{"id":"MUS2026-231","label":"Cossack bullroarer","people_or_site":"Cossack (?) / Hamersley Range (?) - no people recorded","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Pilbara / north-west coast, Western Australia","macroregion":"Australia / Western Australia","local_name":"boonangharry / burnangarra","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A wooden bullroarer.","function_summary":"Between Cossack and the Hamersleys the boonangharry was swung over the sick, swung at a death to drive off the djuno, and swung through the circumcision camp (Clement 1904, pp. 8-11); the Ngarluma of Roebourne called the small sacred board burnangarra (Bates).","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"bm_oc1896_1066_cossack","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1896-1066","page_or_plate":"British Museum Oc1896,-.1066","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Cossack townsite on the Pilbara coast, chosen as the anchor because it is the more specific of the two findspots the museum records and because the register phrase, \"Between Cossack and foot of the Hammersley Range\", runs inland from it. Both findspots carry the museum's question mark, so this is the more specific of two uncertain readings rather than a located findspot.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Somewhere between Cossack and the foot of the Hamersley Range, a wooden bullroarer entered the British Museum before 1896 as simply 'bull-roarer of wood'. The register's findspot names, almost word for word, the country Emile Clement collected through in the 1890s, and he wrote down what the blades there were for: set in motion over the sick while the doctor circled the patient, swung at a death to drive away the djuno who caused it, and swung through the camp at the circumcision gathering. He called them cora or boonangharry, devil-scarers, and a Ngarluma man of Roebourne gave Daisy Bates the same word, burnangarra, for the small sacred board.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"boonangharry / burnangarra / banangari: the Pilbara (Ngayarta) name for the bullroarer, glossed devil-scarer by Clement; recorded for Cossack's own Ngarluma by Bates (Roebourne vocabulary).","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation","death_rebirth"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"British Museum Oc1896,-.1066 (Cossack / Hamersley Range, Western Australia)","url":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1896-1066"}],"source_citations":"British Museum Oc1896,-.1066 (Cossack / Hamersley Range, Western Australia)","source_display":"British Museum Oc1896,-.1066 (Cossack / Hamersley Range, Western Australia)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A wooden bullroarer.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"cossack","display_name":"Cossack bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_fifty_2026_10_30/markk1898_001_41.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_fifty_2026_10_30/thumbs/markk1898_001_41.jpg","alt":"A long dark blade and its tangled cord on a pale green background.","credit":"Wereldmuseum, WM-27260","source_page":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/1089883","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A Western Australian bullroarer with a long cord","pool_id":"auto-hunt_fifty_2026_10_30--markk1898_001_41","last_modified":"2026-10-30"},"slug":"mus2026-231-cossack-hamersley-range-no-people-recorded"}