The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSIN-031 - ethnographic attestation

Willilambi / Twilight Cove

Eucla - Twilight Cove - Western Australia

Function not recorded

A wooden board carved in a diamond chevron pattern — a generic Aboriginal Australian piece, not the boorbing or the long yeenma boards incised...
Representative image. A wooden board carved in a diamond chevron pattern — a generic Aboriginal Australian piece, not the boorbing or the long yeenma boards incised with the eaglehawk's anatomy that the Willilambi made near Twilight Cove. Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. RV-1207-16) Image source

boorbing / yeenma English

Source term: boorbing

boorbing: bull-roarer; yeenma: long carved hardwood boards (equated by Bates with Spencer's churinga), incised with the anatomy of the conquered eaglehawk.

Etymology. Bates' Willilambi/Twilight Cove text glosses `boorbing` as bull-roarer, distinguished from the longer carved `yeenma` boards. (high confidence)

In a star myth Daisy Bates collected from the Willilambi people near Twilight Cove, on the southern coast of Western Australia, the old men carve their sacred wood as a trophy of the eaglehawk they had conquered. From hardwood trees they make the long flat boards called yeenma, which Bates equated with Spencer's churinga, and the bull-roarers called boorbing, and onto the boards they cut the heart, ribs, stomach, entrails, and tail of the eaglehawk. The hardwood itself was moodiji, forbidden to the eaglehawk and reserved to the hardwood totem, so no eaglehawk could fashion such boards or spear-throwers from it. The eaglehawk Walja, whose fires lay far to the north, had been killing the Willilambi men's boys until two allied brothers, right-handed Badhu-wudha and left-handed Koorulba, killed him. When the eaglehawk, his woman, and their two boys went up into the sky they became what white men call the Southern Cross and the Pointers.

The old men made yeenma (long carved boards — Spencer's Churinga) and boorbing (bull-roarers) from the hard wood trees, and the carvings on the boards were the heart, ribs, stomach, entrails, and tail of the eaglehawk, whom they had conquered; and no eaglehawk could make spear-throwers or boards from the hard wood, for it was moodiji (forbidden) to them and belonged to the hardwood totem only.

Daisy Bates, "Aboriginal Stellar Myths," The Australasian, 26 July 1924
Object
Bull-roarers (boorbing) and long carved hardwood boards (yeenma), incised with the eaglehawk's anatomy.
Function
Textual tradition/lexical lead for south-coast WA bullroarer terms
Map confidence
medium - representative on-land anchor at Willilambi / Twilight Cove (regional coordinate fell just offshore of the rendered coastline); not an exact findspot
Source location
AWW extract citing Daisy Bates, 'Aboriginal Stellar Myths', Australasian, 26 July 1924, p. 56; Trove article 140757659

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