The Bullroarer Atlas

TINDALE1974-001 - ethnographic attestation

Potaruwutj (Bindjali / Bodaruwitj)

Tatiara - Naracoorte-Bordertown district - South Australia - Oceania - Sahul

Sacred / spirit

Representative—not this record’s object: Australian herringbone-carved bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own...
Representative—not this record’s object: Australian herringbone-carved bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. Emile Clement, Ethnographische Beobachtungen in Nordwest-Central-Australien (1903), Plate IV; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek scan Public domain Image source
A board carved edge to edge with a herringbone zigzag pattern — an Aboriginal Australian bull-roarer held by the Wereldmuseum, shown for the...
Representative image. A board carved edge to edge with a herringbone zigzag pattern — an Aboriginal Australian bull-roarer held by the Wereldmuseum, shown for the general form; not the Martuthunira boonangharry from the Pilbara coast documented here. Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. RV-2306-7) CC BY-SA Image source

mimikur English / Potaruwutj terms

Source term: wooden bull-roarer

mimikur: Potaruwutj bullroarer; katal: talking tree

Dongaganinj kept his wooden mimikur hanging in a talking tree whose rubbing branches carried news from far away. The Potaruwutj magician could speak a man's name to the bullroarer in the tree and make him fall ill or die: an instrument suspended between distant knowledge and danger.

He had a wooden bull-roarer or mimikur that he kept suspended in a katal or 'talking tree'.

Tindale 1974:35
Object
Wooden bullroarer kept suspended in a katal or talking tree; no cord, hole, dimensions, blade shape, active whirling, or object figure is supplied.
Function
Dongaganinj kept it in a talking tree whose chafing branches brought news; speaking a man's name to the mimikur could make that person ill or kill him.
Map confidence
high - South Australian Museum Potaruwutj group coordinate; not a claimed location for Dongaganinj's talking tree.
Source location
printed p. 35; PDF p. 45

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