{"id":"MAT1898-012","label":"Macleay Bellinger gheewarra ngaranya yeemboomul","people_or_site":"Macleay and Bellinger River tribes","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Macleay and Bellinger Rivers","macroregion":"Australia / Southeast","local_name":"gheewarra / ngaranya / yeemboomul","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"","function_summary":"Small gheewarra/ngaranya bullroarer used at initiation ceremonies; larger yeemboomul also used by the same tribes.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"mathews1898bullroarers","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Aborigines_of_New_South_Wales","page_or_plate":"JAI 27:52-60; Plate fig. 14","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"representative coordinate for named people, ceremony, river, or region in Mathews","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Miles from the main camp, initiated men cleared a secret twenty-foot ring in the bush and whirled the gheewarra there — a short blade of wood on a cord — chanting as its hum rolled back to summon the rest. Novices were hoisted overhead, buried under leaves for a night, and menaced with spears. This was the Murrawin of the Dunghutti and Gumbaynggirr, along the Macleay and Bellinger Rivers of New South Wales, and the roarer's voice was kept from every woman and child. A larger instrument, the yeemboomul, sounded beside it.","pull_quote":"This drawing shows the gheewarra or ngaranya, the small bull-roarer used at the initiation ceremonies of the tribes occupying the Macleay and Bellinger Rivers, on the north-east coast of New South Wales. The length is 4⅛ inches, the breadth 15/16 of an inch, and its thickness ⅛ of an inch.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Mathews 1898, \"Bull-roarers used by the Australian Aborigines,\" JAI 27, Fig. 14","term_gloss":"gheewarra (also ngaranya): the small bull-roarer of the Macleay and Bellinger River tribes; yeemboomul, their larger instrument.","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":"Mathews 1898, Bullroarers used by the Australian Aborigines, Journal of the Anthropological Institute 27:52-60","url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Aborigines_of_New_South_Wales","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20241217225048/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Aborigines_of_New_South_Wales"}],"source_citations":"Mathews 1898, Bullroarers used by the Australian Aborigines, Journal of the Anthropological Institute 27:52-60","source_display":"Mathews 1898, Bullroarers used by the Australian Aborigines, Journal of the Anthropological Institute 27:52-60","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Small gheewarra/ngaranya bullroarer used at initiation ceremonies; larger yeemboomul also used by the same tribes.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"macleay","display_name":"Macleay Bellinger gheewarra ngaranya yeemboomul","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/MAT1898-012.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/MAT1898-012_thumb.jpg","alt":"Mathews’s Plate 9 of numbered New South Wales bullroarer drawings; no. 14, the Macleay-Bellinger gheewarra or ngaranya, is the small plain blade with an end hole near the lower centre.","credit":"R. H. Mathews, Notes on the Aborigines of New South Wales, 1907, Plate 9 fig. 14","license":"Public domain (published 1907)","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Notes_on_the_Aborigines_of_New_South_Wales_-_Plate_9_Bull-roarers_used_by_the_Australian_Aborigines.jpg","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Mathews’s Plate 9, fig. 14: Macleay-Bellinger gheewarra or ngaranya."},"slug":"mat1898-012-macleay-and-bellinger-river-tribes"}