{"id":"BONWICK1870-001","label":"Tasmania's hidden roar","people_or_site":"Tasmanian Aboriginal people","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"lutruwita / Tasmania","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"","source_term":"mooyumkarr","source_language":"English","object_description":"An oval wooden blade attached to a string and whirled through the air.","function_summary":"Used by doctors and exorcists in healing and harmful magic; women were forbidden to see it.","attestation_type":"historical_text","source_key":"bonwick1870_daily_life_tasmanians_mooyumkarr","source_type":"historical_text","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/dailylifeandori00bonwgoog","page_or_plate":"pp. 175–176","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Geoscience Australia's possible centre of Tasmania on the western shore of Little Pine Lagoon (42° 01′ 17″ S, 146° 35′ 36″ E), used as an island-wide representative anchor because Bonwick gives no locality.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A healer pressed and rubbed the painful place, whispered a charm, and drew out the bone or stone believed to be lodged inside. But the same doctor could also send illness. That double power had a sound: an oval wooden blade whirled on a string, hidden from women’s sight. James Bonwick, an English-born teacher and amateur historian who had lived in Hobart, published this account in 1870. By then invasion, warfare, disease and forced removal had devastated Tasmania’s Aboriginal nations; at putalina/Oyster Cove, survivors continued ceremony and passed on culture.","pull_quote":"They twirled round the magic mooyumkarr, an oval piece of wood with a string.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Bonwick 1870:175","term_gloss":"mooyumkarr — the name Eyre had printed twenty-five years earlier for a South Australian bullroarer; Bonwick gave the mainland word to the Tasmanian instrument.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"James Bonwick, The Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians (London: Sampson Low, Son & Marston, 1870), pp. 175–176","url":"https://archive.org/details/dailylifeandori00bonwgoog"}],"source_citations":"James Bonwick, The Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians (London: Sampson Low, Son & Marston, 1870), pp. 175–176","source_display":"James Bonwick, The Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians (London: Sampson Low, Son & Marston, 1870), pp. 175–176","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"An oval wooden blade attached to a string and whirled through the air.","function_display":"Used by doctors and exorcists in healing and harmful magic; women were forbidden to see it.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"historical text","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"tasmanian aboriginal","display_name":"Tasmania's hidden roar","image":{"full":"assets/objects/au_eyre_mooyumkarr.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/au_eyre_mooyumkarr_thumb.jpg","alt":"South Australian Mooyumkarr from Eyre’s 1845 plate: three incised slats with cords.","credit":"E. J. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery (1845), vol. II, Plate IV (figs 6-8)","license":"Public domain (published 1845)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/journalsofexpedi02eyre","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Eyre's 1845 South Australian Mooyumkarr; Bonwick later used the name.","last_modified":"2026-08-25"},"slug":"bonwick1870-001-tasmanian-aboriginal-people"}