{"id":"MUS2026-223","label":"Broome bullroarer with its cord","people_or_site":"Broome / Western Kimberley district (people not named on the record)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Broome, West Kimberley district, Western Australia","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarer or tjuringa (churinga)","source_language":"English","object_description":"A small wooden blade with both faces inscribed with sacred designs representing a totemic ancestor, with a cord attached.","function_summary":"A churinga carved with the sacred designs of a totemic ancestor, strung on a cord to be whirled; women and uninitiated boys are forbidden to see churinga.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"maa_e1915_20_3_broome_bullroarer","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/492312/","page_or_plate":"MAA E 1915.20.3 (object 492312)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Regional point for the Broome district at Roebuck Bay, the narrowest locality the museum records; the record's wider phrase is \"Western Kimberley district\". Neither a collecting spot nor a place of manufacture is recorded.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A small wooden blade, carved on both faces with the design of a totemic ancestor, and still strung with its cord. It was gathered at Broome in 1914 and reached Cambridge the following year. The cord is what matters: many blades reach museums stripped of their rigging, leaving the question of how they were used to be argued from shape alone. This one arrived ready to swing.","pull_quote":"Small, wooden bullroarer or tjuringa (churinga), with both faces inscribed with sacred designs, which represent a totemic ancestor. A cord is attached.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, catalogue description for accession E 1915.20.3","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, E 1915.20.3 (Broome, Kimberley; collected by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown)","url":"https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/492312/","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013133718/https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/492312/"}],"source_citations":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, E 1915.20.3 (Broome, Kimberley; collected by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown)","source_display":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, E 1915.20.3 (Broome, Kimberley; collected by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A small wooden blade with both faces inscribed with sacred designs representing a totemic ancestor, with a cord attached.","function_display":"A churinga carved with the sacred designs of a totemic ancestor, strung on a cord to be whirled; women and uninitiated boys are forbidden to see churinga.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"broome","display_name":"Broome bullroarer with its cord","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/peggs1903_roebuck_bay_plate_xv.png","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/peggs1903_roebuck_bay_plate_xv_thumb.jpg","alt":"Peggs’s 1903 Roebuck Bay object plate; the whistling-stick bullroarer is figure 23.","credit":"Ada Janet Peggs, ‘Notes on the Aborigines of Roebuck Bay, Western Australia’ (1903), Plate XV","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Folk-Lore/Volume_14/Notes_on_the_Aborigines_of_Roebuck_Bay,_Western_Australia","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Peggs’s 1903 Roebuck Bay plate; the whistling-stick bullroarer is figure 23."},"slug":"mus2026-223-broome-western-kimberley-district-people-not-named-on-the-record"}