MUS2026-152 - museum specimen
Victoria River (Aboriginal Australian)
Australia - Victoria River, Northern Territory - Top End
Function not recorded
Source term: bullroarer
bullroarer: English British Museum object type; no local name is recorded.
Blackened like charcoal and carved as an airfoil — flat on one face, rounded on the other — this blade was shaped to bite the air, turning a plain pierced board into a carrying roar. It came out of the Victoria River country at the raw edge of the cattle frontier: its donor, the pastoralist Joseph Bradshaw, held a run of four thousand eight hundred square miles on the river, and shipped his Aboriginal collection to the British Museum in 1902. Which of the river peoples made the blade was not set down.
Bullroarer of wood, hole in one end, stained black, flat on one side and rounded on the other.
British Museum, Oc1902,0417.34, register description (paraphrase).
- Object
- 28.2 x 4.5 x 1 cm black-stained wooden slat, flat on one face and rounded on the other, with a hole at one end for cord attachment.
- Function
- Function not recorded.
- Map confidence
- low - Victoria River feature anchor from the Northern Territory Place Names Register. The British Museum names the river only, not an object findspot or people.
- Source location
- Oc1902,0417.34