{"id":"BELL1994-001","label":"Bon'da'ban, the ceremonial noisemaker","people_or_site":"Gubbi-Gubbi (Kabi Kabi)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Sunshine Coast–Noosa / Mary River","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"bon'da'ban","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English / Gubbi term","object_description":"A bullroarer; material, size and form not recorded.","function_summary":"The ceremonial bullroarer of the Toara initiation: carried by the messengers who summoned neighbouring groups, then shown to the novices after their tooth was knocked out and rubbed on their bodies, together with a smaller instrument called bundandaba.","attestation_type":"lexical_attestation","source_key":"bell_seed_1994_gubbi_bondaban","source_type":"language_dictionary","source_url":"https://noosadistrictshs.eq.edu.au/SupportAndResources/FormsAndDocuments/Documents/Indigenous%20Resources/dictionary-of-the-gubbi-gubbi-and-butchulla-languages.pdf","page_or_plate":"PDF p. 21 / printed p. 16","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Representative Gubbi-Gubbi country anchor; dictionary entry has no event locality.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"When the old men decided that enough boys were ready to be made men, messengers set out for the neighbouring camps carrying the sacred bullroarer. This was the Toara, the man-making that R. H. Mathews recorded in 1900 among the Kabi and their neighbours on the coast from Port Curtis to the New South Wales border. Each novice lost an upper front tooth; then, after warriors in paint burst from the long grass in a staged ambush, the bullroarer was shown to the new men and rubbed on their bodies, together with a smaller instrument called bundandaba. In Gubbi-Gubbi the bullroarer is bon'da'ban. The word was written down in a 1943 vocabulary, it came back into Gubbi-Gubbi hands in 1994, when Jeanie Bell compiled her dictionary so that, as she put it, the descendants could rediscover the ways of the old people.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"bon’da’ban: the Gubbi-Gubbi word for bullroarer.","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Jeanie Bell with Amanda Seed, Dictionary of the Gubbi-Gubbi and Butchulla Languages (1994), p. 16","url":"https://noosadistrictshs.eq.edu.au/SupportAndResources/FormsAndDocuments/Documents/Indigenous%20Resources/dictionary-of-the-gubbi-gubbi-and-butchulla-languages.pdf#page=21","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013034934/https://noosadistrictshs.eq.edu.au/SupportAndResources/FormsAndDocuments/Documents/Indigenous%20Resources/dictionary-of-the-gubbi-gubbi-and-butchulla-languages.pdf#page=21"},{"citation":"R. H. Mathews, 'The Toara Ceremony of the Dippil Tribes of Queensland,' American Anthropologist n.s. 2 (1900), pp. 139-144, esp. pp. 139-140 and 143","url":"https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1900.2.1.02a00090"}],"source_citations":"Jeanie Bell with Amanda Seed, Dictionary of the Gubbi-Gubbi and Butchulla Languages (1994), p. 16; R. H. Mathews, 'The Toara Ceremony of the Dippil Tribes of Queensland,' American Anthropologist n.s. 2 (1900), pp. 139-144, esp. pp. 139-140 and 143","source_display":"Jeanie Bell with Amanda Seed, Dictionary of the Gubbi-Gubbi and Butchulla Languages (1994), p. 16; R. H. Mathews, 'The Toara Ceremony of the Dippil Tribes of Queensland,' American Anthropologist n.s. 2 (1900), pp. 139-144, esp. pp. 139-140 and 143","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A bullroarer; material, size and form not recorded.","function_display":"The ceremonial bullroarer of the Toara initiation: carried by the messengers who summoned neighbouring groups, then shown to the novices after their tooth was knocked out and rubbed on their bodies, together with a smaller instrument called bundandaba.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"lexical attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"gubbi gubbi","display_name":"Bon'da'ban, the ceremonial noisemaker","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/howitt1904_fig37_kurnai_tundun.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/howitt1904_fig37_kurnai_tundun_thumb.jpg","alt":"Howitt’s engraving of the two crosshatched Kurnai bullroarers, Tundun and Rukut-Tundun: one broad and corded, the other narrow, with a separate cross-section at right.","credit":"A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904), fig. 37, p. 628","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/nativetribesofso00howiuoft","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Howitt's engraving of the two Kurnai bull-roarers","pool_id":"auto-pd_plates--howitt1904_fig37_kurnai_tundun","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-09-03"},"slug":"bell1994-001-gubbi-gubbi-kabi-kabi"}