The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-224 - museum specimen

Fortescue River ancestor-design bullroarer pair

Fortescue River, Pilbara, Western Australia

Restricted

British Museum card for Oc,89+.142.
Representative — not this record’s object. · British Museum card for Oc,89+.142 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

Source term: bullroarer or tjuringa (churinga)

A sacred design representing a totemic ancestor fills one face of each large wooden blade.

Large, wooden bullroarer, or tjuringa (churinga), with one face inscribed with sacred designs, which represent a totemic ancestor.

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, catalogue description for accession E 1915.20.5
Object
Two large wooden blades, each carved on one face with sacred designs representing a totemic ancestor.
Function
Not recorded.
Source
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, accessions E 1915.20.4 (object 492313, also MAA: AR 1915.290.4) and E 1915.20.5 (object 492314, also MAA: AR 1915.290.5), rowed once as a sibling pair; Description (.4): "large, wooden bullroarer or tjuringa (churinga), with one face inscribed with sacred designs, which represent a totemic…
Source location
Page references

MAA E 1915.20.4 and E 1915.20.5 (objects 492313, 492314)

Source confidence
low to medium Anchor on the middle course of the Fortescue River, Pilbara, the only locality either record gives. The Fortescue runs some 700 km and no collecting camp, reach or crossing is named, so the point marks the river, not a site.

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