{"id":"AUSMAIN-003","label":"Wambaya (Umbaia) Beetaloo purtuli","people_or_site":"Wambaya (Umbaia in Spencer and Gillen)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Beetaloo Waterhole (Briggs Lagoon), Barkly Region","macroregion":"Australia / Barkly Tableland","local_name":"Purtuli","source_term":"purtuli / putuli / Purtiili","source_language":"English","object_description":"Fig. 94 wooden purtuli (churinga/bullroarer), associated with Katakitji's snake-totem waterhole at Beetaloo.","function_summary":"Sacred totemic object barred from the uninitiated; in Umbaia initiation, women and children were told that the bullroarer's roar was a great spirit's voice.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"spencer_gillen1904_umbaia_purtuli","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://spencerandgillen.net/objects/50ce72f4023fd7358c8a93f6","page_or_plate":"Journal 2, p. 6; Northern Tribes 1904, pp. 275-277, 348, 351-352, 492 n.1, 500, 759; Fig. 94","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"NT Place Names Register Place ID 11197: Briggs Lagoon, locally known as Beetaloo Waterhole; matches the journal's Betaloo water-hole and camp locality.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At Beetaloo Waterhole in Wambaya country, a wooden purtuli was linked to Katakitji, the snake ancestor said to have made the waterhole. Spencer and Gillen illustrated it as Fig. 94 and wrote that it could not be seen by anyone uninitiated. In the wider Umbaia initiation tradition, women and children were told that a bullroarer's roar was the voice of a great spirit—but this particular purtuli drew its sacred value from Katakitji, not from a spirit believed to live inside it.","pull_quote":"Snake churinga belonging to water hole at Betaloo. name of stick = Purtuli. (Chingilli & Umlia name)","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Spencer and Gillen expedition journal, Journal 2, p. 6, Camp 56, Betaloo Downs, October 1901","term_gloss":"Purtuli: the Umbaia (Wambaya) name for the wooden churinga/bullroarer.","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":"Spencer & Gillen expedition journal, Journal 2, p. 6, Camp 56, Betaloo Downs (1901); The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904), pp. 218, 275-277, 348, 351-352, 492 n.1, 500, glossary p. 759, Fig. 94. Nordlinger, A Grammar of Wambaya (1998), p. 5, identifies Umbaia as an earlier spelling of Wambaya","url":"https://spencerandgillen.net/objects/50ce72f4023fd7358c8a93f6","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240913144012/https://spencerandgillen.net/objects/50ce72f4023fd7358c8a93f6"}],"source_citations":"Spencer & Gillen expedition journal, Journal 2, p. 6, Camp 56, Betaloo Downs (1901); The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904), pp. 218, 275-277, 348, 351-352, 492 n.1, 500, glossary p. 759, Fig. 94. Nordlinger, A Grammar of Wambaya (1998), p. 5, identifies Umbaia as an earlier spelling of Wambaya","source_display":"Spencer & Gillen expedition journal, Journal 2, p. 6, Camp 56, Betaloo Downs (1901); The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904), pp. 218, 275-277, 348, 351-352, 492 n.1, 500, glossary p. 759, Fig. 94. Nordlinger, A Grammar of Wambaya (1998), p. 5, identifies Umbaia as an earlier spelling of Wambaya","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Fig. 94 wooden purtuli (churinga/bullroarer), associated with Katakitji's snake-totem waterhole at Beetaloo.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"wambaya umbaia","display_name":"Wambaya (Umbaia) Beetaloo purtuli","image":{"full":"assets/objects/au_umbaia_churinga.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/au_umbaia_churinga_thumb.jpg","alt":"Spencer and Gillen’s drawing of a long narrow wooden purtuli associated with Katakitji’s snake-totem waterhole in Umbaia country, decorated with interlaced lines forming repeated elongated loops.","credit":"Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904), p. 276, Fig. 94","license":"Public domain (published 1904)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/northerntribesc00gillgoog","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Spencer and Gillen's Fig. 94, the wooden purtuli associated with Katakitji's snake-totem waterhole in Umbaia (Wambaya) country."},"slug":"ausmain-003-wambaya-umbaia-in-spencer-and-gillen"}