MUS2026-220 - museum specimen
Katherine River bullroarer with a human-hair loop
Australia - Katherine River district, Northern Territory - Oceania - Sahul
Function not recorded
Source term: Bull roarer
Five hundred and eighteen millimetres of soft wood, sixty-six across, strung with a loop of human hair and painted with a pattern in blue. It came out of the Katherine River district sometime between 1871 and 1925, passed through Henry Wellcome's vast collection, and reached the Science Museum by transfer, slightly worn and insect-eaten by the time it was catalogued. Blue is an unusual pigment choice for the Top End, more often worked in ochre red, black and white, and may point to a traded or introduced colourant. The record names no maker or people, and no photograph of it has ever been published.
Bull roarer, made of wood with loop of human hair, decorated with painted blue pattern, slightly worn eaten, from Katherine River district, Australia, 1871-1925
Science Museum Group, catalogue description for object co104220 (accession A114984)
- Object
- A blade of soft wood, 518 mm long and 66 mm at its greatest width, carrying a loop of human hair and decorated with a painted blue pattern. The museum records it as slightly worn and insect-eaten.
- Function
- Not recorded.
- Map confidence
- medium - Katherine regional anchor for the Katherine River district, the only locality the museum records, and deliberately the same anchor already used by AUSIN-014 so that the two records resolve to one place rather than two. Neither a collecting spot nor a place of manufacture is recorded.
- Source location
Page references
SMG A114984 (object co104220)