Cossack bullroarer

boonangharry / burnangarra

Source term: bull-roarer

boonangharry / burnangarra / banangari: the Pilbara (Ngayarta) name for the bullroarer, glossed devil-scarer by Clement; recorded for Cossack's own Ngarluma by Bates (Roebourne vocabulary).

Somewhere between Cossack and the foot of the Hamersley Range, a wooden bullroarer entered the British Museum before 1896 as simply 'bull-roarer of wood'. The register's findspot names, almost word for word, the country Emile Clement collected through in the 1890s, and he wrote down what the blades there were for: set in motion over the sick while the doctor circled the patient, swung at a death to drive away the djuno who caused it, and swung through the camp at the circumcision gathering. He called them cora or boonangharry, devil-scarers, and a Ngarluma man of Roebourne gave Daisy Bates the same word, burnangarra, for the small sacred board.

Particulars

Object

A wooden bullroarer.