{"id":"CAMERON1885-001","label":"Tati Tati (Ta-ta-thi) Kalk bullroarer name","people_or_site":"Tati Tati (Cameron's Ta-ta-thi)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Murray River below the Murrumbidgee junction (Tati Tati country)","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"Kalk","source_term":"Kalk","source_language":"English","object_description":"Named instrument only; Cameron describes no Ta-ta-thi object.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"lexical_attestation","source_key":"cameron1885_tatathi_kalk","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://zenodo.org/records/2029848","page_or_plate":"printed p. 359 n. 1","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"South Australian Museum Tati Tati language-group centroid (34 deg 45 min S, 142 deg 55 min E), Murray River below the Murrumbidgee junction.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In Tati Tati speech the bullroarer's name was Kalk — 'that is to say, word,' as Cameron glossed it. Kalk named the roarer of the Burbung of their Wathi-wathi neighbours on the Murray, ceremonies the Tati Tati travelled to attend, where a man hidden in the scrub whirled the humming instrument while a novice's tooth was knocked out. Among the peoples of the river junctions, each language named the same feared instrument its own way — and in this one, its name was Word itself.","pull_quote":"The Ta-ta-thi call it Kalk, that is to say, word.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"A. L. P. Cameron, 'Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 14 (1885), p. 359 n.","term_gloss":"Kalk: Tati Tati (Ta-ta-thi) name for the bullroarer, glossed by Cameron as 'word'; the neighbouring Wathi-wathi called the same instrument Kalari. Among the Kulin, kalk ('wood') was the message-stick, and Kurnai elders said of the summons to initiation, sent with the bullroarer: 'When that kalk goes to a man he must come, he cannot stop away.'","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"A. L. P. Cameron, 'Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 14 (1885), p. 359 n. 1","url":"https://zenodo.org/records/2029848","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250411110450/https://zenodo.org/records/2029848"}],"source_citations":"A. L. P. Cameron, 'Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 14 (1885), p. 359 n. 1","source_display":"A. L. P. Cameron, 'Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 14 (1885), p. 359 n. 1","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Named instrument only; Cameron describes no Ta-ta-thi object.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"lexical attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"tati tati","display_name":"Tati Tati (Ta-ta-thi) Kalk bullroarer name","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-031.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-031_thumb.jpg","alt":"The Wilmurra, a long wooden blade carved with a row of concentric circles and flanking arcs (The Met).","credit":"The Metropolitan Museum of Art (501354), Public Domain","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/501354","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Australian bullroarer carved with concentric circles (The Met).","pool_id":"auto-MUS2026-031"},"slug":"cameron1885-001-tati-tati-cameron-s-ta-ta-thi"}