{"id":"MUS2026-303","label":"Victorian bullroarer on its human-hair cord","people_or_site":"People unrecorded","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Australia / Victoria","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"Peer Boor E Gah","source_term":"Bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bullroarer, 140 x 35 mm, joined by a cord of human-hair string to a 477 mm stick. A second complete Victorian rig in the same museum pairs a 424-millimetre blade with its stick on an assembly reaching 622 millimetres.","function_summary":"Secret-sacred men's ceremonial object, restricted to initiated men.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"prm_1900_55_277_1","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39675","page_or_plate":"1900.55.277.1; prm-object-39675","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Broad Victoria anchor; the exact collecting place is unrecorded.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"A blade of fourteen centimetres, a stick of forty-eight, and between them a cord spun from human hair: the whole apparatus survives, which is rare. In the Victorian ceremonies A. W. Howitt recorded, a bullroarer of this kind travelled as a credential. When a Wurundjeri headman on the Yarra wanted to make boys into men, his messenger carried one, along with a man's kilt, as the summons to the Talangun — and it was kept hidden from women and children the whole way.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Pitt Rivers Museum 1900.55.277.1","term_gloss":"Peer Boor E Gah: the local name recorded with this Victorian bullroarer; it is not translated in the record.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, object 1900.55.277.1 / irn 39675","url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39675","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260917174840/https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39663"}],"source_citations":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, object 1900.55.277.1 / irn 39675","source_display":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, object 1900.55.277.1 / irn 39675","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bullroarer, 140 x 35 mm, joined by a cord of human-hair string to a 477 mm stick. A second complete Victorian rig in the same museum pairs a 424-millimetre blade with its stick on an assembly reaching 622 millimetres.","function_display":"Secret-sacred men's ceremonial object, restricted to initiated men.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"","display_name":"Victorian bullroarer on its human-hair cord","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/howitt1904_fig37_kurnai_tundun.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/howitt1904_fig37_kurnai_tundun_thumb.jpg","alt":"Howitt’s engraving of the two crosshatched Kurnai bullroarers, Tundun and Rukut-Tundun: one broad and corded, the other narrow, with a separate cross-section at right.","credit":"A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904), fig. 37, p. 628","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/nativetribesofso00howiuoft","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Howitt's engraving of the two Kurnai bull-roarers","pool_id":"auto-pd_plates--howitt1904_fig37_kurnai_tundun","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-09-01"},"slug":"mus2026-303-people-unrecorded"}