The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-256 - museum specimen

Yuendumu Warlpiri ornamented blade

West of Yuendumu mission station, Northern Territory - Central Australia

Function not recorded

The Yuendumu svingtræ I.5625, tooled over with concentric rings.
The Yuendumu svingtræ I.5625, tooled over with concentric rings. · CC BY-SA 4.0 Image source
The reverse face, split and worn, numbered I.5625.
The reverse face, split and worn, numbered I.5625. · CC BY-SA 4.0

Source term: svingtræ

Gently curved along its length and worked with ornament, this forty-six-centimetre blade left Warlpiri country west of Yuendumu in 1955. Warlpiri practice sorts ceremony by who may be present: the tarruku events tied to male initiation cannot be witnessed by women, though senior women know their content and their purposes. Which side of that line this blade belonged on was never set down.

Object
Gently curved wooden blade worked with ornament, 46 × 6 cm.
Function
Not recorded.
Source
Nationalmuseet I.5625; Jens Bjerre collection; museum protocol says items 5612–5625 were collected among “Wailbri” west of the Yuendumu mission station in Central Australia in 1955
Source location
Page references

I.5625; object 63690

Source confidence
medium Approximate anchor west of Yuendumu; no camp or collecting coordinate is recorded.

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