The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSMAIN-023 - ethnographic attestation

Lower (Southern) Arrernte, Charlotte Waters, Central Australia

Australia - Charlotte Waters telegraph station, southern Northern Territory near the South Australian border; Lower - Southern Arrernte (Arandic) country - Oceania - Sahul

Restricted

An elongated oval wooden churinga stippled with a dotted emu-totem pattern, engraved by the Central Australian Arunta and figured by Spencer...
Representative image. An elongated oval wooden churinga stippled with a dotted emu-totem pattern, engraved by the Central Australian Arunta and figured by Spencer and Gillen to illustrate the churinga form. The tywerrenge that P. M. Byrne posted to Spencer from Charlotte Waters, made and owned within the Pultara class, has no photograph of its own. Spencer & Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899), fig. 20 Public domain Image source

tywerrenge Arrernte (Arandic); shared across Arandic varieties incl. Lower/Southern Arrernte (Pertame); modern Eastern/Central Arrernte orthography

Source term: bullroarer

sacred/secret object — the class term for stone and wooden churinga, incl. the bullroarer; from tywerenge 'sacred, precious'

Etymology. tywerrenge (Spencer and Gillen's 'churinga') is the Arrernte class-term for sacred objects, stone and wooden alike, including the bull-roarer — the wooden form being churinga irula. Spencer and Gillen record that the word doubles as a noun, 'a sacred emblem', and as a qualifying term meaning 'sacred or secret', so the bull-roarer's name is literally 'the sacred/secret thing'. (high confidence)

In February 1896 Paddy Byrne, the telegraph operator who spent half a century at Charlotte Waters on the edge of the South Australian border, posted Walter Baldwin Spencer a bullroarer used in the initiation ceremonies of the Lower Arrernte, his letter describing how it was made and swung. The slat was recorded as belonging to the Pultara skin class, and Byrne promised two more 'beating time' because the first ones he had got were too rough. It is one strand of the Charlotte Waters correspondence out of which Spencer and Gillen built their account of the sacred whirled slats of Central Australia.

Sends bullroarer to Spencer that is used in initiation ceremonies and describes use and production. He also intends getting two other beating time as others he had obtained were to rough

Pitt Rivers Museum, Spencer Papers, catalogue summary of P.M. Byrne to Spencer, 6 February 1896 (Box 1A Section B item 17)
Object
A bullroarer (a flat wooden slat whirled on a cord to roar) posted by P.M. Byrne to Baldwin Spencer; the catalogue entry records it as used in initiation ceremonies and notes that Byrne's accompanying letter described its use and manufacture. The specimen is recorded as belonging to the Pultara class, one of the Central Australian skin/subsection classes, i.e. owned within that class rather than named for it. Byrne added that he meant to obtain two further examples 'beating time,' the earlier ones he had got being too rough.
Function
Bullroarer used in male initiation ceremonies; the collector's letter described its use and manufacture.
Map confidence
medium - Representative point at Charlotte Waters telegraph station, NT, Byrne's post and the collection locality in Lower Arrernte country; decimal coordinates from the gazetteer for Charlotte Waters (25 55 S, 134 55 E).
Source location
Spencer Papers, Box 1A Section B, item 17 (letter of 6 February 1896, Byrne to Spencer)

View source Open this point on the interactive map