MONTAGUE1921-001 - museum specimen
Wiluna initiation bullroarer
Wiluna - Mid West, Western Australia - Oceania - Sahul
Sacred / spirit
Source term: bull-roarer
Two bullroarers stand side by side on the 1921 plate; this one, from Wiluna on the Western Australian goldfields, is a dark, ochre-stained blade carved the full twenty-one inches with an interlocking chevron pattern — an echo, Montague noted, of the incised spear-throwers of Kookynie — and one of two he labelled as instruments of initiation.
Two fine bull-roarers are seen in Fig. 19—No. 1 from Wiluna, and No. 2 from the Kookynie district, Western Australia.
Montague 1921:36
- Object
- Carved wooden blade, 21 inches long, dark brown probably from ochre, with a design Montague compared with Kookynie spear-throwers; one terminal perforation is visible in the exact Figure 19 drawing.
- Function
- Montague's Figure 19 caption identifies it as used in initiation ceremonies; no people-specific rite or restriction is described.
- Map confidence
- medium_high - Wiluna town anchor; Montague records Wiluna but no collection spot, maker, or performance site.
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 36; Figure 19 no. 1
- Initiation rite