Context (Production / use)
Possibly from Northwest Australia
Event Date 28/4/1993
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
Wooden bullroarer, with string and stick.
Event Date 28/4/1993
Author: maa

Context (Amendments / updates)
'Churinga are 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".
This one is possibly from northwest Australia (according to Mountford) or Western Australia.
[Undated CMS update, probably added in the 1990s or early 2000s by curator A.C. Herle]
Event Date 17/9/2025
Author: Rachel Hand