Context (Related Documents)
Churinga are often inscribed with sacred designs, which represent a totemic ancestor. Aboriginal women and uninitiated boys are forbidden to see them. Their meaning is only fully divulged to men who are initiated into that totem and who are of elder status. Those with a hole bored in one end (stone ones excepted), for the attachment of a cord, are called bullroarers. When whirled round, they produce a characteristic sound believed to be " spirit talk" . It may be assumed safely that the date of manufacture of this specimen anterior to the date of acquisition (1922). A plausible date might be not later than 1900
Event Date
Author: rachel hand

Description (CMS Description)
Plain, wooden bullroarer, with string attached.
Event Date 1922
Author: maa

Context (Field collection)
Collected in 1922
Event Date 28/4/1993
Author: maa

Context (Amendments / updates)
Register notes the source as 'Prof T. G. Bonney'

The Bonney collection, noted variously as from Prof Bonney or T.G Bonney, had been recorded with T.G. Bonney as the collector and donor based on the catalogue cards and registers. However, the objects were collected by Frederic Bonney and given or passed on his death, to his brother, Thomas George Bonney, (1833- 1923), a tutor at St John's College, Cambridge and lecturer in geology from 1868, and Professor of geology in University College London, 1877- 1901.

Archival research by Ian Coates at MAA in 2015 highlighted letters from T. G Bonny in the 1922 uncatalogued correspondence files regarding the gift of his late brother Frederic's collections confirming that Frederic was the initial field collector and source of much of his collection.

Some objects have cards or labels that note other collectors and suggest that T. G Bonney's collection had multiple sources, e.g. W. H. Watson or R. E. Guise, etc. Guise may be the Mr Guise who accompanied T.H Bonney and Poondary, one of Bonney’s major informants during night photography, noted without a reference in the draft ms version of Hope and Lindsay’s book.


The records have subsequently been updated to reflect the multiple collectors and give T. G. Bonney as a subsequent rather than the primary collector of the material.
Event Date 6/3/2018
Author: rachel hand

Context (Related Documents)
Frederic Bonney was an enthusiastic recorder Paakantyi social life and there are many extant sources that illuminate his experiences on Momba Station. His writings, held at the State Library of New South Wales, attest to the close relationships he formed with Paakantyi people, and his photographs, held at the National Library of Australia, State Library of Victoria, and MAA Cambridge, form an important record of cross-cultural interaction on pastoral properties.
Event Date 29/2/2024
Author: Eleanor Foster

Context (Field collection)
This bullroarer was collected by Frederic Bonney (1842-1921), a British-born pastoralist, photographer and early ethnographer, during his management of Momba Station, a sheep and cattle farm in north-western New South Wales, between 1865 and 1881.

Momba Station was located on Paakantyi (also spelt Barkindji or Barkandji) Country and Frederic Bonney was an enthusiastic recorder Paakantyi social life. Objects collected by Bonney on or around Momba Station now held in the MAA number over fifty objects and stone tools.
Event Date 29/2/2024
Author: Eleanor Foster

Context (Display)
Upon Bonney’s return to Britain in 1881, he displayed his collection at Colton House, his home in Rugeley, Staffordshire. The objects remained in Bonney’s possession throughout his lifetime.
Event Date 29/2/2024
Author: Eleanor Foster

Context (Acquisition Details)
Following Frederic Bonney’s death in 1921, 47 objects were donated to the MAA by his brother, the Reverend Professor T.G Bonney (see letter dated Feb 11 1922 in MAA Archives). Thomas George Bonney (1833- 1923) was a tutor at St John's College, Cambridge and lecturer in geology from 1868, and Professor of Geology at University College London from 1877-1901.

Further objects collected by Frederic Bonney were later donated in 1920 by Bonney’s brother-in-law, Major Wetherall, in 1929 (see letter dated Feb 11 1922 in MAA Archives 25 April 1929).
Event Date 29/2/2024
Author: Eleanor Foster