The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSIN-029 - primary ethnography

Roebuck Bay district (people not recorded)

Roebuck Bay - Broome district, Western Australia

Sacred / spirit

Roebuck Bay, Peggs 1903 Plate XV. The entire object plate is shown; the whistling-stick bullroarer is figure 23.
Roebuck Bay, Peggs 1903 Plate XV. The entire object plate is shown; the whistling-stick bullroarer is figure 23. Ada Janet Peggs, ‘Notes on the Aborigines of Roebuck Bay, Western Australia’ (1903), Plate XV Public domain Image source

Source term: whistling-stick

whistling-stick: Peggs's English name for the Roebuck Bay bullroarer.

At Roebuck Bay, the whistling-stick belonged to both desire and initiation. A man sounded it to call a woman to him, and the same humming voice entered the ceremonies that made boys into men. Peggs’s crowded 1903 plate preserves the blade among the district’s masks, shields, weapons, ornaments, and tools.

The whistling-stick is used to call a woman to a man. It is also used in the man-making ceremonies.

Peggs 1903:349-350
Object
Wooden whistling-stick with one terminal hole and cord, photographed as Plate XV figure 23.
Function
Called a woman to a man and sounded in man-making ceremonies at Roebuck Bay.
Map confidence
high - Roebuck Bay / Broome district anchor; no collection spot or ceremony site is recorded.
Source location
pp. 341-342, 349-350; Plate XV fig. 23

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