{"id":"AUSMAIN-016","label":"Wathi-wathi (Wadi-wadi) Kalari Burbung bullroarer","people_or_site":"Wathi-wathi (Wadi-wadi)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Murray River around Balranald / Tooleybuc","macroregion":"Australia / New South Wales","local_name":"Kalari","source_term":"Kalari","source_language":"English","object_description":"Humming instrument; form and size not recorded.","function_summary":"Whirled by a concealed man during the tooth-knocking of the Wathi-wathi Burbung; held to have a wonderful magic influence; kept afterwards by an unmarried man. Secrets of the Burbung closed to women on pain of death.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"cameron1885_wathi_kalari","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://zenodo.org/records/2029848","page_or_plate":"printed pp. 357-360 (Kalari at p. 359)","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Wathi-wathi territory centroid on the Murray around Balranald/Tooleybuc; Howitt places the tribe near Balranald.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"When enough Wathi-wathi youths were ready along the Murray, messengers went out carrying the poopanderi, a disc of plaited opossum fur that no woman, child, or uninitiated youth was allowed to see. At the Burbung ground the novices' feet were planted in filled-in holes to stop their struggling, and a practised man drove a small wooden wedge between the teeth with a mallet before the tooth was knocked out. All the while a man hidden in the scrub whirled the Kalari round his head — an instrument credited with a wonderful magic influence, and after the ceremony given to some unmarried man to carry about or hide in a safe place. Cameron had the whole account from Makogo, a Wathi-wathi man. Everything touching the Burbung was sacred: a woman found prying into its mysteries would be severely punished, probably killed.","pull_quote":"This instrument is supposed to have a wonderful magic influence. By the Wathi-wathi it is called Kalari.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"A. L. P. Cameron, 'Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 14 (1885), p. 359","term_gloss":"Kalari: Wathi-wathi name for the bullroarer whirled by a concealed man at the Burbung (initiation); no literal meaning recorded. Howitt's 1904 condensation prints it Kalar; the neighbouring Ta-ta-thi called the same instrument Kalk, 'word'.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"A. L. P. Cameron, 'Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 14 (1885), pp. 357-360, at p. 359","url":"https://zenodo.org/records/2029848","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250411110450/https://zenodo.org/records/2029848"}],"source_citations":"A. L. P. Cameron, 'Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 14 (1885), pp. 357-360, at p. 359","source_display":"A. L. P. Cameron, 'Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 14 (1885), pp. 357-360, at p. 359","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Humming instrument; form and size not recorded.","function_display":"Whirled by a concealed man during the tooth-knocking of the Wathi-wathi Burbung; held to have a wonderful magic influence; kept afterwards by an unmarried man. Secrets of the Burbung closed to women on pain of death.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"wathi wathi","display_name":"Wathi-wathi (Wadi-wadi) Kalari Burbung bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/wereldmuseum_134.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/thumbs/wereldmuseum_134_thumb.jpg","alt":"A plain oval Aboriginal Australian bullroarer.","credit":"Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. TM-2670-1051)","license":"","source_page":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/86476","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A plain oval Aboriginal bullroarer (Wereldmuseum)","pool_id":"auto-museum_harvest--wereldmuseum_134"},"slug":"ausmain-016-wathi-wathi-wadi-wadi"}