MUS2026-237 - museum specimen
Yirrkala craft-shop bullroarer
Yirrkala, north-east Arnhem Land, Northern Territory (probable point of production; the museum's printed locality is Woomera, South Australia) - Oceania - Sahul
Function not recorded
Source term: Wooden bullroarer
A wooden board, painted on both faces with an all-over white pattern picked out in red and black, that Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology catalogues simply as a bullroarer. The purchase group it arrived with in 1973-74 carries a printed craft-shop label, 'From Methodist Mission Yirrkala, Arnhem Land' — the mission craft shop on the far side of the continent from Woomera, South Australia, where the object's own catalogue card places the 1964-65 sale. The board most likely began its life at that Arnhem Land mission before travelling west to change hands.
Wooden bullroarer, which is decorated on both sides with an all over pattern in white, picked out with red and black
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, catalogue description for accession 1974.243
- Object
- A wooden bullroarer decorated on both sides with an all-over pattern in white, picked out with red and black.
- Function
- The museum's official description states only the object class and its decoration; no ceremonial function, restriction, or use is recorded on the page.
- Map confidence
- low_medium - Yirrkala township anchor, the same point already carried by MARIKA1963-001, taken here as the probable point of production/sale rather than the "Woomera, South Australia" locality printed on the object record. The 1974.241-248 group's own catalogue card carries a printed Methodist Mission Aboriginal Craft label reading "From Methodist Mission Yirrkala. Arnhem Land," while the same card documents "Woomera" as where R. Brooks transacted the 1964/65 purchase through Native Patrol Officers - roughly 2,000 km from Yirrkala.
- Source location
Page references
MAA 1974.243 (object 492593)