{"id":"CAPELL1956-005","label":"Kunbarlang uwar","people_or_site":"Kunbarlang (Capell's Gunbalang; Gambalang)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Coast between Hawkesbury Point and Junction Bay, inland toward Table Hill, western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory","macroregion":"Australia / Arnhem Land","local_name":"uwar","source_term":"BULLROARER: uwar","source_language":"Kunbarlang","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 39); language key, line 39 = Gunbalang.","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"approximate Kunbarlang language-country centroid after the South Australian Museum Gambalang entry (133°35′E, 12°5′S; coast between Hawkesbury Point and Junction Bay, inland to Table Hill); a language-level anchor, not a collection point","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"For the bullroarer, Kunbarlang speakers gave uwar, the coastal name of the Ubar ceremony, where their sister language Kunwinjku used its stone-country form, gubar. Kunbarlang country follows the coast between Hawkesbury Point and Junction Bay, east of the Goulburn Islands, and runs inland toward Table Hill. In the Ubar, men beat a great hollow log whose cry was the voice of the rite, and the Snake of the ceremony bore its 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":"kunbarlang capell","display_name":"Kunbarlang uwar","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-162_roth1908_pl20_e13712.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-162_roth1908_pl20_e13712_thumb.jpg","alt":"Roth's plate image of the Butcher's Hill jinna-juronggor, with white herringbone bands and a notch at the free end.","credit":"W. E. Roth, North Queensland Ethnography Bulletin 11 (1908), Plate XX; photo H. Barnes, Junr., Australian Museum (E.13712)","license":"Public domain (published 1908)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/biostor-52896","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Butcher's Hill jinna-juronggor: white herringbone","pool_id":"auto-MUS2026-162_roth1908_pl20_e13712","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"capell1956-005-kunbarlang-capell-s-gunbalang-gambalang"}