TINDALE1974-001 - ethnographic attestation
Potaruwutj mimikur talking-tree bullroarer
Tatiara - Naracoorte-Bordertown district - South Australia - Oceania - Sahul
Sacred / spirit
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
Page references
printed p. 35; PDF p. 45