{"id":"AUSIN-021","label":"Kimberley mero-mero, taken as a weapon","people_or_site":"Kimberley District","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Kimberley","macroregion":"Australia / Western Australia","local_name":"mero-mero","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Wood bullroarer with an incised rectangular pattern on one face and a serpentine line on the other; collected by C. H. Ord in the Kimberley District.","function_summary":"Whirled at the circumcision ground to drown the initiates' cries; women might not look on it, on pain of death.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"BM_Oc1899_477","source_type":"museum_object","source_url":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1899-477","page_or_plate":"BM object record Oc1899-.477 (object); Hardman, \"Habits and Customs,\" Proc. Roy. Irish Acad. 3rd ser. vol. 1, p. 73 (function), reproduced verbatim in Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), pp. 316-317; Worms, Anthropos 45 (1950): 641-658 (West Kimberley corroboration)","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Broad Kimberley District centroid-like anchor","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"This wooden bullroarer reached the British Museum in 1899 from Craven Henry Ord, the police sub-inspector at Derby who had directed the operations against the Bunuba resistance leader Jandamarra, and who shipped it as one of a quantity of native weapons taken from camps. In the Kimberley it was no weapon. The district's first ethnographer, E. T. Hardman, recorded these whirling-sticks, the mero-mero, as sacred objects sounded at the circumcision ground and forbidden to women on pain of death. Two generations later Ernst Worms found the West Kimberley bullroarer woven into the myth of the creator Djamar, who whirled it until it scarred the hills and the bark of the trees, and who planted it in the bed of a creek where the old men still led the initiates to see where it had lain.","pull_quote":"The whirling-sticks, mero-mero, used to drown the shrieks of the victim, as well as the flint or shell-knives used in the operation, are considered sacred, and are not to be looked upon by women under pain of death.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"E. T. Hardman, \"Notes on some Habits and Customs of the Natives of the Kimberley District\" (1888), p. 73, quoted in A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), pp. 316-317","term_gloss":"mero-mero: the Kimberley District name recorded by Hardman for the sacred whirling-stick (bullroarer); West Kimberley peoples also called the bullroarer tjurunga, identifying it with the creator-being Djamar.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","snake","initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"British Museum, object Oc1899,-.477","url":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1899-477"},{"citation":"E. T. Hardman, 'Notes on some Habits and Customs of the Natives of the Kimberley District, Western Australia,' Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 3rd ser., vol. 1, p. 73, quoted in Haddon (1898), pp. 316-317"},{"citation":"A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), pp. 316-317"},{"citation":"E. A. Worms, 'Djamar, the Creator: A Myth of the Bād (West Kimberley, Australia),' Anthropos 45 (1950): 641-658"}],"source_citations":"British Museum, object Oc1899,-.477; E. T. Hardman, 'Notes on some Habits and Customs of the Natives of the Kimberley District, Western Australia,' Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 3rd ser., vol. 1, p. 73, quoted in Haddon (1898), pp. 316-317; A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), pp. 316-317; E. A. Worms, 'Djamar, the Creator: A Myth of the Bād (West Kimberley, Australia),' Anthropos 45 (1950): 641-658","source_display":"British Museum, object Oc1899,-.477; E. T. Hardman, 'Notes on some Habits and Customs of the Natives of the Kimberley District, Western Australia,' Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 3rd ser., vol. 1, p. 73, quoted in Haddon (1898), pp. 316-317; A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), pp. 316-317; E. A. Worms, 'Djamar, the Creator: A Myth of the Bād…","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Wood bullroarer with an incised rectangular pattern on one face and a serpentine line on the other; collected by C. H. Ord in the Kimberley District.","function_display":"Whirled at the circumcision ground to drown the initiates' cries; women might not look on it, on pain of death.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"kimberley","display_name":"Kimberley mero-mero, taken as a weapon","image":{"full":"assets/objects/AUSIN-021_hardman1888_plateII_figs45.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/AUSIN-021_hardman1888_plateII_figs45_thumb.jpg","alt":"Hardman’s drawings of two Kimberley mero-mero in face and edge views, one carved with concentric circles and the other with nested rectangles.","credit":"E. T. Hardman, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 3rd ser., vol. 1 (1888), Plate II figs. 4-5, drawn by W. F. Wakeman","license":"Public domain (published 1888)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofthe3117roya/page/n85/mode/1up","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Two carved mero-mero collected in the Kimberley by E. T. Hardman.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/shared_spencer1914_plateII_full.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/shared_spencer1914_plateII_full_thumb.jpg","alt":"Spencer’s plate of six Northern Territory sacred bullroarers.","credit":"Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory (Macmillan, 1914), Plate II","license":"Public domain (Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory, 1914)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/cu31924028623076","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"For comparison: six sacred bullroarers from the Northern Territory, in Spencer’s plate."}],"also":[{"label":"Hardman's Plate III: the spiral and rectangular carvings enlarged","page":"https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofthe3117roya","credit":"E. T. Hardman / W. F. Wakeman, Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., 3rd ser., vol. 1 (1888), Plate III","license":"Public domain (published 1888)"}]},"slug":"ausin-021-kimberley-district"}