MUS2026-220 - museum specimen
Katherine River bullroarer with a human-hair loop
Australia - Katherine River district, Northern Territory
Restricted
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. What a Katherine River bullroarer was for, Baldwin Spencer recorded in 1912: after the operation the boy was shown it and told to say nothing to the women, who would be struck dead if they chanced to see it, and when the ceremony was over the old men carried it off to a secret place.
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
- On the Katherine River the bullroarer was shown to the boy after circumcision and hidden from the women, who would be struck dead if they saw it; afterwards the old men put it away in a secret place (Spencer 1914, pp. 162-163).
- Source
- Science Museum Group, object co104220, accession A114984 (also numbered 49203 and 6768/1936; barcode SMG00173596). Catalogue title and object name "Bull roarer". Full catalogue description: "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".…
- Source location
Page references
SMG A114984 (object co104220)
- Source 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.
- Initiation rite
- Forbidden to women