{"id":"FRAZER1894-002","label":"Brisbane River initiation bullroarers","people_or_site":"Turrbal / Brisbane River allied tribes","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Queensland / Brisbane River","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"Bugerum / Wobblekum","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"","function_summary":"Restricted initiation sound identified with a death-and-return drama.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"howitt1904_native_tribes","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/nativetribesofso00howiuoft","page_or_plate":"Howitt 1904, pp. 596-597 (Bugerum/Wobblekum and the swallowing-the-novices belief, p. 596); Frazer 1894 II:344 and 1913 Balder p. 233 preserve the earlier leads.","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Brisbane River / Brisbane regional anchor for the Turrbal Kurbin-aii source passage; source does not give a ceremony site","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In the Turrbal Kurbin-aii initiation on the Brisbane River, the women and children were told that the unearthly droning carried out of the bush was the sound of the medicine-men swallowing the novices. Two bull-roarers produced it. The larger, Bugerum, made a louder and deeper-sounding roar; the smaller, Wobblekum, was about four inches long by an inch wide and perforated. The rite ran for never less than three weeks and often much longer, and a woman who tried to spy on it would certainly have been killed. The boys who passed through it were afterward called Kippur, a word that white settlers later took up for any young Aboriginal man. A. W. Howitt recorded the account in The Native Tribes of South-East Australia in 1904.","pull_quote":"The unearthly sounds made by the bull-roarers were believed by the women and children to be made by the medicine-men when swallowing the novices during the ceremonies.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Howitt 1904:596 (The Native Tribes of South-East Australia)","term_gloss":"Bugerum and Wobblekum: the two Turrbal bull-roarers, Bugerum the deeper-voiced and louder, Wobblekum the smaller. In modern Yagara spelling they are bagaram, the large bullroarer, and wabalgan, the small one tethered to a whip.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation","death_rebirth","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"etymology":"Among the neighbouring Chepara, Howitt glosses Bugerum as 'the medicine-man.' The larger Turrbal roarer bore the same name, and the women and children heard in its roar the medicine-men swallowing the novices.","literal_gloss":"the medicine-man","semantic_cluster":"spirit_voice; clan_or_ritual_office","etymology_confidence":"medium","sources":[{"citation":"A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904), pp. 596-597, account from Cyrus E. Doyle","url":"https://archive.org/details/nativetribesofso00howiuoft"},{"citation":"A. W. Howitt, 'On Australian Medicine Men,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 16 (1887), pp. 47ff., cited by Frazer"},{"citation":"J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (1894), vol. II, p. 344"},{"citation":"J. G. Frazer, Balder the Beautiful (1913), p. 233"}],"source_citations":"A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904), pp. 596-597, account from Cyrus E. Doyle; A. W. Howitt, 'On Australian Medicine Men,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 16 (1887), pp. 47ff., cited by Frazer; J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (1894), vol. II, p. 344; J. G. Frazer, Balder the Beautiful (1913), p. 233","source_display":"A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904), pp. 596-597, account from Cyrus E. Doyle; A. W. Howitt, 'On Australian Medicine Men,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 16 (1887), pp. 47ff., cited by Frazer; J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (1894), vol. II, p. 344; J. G. Frazer, Balder the Beautiful (1913), p. 233","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Restricted initiation sound identified with a death-and-return drama.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"turrbal","display_name":"Brisbane River initiation bullroarers","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/wereldmuseum_135.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/thumbs/wereldmuseum_135_thumb.jpg","alt":"A long wooden blade with faint concentric-circle and zigzag carving, its cord attached at one end.","credit":"Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. TM-2562-4)","license":"","source_page":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/83756","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Wooden bullroarer incised with concentric circles and zigzag bands, its cord still attached."},"slug":"frazer1894-002-turrbal-brisbane-river-allied-tribes"}