{"id":"EYLMANN1908-002","label":"Wulwulam Mary River discarded initiation bullroarers","people_or_site":"Wulwulam (Eylmann's Wulwanga)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Mary River headwaters / Pine Creek, Northern Territory","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"","source_term":"Schwirrhölzer","source_language":"German","object_description":"Bullroarers (Schwirrhölzer, 'whirring woods'), used together with clapsticks.","function_summary":"Bullroarers and clapsticks saw extensive use in ceremonies preceding circumcision; the used sticks were thrown away once the consecration was complete; women and children were excluded.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"eylmann1908_wulwanga_schwirrholz","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/dieeingeborenen00eylmgoog/page/n316/mode/1up","page_or_plate":"p. 258 (scan n316)","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"South Australian Museum (Tindale) Wulwulam tribal-area reference coordinate 132deg10'E x 13deg50'S, near the head of the Mary River ('Head of Mary River; west to Pine Creek... south nearly to Katherine'); not a ceremony site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Used once, then thrown away: in the many ceremonies before a Wulwulam boy’s circumcision, bullroarers and clapsticks saw extensive use, and once the consecration was complete the whirled sticks were discarded. Women and children could not be present; a boy who had watched was left uncircumcised. Before admission the elders took each novice into the solitude of the bush to learn the tribe’s laws and customs, hut-building, and fire-making; at the operation itself a wad — sometimes the little pouch that would afterwards hold his own foreskin — was pushed into his mouth to stop his screaming.","pull_quote":"Bei einigen finden Schwirrhölzer und Klapperstäbe ... eine ausgedehnte Verwendung. Die benutzten Stäbe werden nach vollzogener Weihe weggeworfen.","pull_quote_translation":"In some of them, bullroarers and clapsticks find extensive use. The sticks that have been used are thrown away once the consecration is complete.","pull_quote_cite":"Eylmann, Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien (1908), p. 258","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Erhard Eylmann, Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1908), p. 258","url":"https://archive.org/details/dieeingeborenen00eylmgoog/page/n316/mode/1up"}],"source_citations":"Erhard Eylmann, Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1908), p. 258","source_display":"Erhard Eylmann, Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1908), p. 258","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bullroarers (Schwirrhölzer, 'whirring woods'), used together with clapsticks.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"wulwulam","display_name":"Wulwulam Mary River discarded initiation bullroarers","image":{"full":"assets/objects/shared_spencer1914_plateII_figs3_4.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/shared_spencer1914_plateII_figs3_4_thumb.jpg","alt":"Spencer’s plate of two Larrakia bidu-bidu, each with a long central groove, rows of short transverse cuts and a looped cord at its squared end.","credit":"Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory (Macmillan, 1914), Plate II","license":"Public domain (Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory, 1914)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/cu31924028623076","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Spencer's own plate of the Larrakia bidu-bidu.","pool_id":"auto-shared_spencer1914_plateII_figs3_4"},"slug":"eylmann1908-002-wulwulam-eylmann-s-wulwanga"}