The Bullroarer Atlas

No. CAPELL1956-008

Mengerrdji uwarm

Australia · Alligator Rivers country around Gunbalanya (Oenpelli), western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory

Sacred / spirit

Plate 9, fig. 12: the large dhooanbooka / yoolundry bullroarer, with a notched narrow end, two holes and a band of straight transverse lines across its broad face.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. Plate 9, fig. 12: the large hatched bull-roarer dhooanbooka / yoolundry Public domain · Image source

uwarm

Source term: BULLROARER: uwarm

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

Mengerrdji speakers gave uwarm for the bullroarer. Around Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) the Alligator Rivers languages called their great ceremony Ubarr, and the bullroarer took the rite's name, with a final m Mengerrdji shares only with neighbouring Urningangk. Mengerrdji was one of the small languages of that country, spoken beside Urningangk, Erre and Kunwinjku.

Particulars

Object
A bullroarer, called uwarm; 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)
  • Amurdak uwarAustralia · Eastern shores of Van Diemen Gulf, Murgenella and Cooper creeks, Northern Territory · Sacred / spirit
  • 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

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