The Bullroarer Atlas

MONTAGUE1921-001 - museum specimen

Wiluna locality; people unrecorded

Wiluna - Mid West, Western Australia - Oceania - Sahul

Sacred / spirit

The Wiluna bull-roarer itself, 21 inches of ochre-dark wood carved in herring-bone zigzags — so broad, Montague wrote, it might at first sight...
The Wiluna bull-roarer itself, 21 inches of ochre-dark wood carved in herring-bone zigzags — so broad, Montague wrote, it might at first sight be taken for a small shield. Leopold A. D. Montague, Weapons and Implements of Savage Races (1921), fig. 19 no. 1 Public domain Image source

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
printed p. 36; Figure 19 no. 1

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