board carved in a herringbone chevron pattern along its length.","credit":"Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. RV-2306-7)","license":"CC-BY-SA","source_page":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/737315","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A wooden board carved in a herringbone chevron pattern along its length."},"slug":"ausin-009-mycoololl-flinders-river"}