No. AUSMAIN-003
Wambaya (Umbaia) Beetaloo purtuli
Australia · Beetaloo Waterhole (Briggs Lagoon), Barkly Region · Barkly Tableland
Restricted
Purtuli
Source term: purtuli / putuli / Purtiili
Purtuli: the Umbaia (Wambaya) name for the wooden churinga/bullroarer.
At Beetaloo Waterhole in Wambaya country, a wooden purtuli was linked to Katakitji, the snake ancestor said to have made the waterhole. Spencer and Gillen illustrated it as Fig. 94 and wrote that it could not be seen by anyone uninitiated. In the wider Umbaia initiation tradition, women and children were told that a bullroarer's roar was the voice of a great spirit—but this particular purtuli drew its sacred value from Katakitji, not from a spirit believed to live inside it.
Snake churinga belonging to water hole at Betaloo. name of stick = Purtuli. (Chingilli & Umlia name)
Spencer and Gillen expedition journal, Journal 2, p. 6, Camp 56, Betaloo Downs, October 1901
Particulars
- Object
- Fig. 94 wooden purtuli (churinga/bullroarer), associated with Katakitji's snake-totem waterhole at Beetaloo.
Source
Spencer & Gillen expedition journal, Journal 2, p. 6, Camp 56, Betaloo Downs (1901); The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904), pp. 218, 275-277, 348, 351-352, 492 n.1, 500, glossary p. 759, Fig. 94. Nordlinger, A Grammar of Wambaya (1998), p. 5, identifies Umbaia as an earlier spelling of Wambaya