{"id":"CAPELL1956-001","label":"Amurdak uwar","people_or_site":"Amurdak (Capell's Amarag; Amarak)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Eastern shores of Van Diemen Gulf, Murgenella and Cooper creeks, Northern Territory","macroregion":"Australia / Arnhem Land","local_name":"uwar","source_term":"BULLROARER: uwar","source_language":"Amurdak","object_description":"A bullroarer, called uwar; its form is not recorded.","function_summary":"Named for the Ubar, the sacred ceremony of west Arnhem Land.","attestation_type":"lexical_attestation","source_key":"capell1956_vocabulary_600_words","source_type":"linguistic_manuscript","source_url":"https://indigenous.sl.nsw.gov.au/node/9216","page_or_plate":"Capell 1956 p. 18 (BULLROARER column, line 4); language key, line 4 = Amarag.","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"approximate Amurdak (Amarak) language-country centroid after the South Australian Museum language-group entry (eastern Van Diemen Gulf, Murgenella/Cooper Creek); a language-level anchor, not a collection point","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Asked for the bullroarer, Amurdak speakers gave the name of the rite it belonged to: uwar, the Ubar. Their country lay on the eastern shores of Van Diemen Gulf, around Murgenella and Cooper creeks, between the Iwaidja of the Cobourg Peninsula and the Kunwinjku of the stone country inland. Along that coast the Ubar was the great sacred ceremony, held around a hollow log that “cries out” when it is beaten, and the Snake at its heart carried the same name.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"uwar: the name of the Ubar ceremony, given in answer to 'bullroarer' (Capell 1956, p. 18; Capell & Hinch 1970, wuwar 'Ubar ceremony')","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["snake"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"Arthur Capell, A Vocabulary of 600 Words in Forty North Australian Languages (typescript, Sydney, 1956), State Library of New South Wales A 6929, p. 18","url":"https://indigenous.sl.nsw.gov.au/node/9216"},{"citation":"Arthur Capell and Heather E. Hinch, Maung Grammar, Texts and Vocabulary (The Hague: Mouton, 1970), vocabulary, wuwar 'Ubar ceremony'","url":"https://archive.org/details/maunggrammartext0000acap"},{"citation":"Murray Garde, 'The Forbidden Gaze', in Martin Thomas and Margo Neale (eds), Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition (ANU Press, 2011), pp. 403–407","url":"https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p116081/pdf/ch201.pdf"},{"citation":"Ronald M. Berndt, Kunapipi (Melbourne: Cheshire, 1951)","url":""}],"source_citations":"Arthur Capell, A Vocabulary of 600 Words in Forty North Australian Languages (typescript, Sydney, 1956), State Library of New South Wales A 6929, p. 18; Arthur Capell and Heather E. Hinch, Maung Grammar, Texts and Vocabulary (The Hague: Mouton, 1970), vocabulary, wuwar 'Ubar ceremony'; Murray Garde, 'The Forbidden Gaze', in Martin Thomas and Margo Neale (eds), Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition (ANU Press, 2011), pp. 403–407; Ronald M. Berndt, Kunapipi (Melbourne: Cheshire, 1951)","source_display":"Arthur Capell, A Vocabulary of 600 Words in Forty North Australian Languages (typescript, Sydney, 1956), State Library of New South Wales A 6929, p. 18; Arthur Capell and Heather E. Hinch, Maung Grammar, Texts and Vocabulary (The Hague: Mouton, 1970), vocabulary, wuwar 'Ubar ceremony'; Murray Garde, 'The Forbidden Gaze', in Martin Thomas and Margo Neale…","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A bullroarer, called uwar; its form is not recorded.","function_display":"Named for the Ubar, the sacred ceremony of west Arnhem Land.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"lexical attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"amurdak capell","display_name":"Amurdak uwar","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/mia_99_163_2_australia.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/mia_99_163_2_australia_thumb.jpg","credit":"Minneapolis Institute of Art, accession 99.163.2","license":"Minneapolis Institute of Art open access (public domain)","source_page":"https://collections.artsmia.org/art/99.163.2","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Minneapolis Institute of Art 99.163.2, the incised Australian ceremonial…","pool_id":"auto-museum_harvest--mia_99_163_2_australia","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"capell1956-001-amurdak-capell-s-amarag-amarak"}