{"id":"MUS2026-135","label":"Milingimbi blade with human-hair cord","people_or_site":"Milingimbi Island / Yurruwi","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Milingimbi Island (Yurruwi), Crocodile Islands, Northern Territory","macroregion":"Australia / Arnhem Land","local_name":"","source_term":"Bullroarer and cylindrical handle","source_language":"English","object_description":"Leaf-shaped wooden blade, 86 cm long and 8 cm wide, pierced at the rounded end for a human-hair cord about 10-12 ft long, and paired with a cylindrical wooden handle 52.1 cm long and 1.91 cm in diameter.","function_summary":"At Milingimbi itself the roarer was the voice of the ancestral python in Yolngu men's initiation rites. No ceremony is recorded for this piece.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"NMNH_ANTHROPOLOGY_8421502","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://www.si.edu/object/bullroarer-and-cylindrical-handle%3Anmnhanthropology_8421502","page_or_plate":"Smithsonian object nmnhanthropology_8421502 / E387549-0","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Northern Territory Place Names Register: Milingimbi Island, -12.0931, 134.8885.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At Milingimbi, the whole apparatus survives: an 86-centimetre leaf-shaped wooden blade, a cord of human hair, and the slim half-metre handle from which it was swung. Most museum bullroarers have lost their working tackle; this one still shows how blade, cord, hand, and air were joined. Milingimbi was one of the camps where Lloyd Warner gathered A Black Civilization, and in the rites he recorded there, bullroarers sounded the voice of the great ancestral python.","pull_quote":"The bull roarer is attached to a human hair cord on a small stick before it is ready for whirling.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"W. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization, rev. ed. (Harper Torchbooks, 1964), p. 281","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","snake","initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Anthropology, object E387549-0 / nmnhanthropology_8421502","url":"https://www.si.edu/object/bullroarer-and-cylindrical-handle%3Anmnhanthropology_8421502"},{"citation":"W. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization (1937); revised edition (Harper Torchbooks, 1964), p. 281"}],"source_citations":"Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Anthropology, object E387549-0 / nmnhanthropology_8421502; W. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization (1937); revised edition (Harper Torchbooks, 1964), p. 281","source_display":"Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Anthropology, object E387549-0 / nmnhanthropology_8421502; W. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization (1937); revised edition (Harper Torchbooks, 1964), p. 281","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Leaf-shaped wooden blade, 86 cm long and 8 cm wide, pierced at the rounded end for a human-hair cord about 10-12 ft long, and paired with a cylindrical wooden handle 52.1 cm long and 1.91 cm in diameter.","function_display":"At Milingimbi itself the roarer was the voice of the ancestral python in Yolngu men's initiation rites. No ceremony is recorded for this piece.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"milingimbi","display_name":"Milingimbi blade with human-hair cord","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-164_agnsw_ia55_1962.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-164_agnsw_ia55_1962_thumb.jpg","alt":"Tom Djäwa’s Milingimbi burala, a long pale blade with a reddish crosshatched panel and loose cord.","credit":"© Djäwa Estate, licensed by Aboriginal Artist Agency Ltd, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales, IA55.1962","license":"© Djäwa Estate — rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/IA55.1962/","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Tom Djäwa’s Milingimbi burala."},"slug":"mus2026-135-milingimbi-island-yurruwi"}