{"id":"MUS2026-236","label":"Kulgera Rainbow Serpent churinga","people_or_site":"Kulgera district, southern Northern Territory (people not named on the record)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Kulgera, Northern Territory, Australia","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"","source_term":"Churinga (bullroarer)","source_language":"English","object_description":"A wooden churinga carved with designs that include the Rainbow Serpent and eggs, recorded as found at the southern edge of the country where churinga occur.","function_summary":"Forbidden to women and uninitiated boys; its meaning was revealed in full only to initiated elders of its totem.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"maa_1952_396_kulgera_rainbow_serpent_churinga","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/492566/","page_or_plate":"MAA 1952.396 (object 492566)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"candidate_only","coordinate_basis":"Kulgera, the only locality on the record's place string (\"Oceania; Australasia; Australia; Northern Territory; Kulgera\"), anchored to the Kulgera roadhouse/settlement near the Northern Territory/South Australia border. No sub-district provenance or collection date is given beyond the museum's own note that the object was found \"right at the south of the area where churinga occur.\"","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A wooden churinga carries the Rainbow Serpent and its eggs cut into its face, found at the southern edge of the country where churinga occur. It was collected before entering Cambridge in 1952. Churinga carry a totemic ancestor's own design, forbidden to women and uninitiated boys and shown in full only to initiated elders; some examples, pierced and corded, were whirled to sound as 'spirit talk'. A note of 1993 admits the museum no longer knows which shelf it sits on.","pull_quote":"Churinga with design depicting, inter alia, the Rainbow Serpent and eggs. Those with a hole bored in one end (stone ones excepted), for the attachment of a cord, are called bullroarers. When whirled round, they produce a characteristic sound believed to be \"spirit talk\"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, catalogue description for accession 1952.396","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":true,"flags":["spirit_voice","snake","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, 1952.396","url":"https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/492566/","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013134323/https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/492566/"}],"source_citations":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, 1952.396","source_display":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, 1952.396","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A wooden churinga carved with designs that include the Rainbow Serpent and eggs, recorded as found at the southern edge of the country where churinga occur.","function_display":"Forbidden to women and uninitiated boys; its meaning was revealed in full only to initiated elders of its totem.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"kulgera","display_name":"Kulgera Rainbow Serpent churinga","image":{"full":"assets/objects/TORRES-001_haddon1908_dugena_wellcome.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/TORRES-001_haddon1908_dugena_wellcome_thumb.jpg","alt":"Dugena rain charm from Mer: a small human-shaped figure with a round head, projecting nose and fibre skirt, tied to a post against a woven wall.","credit":"Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. VI (1908), Pl. VIII fig. 1 — Wellcome Collection M0005261","license":"CC BY 4.0","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Dugena%22_rain_charms_in_Expeditions_to_the_Torres_Straits_Wellcome_M0005261.jpg","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Dugena rain charm from Mer, wearing a miniature bigo bullroarer","pool_id":"auto-TORRES-001_haddon1908_dugena_wellcome","auto_assigned":true},"slug":"mus2026-236-kulgera-district-southern-northern-territory-people-not-named-on-the-record"}