{"id":"MARKK1898-001","label":"Yule River devil-scarers","people_or_site":"People unrecorded; Yule River, Pilbara","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Yule River, Pilbara, Western Australia","macroregion":"Australia / Western Australia","local_name":"Teufelsscheucher (devil-scarer)","source_term":"ornamentiertes Schwirrholz, Teufelsscheucher","source_language":"German","object_description":"Two ornamented bullroarers, MARKK E 3087 and E 3088.","function_summary":"Catalogued as devil-scarers. Clement, who supplied them, describes Pilbara blades swung over the sick while the doctor circled the patient, swung at a death to drive off the djuno, and swung through the camp at circumcision.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"markk_e3087_yule_river","source_type":"museum_catalog","source_url":"https://markk-hamburg.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MARKK-OZ-bis-1920.pdf","page_or_plate":"MARKK Ozeanien bis 1920, PDF p. 311, E 3087-E 3088; Clement 1904 pp. 8-11","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Lower-middle Yule River on the Pilbara coastal plain (OpenStreetMap river geometry); the museum records the river only, so this is a river-level anchor.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On the Yule River these two ornamented bullroarers were devil-scarers. The djuno, the evil spirit, caused every sickness and every death; nobody died of natural causes. So the blades were set roaring over a sick man while the doctor stalked him in narrowing circles, roared again over the dead, and swung violently through the camp at the circumcision gathering to keep the djuno out. In the Pilbara the blade was the cora, or boonangharry.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"Teufelsscheucher: 'devil-scarer', the museum's rendering of Clement's gloss for the Pilbara bullroarer. cora / boonangharry: Clement's names for the blade. djuno: the evil spirit it drove off.","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation","death_rebirth"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK), Hamburg, collection database extract, Ozeanien bis 1920, inv. E 3087-E 3088","url":"https://markk-hamburg.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MARKK-OZ-bis-1920.pdf"},{"citation":"Emile Clement, \"Ethnographical Notes on the Western-Australian Aborigines,\" Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie 16 (1904), pp. 8-11","url":"https://archive.org/details/internationalesa16inteuoft"}],"source_citations":"Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK), Hamburg, collection database extract, Ozeanien bis 1920, inv. E 3087-E 3088; Emile Clement, \"Ethnographical Notes on the Western-Australian Aborigines,\" Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie 16 (1904), pp. 8-11","source_display":"Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK), Hamburg, collection database extract, Ozeanien bis 1920, inv. E 3087-E 3088; Emile Clement, \"Ethnographical Notes on the Western-Australian Aborigines,\" Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie 16 (1904), pp. 8-11","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Two ornamented bullroarers, MARKK E 3087 and E 3088.","function_display":"Catalogued as devil-scarers. Clement, who supplied them, describes Pilbara blades swung over the sick while the doctor circled the patient, swung at a death to drive off the djuno, and swung through the camp at circumcision.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"","display_name":"Yule River devil-scarers","image":{"full":"assets/objects/oc_mabuiag_bigu.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/oc_mabuiag_bigu_thumb.jpg","credit":"Haddon (ed.), Reports Cambridge Anthrop. Exped. Torres Straits IV (1912), Fig. 237 A-D","license":"Public domain (published 1912)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/reports191204cambuoft","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Haddon's fig. 237: five models (A–E) of the bigu bull-roarers swung","pool_id":"auto-oc_mabuiag_bigu","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"markk1898-001-people-unrecorded-yule-river-pilbara"}