Painted North Queensland fire-plough board

Source term: possibly a bull-roarer

A painted oval board from North Queensland, about 43 centimetres long and almost flat, carries black rectangles on one face and a deep friction groove on the other. Two round holes are visible near one rounded end. Miller Christy took it for the hearth of a fire-plough, a form otherwise unknown in Australia, and also, possibly, for a bull-roarer.

hearth oval in shape, almost flat, and about half-an-inch thick; possibly a bull-roarer; a rude pattern, in rectangles, painted in black, on the back; has one furrow only on its surface; from North Queensland. (This is a very exceptional form of the fire-plough, which, apart from the evidence afforded by this specimen, is not known to have been used in Australia.)

Christy 1926, cat. 123

Particulars

Object

Long oval wooden board, almost flat and about half an inch thick, 17 inches or roughly 43 cm long, painted with black rectangles on one face and cut by a deep longitudinal friction groove on the other. The photograph shows two round holes near one rounded end and the separate 18-inch fire stick catalogued with it.

Function

Not recorded.