No. ROBERTS2010-001
Wellington Valley's 1839 summons
Australia · Wellington Valley, Macquarie River, central New South Wales
Sacred / spirit
Source term: bullroarer
By 1839 some of the Wiradjuri young men at the Wellington Valley mission had built their own huts, were learning to read scripture and joined in Christian worship. Then the elders announced their ceremonies, and the bullroarer sounded across the valley. The missionary James Günther heard its "very melancholy & solemn cry" and watched the young men go. He thought them "labouring under a great struggle of mind," but they went: houses and Bible lessons had not cut them loose from the old men's law. The Church Missionary Society had opened the mission in 1832; it closed in 1843.
very melancholy & solemn cry
James Günther, journal, 5 October 1839, quoted in D. A. Roberts (2010), p. 106
Particulars
- Object
- A bullroarer sounded near the Wellington Valley mission; its form is not recorded.
- Function
- Sounded when the elders announced their ceremonies, calling the young men away from the mission to attend.
Source
David Andrew Roberts, 'A "City on a Hill": Religion and Buildings on the Frontier Mission at Wellington Valley, New South Wales', Australian Religion Studies Review 23(1) (2010), p. 106