{"id":"KABO1961-001","label":"Groote Eylandt face blade","people_or_site":"Warnindhilyagwa (Anindilyakwa), Groote Eylandt","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Groote Eylandt, Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Territory","macroregion":"Australia / Arnhem Land","local_name":"","source_term":"гуделка (bullroarer)","source_language":"Russian","object_description":"Flat oval wooden blade, 22 by 6 cm, pierced at one end for its cord. One face carries the carved outline of a human face, picked out in red and white over a field of fine white, yellow and red strokes; the back bears cross-bands and crossing lines on black.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"kabo1961_groote","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://lib.kunstkamera.ru/files/lib/mae-xx-sbornik/11_kabo_vr_kollekciya_s_o_grote_ejland_severnaya_avstraliya.pdf","page_or_plate":"p. 166 (description), pp. 167–170 (comparison), plate 2 (front and back)","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Groote Eylandt; the objects are labelled from the Church Missionary Society mission on the island (Kabo 1961, p. 166). Offset from MUS2026-083 (-13.95, 136.5), which is a different blade.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A face looks out from this small blade: round eyes ringed in white, a long nose running down between them, and a triangular mouth beneath, carved into the wood before it was painted, all set in fine white, yellow and red strokes. Faces are very rare on Australian bullroarers. Leonhard Adam, shown the piece, wrote that it was almost certainly made under New Guinea influence, and V. R. Kabo set it beside the faced blades of the Gulf of Papua, where the same eyes and nose stare from masks, shields and the boards of the men's houses. On the island itself, the posts of the arawaltja ceremony also carried carved faces, though cruder ones. The blade reached Leningrad in 1957, a gift from an Adelaide youth league handed over at the World Festival of Youth in Moscow.","pull_quote":"Ваш образец почти несомненно обязан влиянию с Новой Гвинеи","pull_quote_translation":"Your specimen almost certainly owes its form to New Guinea influence","pull_quote_cite":"Leonhard Adam, letter quoted in V. R. Kabo, Sbornik MAE XX (1961), p. 167","term_gloss":"","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":"V. R. Kabo, 'Kollektsiia s o. Grote Eilandt (Severnaia Avstraliia)', Sbornik Muzeia antropologii i etnografii XX (1961), pp. 166–171, plate 2","url":"https://lib.kunstkamera.ru/files/lib/mae-xx-sbornik/11_kabo_vr_kollekciya_s_o_grote_ejland_severnaya_avstraliya.pdf"}],"source_citations":"V. R. Kabo, 'Kollektsiia s o. Grote Eilandt (Severnaia Avstraliia)', Sbornik Muzeia antropologii i etnografii XX (1961), pp. 166–171, plate 2","source_display":"V. R. Kabo, 'Kollektsiia s o. Grote Eilandt (Severnaia Avstraliia)', Sbornik Muzeia antropologii i etnografii XX (1961), pp. 166–171, plate 2","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Flat oval wooden blade, 22 by 6 cm, pierced at one end for its cord. One face carries the carved outline of a human face, picked out in red and white over a field of fine white, yellow and red strokes; the back bears cross-bands and crossing lines on black.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"warnindhilyagwa","display_name":"Groote Eylandt face blade","image":{"full":"assets/objects/kabo1961/groote-mae6254-3.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/kabo1961/groote-mae6254-3_thumb.jpg","alt":"Two views of a small oval bullroarer with its cord: one side carved and painted with a face of ringed eyes, a long nose and a triangular mouth, the other with bands of fine chevron strokes.","credit":"V. R. Kabo, Sbornik Muzeia antropologii i etnografii XX (1961), plate 2; Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), St Petersburg, MAE 6254-3","license":"","source_page":"https://lib.kunstkamera.ru/files/lib/mae-xx-sbornik/11_kabo_vr_kollekciya_s_o_grote_ejland_severnaya_avstraliya.pdf","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Both sides of MAE 6254-3: the carved and painted face, and the cross-banded back.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_round4_2026_10_30/groote_painted_pair.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_round4_2026_10_30/thumbs/groote_painted_pair.jpg","alt":"Two views of a long blade painted in ochre, red and yellow with white dots, a coil of string bound round the left end.","credit":"Auction listing, 2005 (archived by Duck Digital)","source_page":"https://www.duckdigital.net/FOD/FOD1052.html","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Both faces of a painted Groote Eylandt bullroarer, its cord still wound about the head."}]},"slug":"kabo1961-001-warnindhilyagwa-anindilyakwa-groote-eylandt"}