Fitzroy River painted wood bullroarer

Source term: vinare / bullroarer

vinare: Swedish catalog term for a bullroarer; not an Indigenous name

A small red bullroarer left the Fitzroy River in 1910 with Eric Mjöberg's Swedish expedition — fourteen centimetres of carved, once-painted wood, its cord now lost. The Stockholm museum that keeps it now treats it as secret and sacred and withholds its photograph; the river is the only thing about it not held close.

Vinare, "Bullroarer" försedd med enkel ornering. Varit målad. Fitzroy River.

Bullroarer furnished with simple ornament. Formerly painted. Fitzroy River.

SMVK general catalog 1912.01, p. 246

Particulars

Object

Small carved bullroarer of red-coloured wood, simply ornamented and once painted, 14.8 x 2.8 x 0.7 cm; cord now missing.

Function

Secret and sacred; no ceremony or particular use is recorded.