{"id":"MUS2026-039","label":"Wajarri churinga carved from shell","people_or_site":"Wajarri / Wadjarri","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Murchison","macroregion":"Australia / Western Australia","local_name":"Churinga","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A small bullroarer of shell, 197 by 35 millimetres, carved, incised and perforated. Another Wajarri-attributed blade in the Pitt Rivers Museum, 1926.70.8, is a giant: 767 by 73 millimetres, carved and incised, stained and pigmented, and pierced for its cord.","function_summary":"A men's ceremonial object, one of a class of Australian churinga seen only by initiated men.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"pitt_rivers","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39717","page_or_plate":"1924.63.24","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate culture/locality centroid","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In Wajarri country in Western Australia’s Murchison, the bullroarer belonged to men’s ceremonial life. This one is cut from shell: an incised slip not twenty centimetres long, pierced for its cord. The blade pictured is a wooden one from the Upper Murchison, in Berlin since 1887: long zigzags run down its narrow face over dense parallel hatching, and a cord braided from human hair still hangs from its tip. Felix von Luschan, who published it in 1896, wondered whether those zigzags began as two human figures dancing a corroboree.","pull_quote":"Churinga is the name given by the Arunta natives to certain sacred objects which, on penalty of death or very severe punishment, such as blinding by means of a fire-stick, are never allowed to be seen by women or uninitiated men.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Spencer & Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899), ch. V \"The Churinga or Bull Roarers of the Arunta and Other Tribes\"","term_gloss":"Churinga (Arrernte tjurunga): an Arrernte word for a sacred object; applied by the museum as a general classifier for this Wajarri specimen.","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,"etymology":"Churinga is the Arrernte (Arunta) word meaning \"sacred\" or \"secret,\" the name for a class of sacred wood and stone objects, the smaller wooden ones serving as bull-roarers. A Central Australian term, applied here by the museum to a Western Australian Wajarri specimen.","literal_gloss":"sacred or secret","semantic_cluster":"clan_or_ritual_office","etymology_confidence":"high","sources":[{"citation":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1924.63.24","url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39717","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260917174840/https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39663"},{"citation":"Felix von Luschan, “Das Wurfholz in Neu-Holland und in Oceanien,” Festschrift fur Adolf Bastian (1896), pp. 135–136, Berlin VI 10488"},{"citation":"Spencer & Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899), ch. V"}],"source_citations":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1924.63.24; Felix von Luschan, “Das Wurfholz in Neu-Holland und in Oceanien,” Festschrift fur Adolf Bastian (1896), pp. 135–136, Berlin VI 10488; Spencer & Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899), ch. V","source_display":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1924.63.24; Felix von Luschan, “Das Wurfholz in Neu-Holland und in Oceanien,” Festschrift fur Adolf Bastian (1896), pp. 135–136, Berlin VI 10488; Spencer & Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899), ch. V","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A small bullroarer of shell, 197 by 35 millimetres, carved, incised and perforated. Another Wajarri-attributed blade in the Pitt Rivers Museum, 1926.70.8, is a giant: 767 by 73 millimetres, carved and incised, stained and pigmented, and pierced for its cord.","function_display":"A men's ceremonial object, one of a class of Australian churinga seen only by initiated men.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"wajarri","display_name":"Wajarri churinga carved from shell","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/luschan1896_upper_murchison_vi10488.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/luschan1896_upper_murchison_vi10488_thumb.jpg","alt":"Luschan’s plate drawing of an Upper Murchison bullroarer with a long crosshatched diamond-patterned blade and braided human-hair cord attached at one end.","credit":"Felix von Luschan, Festschrift für Adolf Bastian (1896), p. 135; Berlin VI 10488","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Festschrift_f%C3%BCr_Adolf_Bastian_-_zu_seinem_70._Geburtstage,_26._juni_1896_(IA_festschriftfurad00bast).pdf","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A bullroarer from the Upper Murchison, with its cord of braided human hair."},"slug":"mus2026-039-wajarri-wadjarri"}