The Bullroarer Atlas

ALPHER1991-001 - lexical attestation

Yir-Yoront

Australia - Lower Mitchell River - Kowanyama (Mitchell River Mission), Cape York Peninsula - Oceania - Sahul

Sacred / spirit

Representative—not this record’s object: Gascoyne bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available...
Representative—not this record’s object: Gascoyne bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. W. D. Hambly, Primitive Hunters of Australia (Field Museum of Natural History, 1936), plate I, fig. 10 Public domain Image source
Western Australia, Giglioli 1886. The entire historical page is shown; object 3 is handwritten Mooryumkarr, probably the Gascoyne-mouth...
Western Australia, Giglioli 1886. The entire historical page is shown; object 3 is handwritten Mooryumkarr, probably the Gascoyne-mouth spirit-chaser later described by Pettazzoni. Enrico H. Giglioli, Western Australian objects at the Colonial Exhibition, London (1886) Public domain Image source

yoq-par-muw Yir-Yoront / English

Source term: bullroarer, sacred board

yoq-par-muw: Yir-Yoront term glossed "bullroarer, sacred board"; manufacture compared to a small smoothing-board (thopm), tied with string before swinging

Yir-Yoront speakers of the lower Mitchell River called the bullroarer yoq-par-muw — sacred board. They shaped it like a small smoothing-board, fitted it with a length of string — 'the one they tie with string' — and swung it.

The bullroarer. The one they tie with string. They make it like a small smoothing-board. Then they swing that one.

Alpher 1991:818
Object
Manufacture recorded in the lexicon: shaped like a small smoothing-board (thopm), then tied with a length of string before being swung. No dimensions, material, or object figure recorded.
Function
Glossed in the lexicon as 'bullroarer, sacred board'; manufacture and swinging are recorded, no ceremony.
Map confidence
medium - Kowanyama (Mitchell River Mission) township anchor on the lower Mitchell River in Yir-Yoront country, Cape York Peninsula; not a named performance site.
Source location
printed p. 818

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