Australian Bullroarer Aboriginal Australia Bull Roarer

Learn to make haunting music with this Australian Bullroarer! The Australia bull roarer, also known as the howler, bullroarer, rhombus, or turndun is native to both Australian Aboriginal and American Indian tribes. To play the Australian Aboriginal bull roarer, you simply hold the wooden handle of the bullroarer and swing the larger end, a wood aerofoil, of the bull roarer around your head in a circle. The Australian Aboriginal bull roarer will make a howling noise that will seem to change pitch to those standing far enough away to hear the doppler effect caused by the swinging bull roarer. Bullroarer measures apx 30″ overall including cord, the wood aerofoil measures apx 7 1/2″. This fully functional bullroarer ships brand new, ready for use, for decoration, or for a great conversation piece!

A traditional Māori meeting house at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds in New Zealand, along the Bay of Islands. The slanted roof is supposed to represent welcoming arms, and on the inside, there are structures that represent different vital parts of the body (heart and mind), and the Māori were a very civilized culture, and in their culture, they were to welcome any strangers or passer by into their homes, and were known for their good hospitality, hence having the welcoming arms at the meeting house. 🙂

This was taken on Day 4 of our family trip to New Zealand & Australia. On this day we took an all-day motorcoach tour to the Bay of Islands and the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.
Our Trip Summary:
Day 3 (June 15): Spent the day walking around Auckland. Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand with almost 1.4 million people, nearly ¼ of New Zealand’s population.
Day 4 ( June 16): All-day Motorcoach tour to Waitangi (pronounced why tang eee), and the Bay of Islands, where we went on a long boat ride.
Day 5 (June 17): All-day Motorcoach tour to the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves (pronounced like why toe moe), and from there we went to an awesome and fun farm just outside of the city of Rotorua (population 68,000, named after Lake Rotorua, a lake formed from a volcanic caldera), and from there went to a Māori (pronounced Maw ree) reservation where we saw an aboriginal performance, and also went to the Rotorua Hot Springs.
Day 6 (June 18): We took the Overlander passenger train from Auckland (on the north side of the North Island) to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, on the south side of the North Island. The New Zealand rail gauge is 3 feet 6 inches (107.7 cm), which is 3/4 (or 75%) of the North American standard gauge.
Day 7 (June 19): We spent the day in Wellington, going to a cool museum and riding on their steep cable car. New Zealand cities are very hilly (with very large hills), kind of like San Francisco.
Day 8 (June 20): We took a ferry from Wellington, on the North Island to a small town called Picton, on the South Island, and then took the TranzCoastal train from Picton to Christchurch, New Zealand.
Day 9 (June 21): We went skiing on Mount Hutt at Methaven, about 71 miles (115 km) outside of Christchurch. It was so fun!!!
Day 10 (June 22): After touring the Christchurch Cathedral in the morning, we took a flight from Christchurch to Sydney, Australia.
Day 11 (June 23): We spent the day around Sydney. We went to the aquarium, then in the afternoon, we took the SydneyLink electrified commuter rail train, with standard 4 foot 8½ inch (143.5 inches) gauge to Mount Colah, Australia, where we ate at a friend’s house.
Day 12 (June 24): We took a coach tour to a nature center near Sydney, and from there went to the Blue Mountains where we rode the world’s steepest railway and saw the Three Sisters. We then went back to Sydney
Days 13 (Sydney to Los Angeles) and 14 (Los Angeles To St. Louis) were spent getting back home to the St. Louis area. 14 hour flights suck, and that’s the only negative part about having to take an awesome trip like this (besides, of course, the cost, LOL 🙂
Since my dad’s a pilot, we got huge discounts on flights and hotels, so it was almost as cheap for us as it is for an average person to take a domestic flight on a domestic trip. 🙂

This small collection of structures is no longer inhabited, but was home to an Aboriginal family in Churchill for generations and they still maintain the homestead which overlooks the rocky coast of the Hudson Bay

Ancestral Modern explores the extraordinary transformation in Australian Aboriginal art that began in the 1970s. Instead of making art primarily for each other-whether painted or inscribed on rock walls, on the ground, on bark, or on bodies as part of ceremonies-artists began rephrasing their practices to inform outsiders about the complexities of their cultures and the remarkable lands that Aboriginal communities have managed for centuries.
Many of the paintings in Ancestral Modern initially appear abstract but communicate surprisingly specific observations about places and people, flora and fauna, and Aboriginal history. In three wide-ranging essays and illuminating discussions of fifty individual works, the authors consider how deceptively simple means yield richly multilayered meanings. What appears to be a geometric maze turns into the path of ancestral beings establishing features of the landscape. Canvases resembling maps record memories of sacred ceremonies. Dazzling linear patterns conjure up leaves blown across a windswept desert, and herringbone hatching designates clan identities. Along the way, this collection offers many new visions of Australia-peering underground to see yams grow, trekking over vast salt lakes, following the trail of a blue-tongued lizard, and encountering a lightning-spitting serpent in swirling water.
Two Australian and two American curators each contribute a distinct perspective on this collection of over one hundred artworks that span the Australian continent and the varying approaches to art pursued by diverse Aboriginal communities. Acrylic paintings from the desert, bark canvases from the north, and ochre-painted canvases from the west are joined by new uses of fiber, clay, and photography. Complementing the fully illustrated essays and catalogue entries are a visual glossary, which offers glimpses of the real-life creatures and landscapes that helped inspire the artworks, and a glossary of terms defining some of the essential concepts of Aboriginal culture. Ancestral Modern is dedicated to a vanguard effort by artists who are showing the world another way to experience not only their own country and worldviews but nature itself, wherever it is encountered.