The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSIN-025 - secondary catalog

Gascoyne region

Gascoyne - Western Australia

Sacred / spirit

Hambly's own plate of the Field Museum's Gascoyne bull-roarer, catalogued 173152 — a finely cross-hatched wooden oval photographed for his 1936...
Hambly's own plate of the Field Museum's Gascoyne bull-roarer, catalogued 173152 — a finely cross-hatched wooden oval photographed for his 1936 survey. 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

Mooryumkarr English

Source term: Mooryumkarr / bull-roarer

Mooryumkarr: historical Gascoyne name; Giglioli glossed it in Italian as scaccia-spiriti, ‘spirit-chaser.’

At the mouth of the Gascoyne, an incised oval board on a human-hair cord was called Mooryumkarr — "spirit-chaser." It travelled to London for the 1886 Colonial Exhibition with its cord still attached and its name written beneath it. A second Gascoyne blade, dense with cross-hatching, later reached Chicago's Field Museum.

Mooryumkarr (scaccia-spiriti)

Mooryumkarr (spirit-chaser)

Giglioli, handwritten caption to the Western Australian objects photographed at the 1886 Colonial Exhibition, object 3
Object
Incised oval wooden Mooryumkarr on a human-hair cord, probably photographed at the 1886 Colonial Exhibition; a second cross-hatched Gascoyne bullroarer is Field Museum catalog 173152.
Function
Giglioli glossed Mooryumkarr as a spirit-chaser; no specific rite is recorded for either Gascoyne object.
Map confidence
medium - Broad Gascoyne regional anchor near Carnarvon
Source location
Giglioli 1886 handwritten caption, object 3; Pettazzoni 1911:257 n. 1; Hambly 1936 Fig. 10

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