{"id":"MAT1898-004","label":"Oscar Ranges Kimberley bullroarer","people_or_site":"Oscar Ranges / Kimberley","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Oscar Ranges, Kimberley, Western Australia","macroregion":"Australia / Kimberley","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"","function_summary":"Kimberley bullroarers are reported by Froggatt as used at the ceremony of circumcision; Plate figs. 1-4 show the Oscar Ranges specimen, with carved convex and flat faces.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"mathews1898bullroarers","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Aborigines_of_New_South_Wales","page_or_plate":"JAI 27:52-60; Plate figs. 1-4","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"representative coordinate for named people, ceremony, river, or region in Mathews","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In the Kimberley the bull-roarer was an instrument of men's initiation, sounded at the ceremony of circumcision that carried boys into manhood. This one — nearly two feet of carved hardwood from the Oscar Ranges — Froggatt passed to R. H. Mathews, who turned it over and found something peculiar. One face swelled convex while the other lay flat, a quirk he had met before only in bull-roarers from the west. Each face carried its own incised drawings; the timber itself he could not name.","pull_quote":"One side is convex, and the other flat, a peculiarity I have before observed in bull-roarers from West Australia.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"R. H. Mathews, plate description of the Oscar Ranges (Kimberley) specimen lent by W. W. Froggatt, \"Bullroarers used by the Australian Aborigines\" (Journal of the Anthropological Institute 27, 1898); text as reprinted in \"Notes on the Aborigines of New South Wales\"","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"R. H. Mathews, 'Bullroarers used by the Australian Aborigines,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 27 (1898): 52-60, plate figs. 1-4","url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Aborigines_of_New_South_Wales","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20241217225048/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Aborigines_of_New_South_Wales"}],"source_citations":"R. H. Mathews, 'Bullroarers used by the Australian Aborigines,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 27 (1898): 52-60, plate figs. 1-4","source_display":"R. H. Mathews, 'Bullroarers used by the Australian Aborigines,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 27 (1898): 52-60, plate figs. 1-4","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Kimberley bullroarers are reported by Froggatt as used at the ceremony of circumcision; Plate figs. 1-4 show the Oscar Ranges specimen, with carved convex and flat faces.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"oscar ranges","display_name":"Oscar Ranges Kimberley bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/MAT1898-004.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/MAT1898-004_thumb.jpg","alt":"Mathews’s Plate 9, figures 1–4: two decorated face views and two small edge profiles of an Oscar Ranges bullroarer, with end holes and stacked rectangular maze patterns.","credit":"R. H. Mathews, Notes on the Aborigines of New South Wales, 1907, Plate 9 figs. 1-4 (after Mathews 1898, JAI 27)","license":"Public domain (published 1907)","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Notes_on_the_Aborigines_of_New_South_Wales_-_Plate_9_Bull-roarers_used_by_the_Australian_Aborigines.jpg","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Mathews’s Plate 9, figs. 1–4: Oscar Ranges bullroarer."},"slug":"mat1898-004-oscar-ranges-kimberley"}