The Bullroarer Atlas

No. CAPELL1956-001

Amurdak uwar

Australia · Eastern shores of Van Diemen Gulf, Murgenella and Cooper creeks, Northern Territory · Arnhem Land

Sacred / spirit

Minneapolis Institute of Art 99.163.2, the incised Australian ceremonial…
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. Minneapolis Institute of Art 99.163.2, the incised Australian ceremonial… Public domain · Image source

uwar

Source term: BULLROARER: uwar

uwar: the name of the Ubar ceremony, given in answer to 'bullroarer' (Capell 1956, p. 18; Capell & Hinch 1970, wuwar 'Ubar ceremony')

Asked for the bullroarer, Amurdak speakers gave the name of the rite it belonged to: uwar, the Ubar. Their country lay on the eastern shores of Van Diemen Gulf, around Murgenella and Cooper creeks, between the Iwaidja of the Cobourg Peninsula and the Kunwinjku of the stone country inland. Along that coast the Ubar was the great sacred ceremony, held around a hollow log that “cries out” when it is beaten, and the Snake at its heart carried the same name.

Particulars

Object
A bullroarer, called uwar; its form is not recorded.
Function
Named for the Ubar, the sacred ceremony of west Arnhem Land.

Sources

  1. Arthur Capell, A Vocabulary of 600 Words in Forty North Australian Languages (typescript, Sydney, 1956), State Library of New South Wales A 6929, p. 18 View
  2. Arthur Capell and Heather E. Hinch, Maung Grammar, Texts and Vocabulary (The Hague: Mouton, 1970), vocabulary, wuwar 'Ubar ceremony' View
  3. Murray Garde, 'The Forbidden Gaze', in Martin Thomas and Margo Neale (eds), Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition (ANU Press, 2011), pp. 403–407 View
  4. Ronald M. Berndt, Kunapipi (Melbourne: Cheshire, 1951)
  • Gunavidji wubarAustralia · Liverpool River mouth around Maningrida, north-central Arnhem Land, Northern Territory · Sacred / spirit
  • Gurrgoni wubarAustralia · Cadell River, south-east of the Tomkinson River headwaters, north-central Arnhem Land, Northern Territory · Sacred / spirit
  • Kunbarlang uwarAustralia · Coast between Hawkesbury Point and Junction Bay, inland toward Table Hill, western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory · Sacred / spirit
  • Marrku uwarAustralia · Croker Island and the facing shore of the Cobourg Peninsula at Raffles Bay, Northern Territory · Sacred / spirit
  • Mawng uwarAustralia · Goulburn Islands and the mainland coast opposite, east to the King River, Braithwaite Point and Junction Bay, Northern Territory · Sacred / spirit
  • Mengerrdji uwarmAustralia · Alligator Rivers country around Gunbalanya (Oenpelli), western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory · Sacred / spirit

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.