{"id":"MUS2026-151","label":"Ooldea Soak initiation bullroarer","people_or_site":"Ooldea native camp","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Ooldea Soak, South Australia","macroregion":"Australia / Western Desert","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"22 x 4 cm wooden bullroarer with its string; materials wood and fibre.","function_summary":"Swung during boys' initiation at Ooldea, over the novice in his blood-drinking seclusion.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"britishmuseum_oc1933_1010_6","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1933-1010-6","page_or_plate":"Oc1933,1010.6","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Ooldea Soak anchor from the Australian Message Stick Database; the British Museum records Ooldea native camp, not an exact collection point.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Initiation parties announced themselves at Ooldea Soak with heavy smokes on the horizon, and the emu men of Ooldea, who had thrived on the renown of their water, watched for them. By the time Daisy Bates pitched her tent at the siding in 1919, railway pumps had taken the soak, and the old rites bent around the line: elders came in by train calling themselves 'dokkatur', the initiation knife whittled from a bottle and carried in a battered suitcase. The bull-roarer kept its place. When the boy Juginji lay in his blood-drinking seclusion between her camp and the soak, and his keepers had gone off down the line, Bates swung the big bull-roarer over him while his brother Waueri bled into a wooden scoop for him to drink. Then she fed him damper and tea, against the law. 'There were none who dared to question Kabbarli.' This small corded roarer left her camp for the British Museum in 1933.","pull_quote":"Bull-roarer of wood, string.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"British Museum, Oc1933,1010.6.","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":"British Museum Oc1933,1010.6: bullroarer of wood and string; Ooldea native camp, South Australia; collected by Daisy May Bates before 1933","url":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1933-1010-6"}],"source_citations":"British Museum Oc1933,1010.6: bullroarer of wood and string; Ooldea native camp, South Australia; collected by Daisy May Bates before 1933","source_display":"British Museum Oc1933,1010.6: bullroarer of wood and string; Ooldea native camp, South Australia; collected by Daisy May Bates before 1933","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"22 x 4 cm wooden bullroarer with its string; materials wood and fibre.","function_display":"Swung during boys' initiation at Ooldea, over the novice in his blood-drinking seclusion.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"ooldea native","display_name":"Ooldea Soak initiation bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/HAD1898-035.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/HAD1898-035_thumb.jpg","alt":"Howitt’s Dieri yuntha, a long corded bullroarer.","credit":"Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, 1904, Fig. 29 no. 2","license":"Public domain (published 1904)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/nativetribesofso00howiuoft","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Howitt’s Dieri yuntha, a long corded bullroarer.","pool_id":"auto-pd_plates--HAD1898-035"},"slug":"mus2026-151-ooldea-native-camp"}