{"id":"CAPELL1956-007","label":"Mawng uwar","people_or_site":"Mawng (Capell's Maung)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Goulburn Islands and the mainland coast opposite, east to the King River, Braithwaite Point and Junction Bay, Northern Territory","macroregion":"Australia / Arnhem Land","local_name":"uwar","source_term":"BULLROARER: uwar","source_language":"Mawng","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 38); language key, line 38 = Maung.","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"approximate Mawng language-country centroid after the South Australian Museum Maung entry (Goulburn Islands and coast opposite, east to King River, Braithwaite Point and Junction Bay); a language-level anchor, not a collection point","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Mawng speakers of the Goulburn Islands called the bullroarer uwar, and in their own vocabulary the word is the name of the Ubar ceremony. The ceremonial ground was wuwar too, and so were the initiates smeared with grease for it. Mawng country takes in the islands and the mainland opposite, east to the King River, Braithwaite Point and Junction Bay; the same name ran west through Iwaidja and Marrku and east to the Kunbarlang.","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","initiation"],"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":"mawng","display_name":"Mawng uwar","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_19/ROBERTS2010-001_mathews1907_plate9.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_19/ROBERTS2010-001_mathews1907_plate9_thumb.jpg","alt":"Period plate of outline drawings of fifteen bullroarers of different shapes, some engraved, with scale bars and figure numbers.","credit":"R. H. Mathews, Notes on the Aborigines of New South Wales (1907), plate 9","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/notesonaborigine00math/page/n31/mode/1up","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Mathews's bullroarers; figs. 7–8 are the Wiradjuri mudthega and moonibear","pool_id":"auto-hunt_2026_10_19--ROBERTS2010-001_mathews1907_plate9","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"capell1956-007-mawng-capell-s-maung"}