{"id":"PETRI1954-001","label":"Blade in the yellow snake's mouth","people_or_site":"Nyikina (Nyigina)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"West Kimberley / lower Fitzroy River (Mardoowarra)","macroregion":"Australia / Western Australia","local_name":"buliuana; kadanga","source_term":"Buliuana; Kadanga; Schwirrhölzer (kleine und große)","source_language":"German","object_description":"Bullroarers called buliuana and kadanga, carried and given away by the ancestral brothers Yalgi and Windinbigi; their form is not described.","function_summary":"In Nyikina myth the brothers Yalgi and Windinbigi give buliuana to the creatures they name, to make them big and strong: one put into the mouth of the yellow Banaka snake makes it strong and venomous; others mend a hawk's nest and a leaking bees' nest, ring a hole against a bushfire's heat, and go with a cloud that brings rain, lightning and thunder. In a second telling the brothers carry buliuana and kadanga with the Wolowolang circumcision rite to neighbouring peoples and make the law that women may not see bullroarers.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"petri1954_suedkamp_nyigina","source_type":"secondary_literature","source_url":"https://horstsuedkamp.de/ethnologie/wondjinakult%20nw%20australien/Der%20goettliche%20Tiermensch_doc.pdf","page_or_plate":"Südkamp p. 254 (Banaka snake), pp. 253–256 (III,1), pp. 258–260 (III,3: Wolowolang, buliuana and kadanga, women's ban), p. 99 (buliuana as father's name and large bullroarer), p. 229 n. 290 (Petri 1954 attribution)","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Regional anchor in Nyikina country on the lower Fitzroy River (Mardoowarra) between Derby and Fitzroy Crossing; the myth's journey places (Nyilgar, Dirkali, Karadjeri country, La Grange) are not mapped separately.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Two brothers, Yalgi and Windinbigi, came out of a spring in Mangala country and walked the land giving every creature its secret name. Their father was Buliuana, and buliuana is also the Nyikina word for the great bullroarer; the brothers carried these blades and handed them out to make each being big and strong. In the low pindan scrub they caught a yellow snake, the Banaka, and put a buliuana into its mouth to make it strong and poisonous. Only men of the Banaka section can kill it safely; anyone else is bitten. The eagle-hawk got a blade to mend its nest, the weeping bees one to stop their honey leaking. Trapped by a bushfire, Windinbigi gave blades to a small cloud, and rain, lightning and thunder followed. One being got nothing: a red sandhill was the camp of Ingurug, the Rainbow Serpent, and the brothers were too frightened. In another telling they carried buliuana and kadanga with circumcision to the neighbouring peoples, and made the law that women must never see them.","pull_quote":"Sie steckten der Banaka ein Buliuana ins Maul, um sie stark und giftig zu machen.","pull_quote_translation":"They put a buliuana into the Banaka's mouth, to make it strong and poisonous.","pull_quote_cite":"Helmut Petri 1954, as reproduced in Horst Südkamp, Wondjina: Der göttliche Tiermensch, p. 254","term_gloss":"buliuana: the large bullroarer, and the name of the brothers' father (Südkamp p. 99). kadanga: the bullroarer paired with buliuana; the two are given as 'small and large bullroarers' (p. 259). Banaka: a yellow venomous snake and one of the four Nyikina section names. Wolowolang (also Kundur): the circumcision ceremony; 'Wolowolang, buliana and kadanga belong together.' Ingurug: the Rainbow Serpent. pindan: low scrub country.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["snake","initiation","women_taboo","weather"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"Horst Südkamp, Wondjina: Der göttliche Tiermensch, pp. 99, 229 n. 290, 253–260","url":"https://horstsuedkamp.de/ethnologie/wondjinakult%20nw%20australien/Der%20goettliche%20Tiermensch_doc.pdf"},{"citation":"Helmut Petri, Sterbende Welt in Nordwest-Australien (Braunschweig: Limbach, 1954)"},{"citation":"Helmut Petri, The Dying World in Northwest Australia, trans. Ian Campbell (Carlisle: Hesperian Press, 2011)","url":"https://www.hesperianpress.com/index.php/booklist/titles-a-d/d-titles/442-dying-world-in-northwest-australia"}],"source_citations":"Horst Südkamp, Wondjina: Der göttliche Tiermensch, pp. 99, 229 n. 290, 253–260; Helmut Petri, Sterbende Welt in Nordwest-Australien (Braunschweig: Limbach, 1954); Helmut Petri, The Dying World in Northwest Australia, trans. Ian Campbell (Carlisle: Hesperian Press, 2011)","source_display":"Horst Südkamp, Wondjina: Der göttliche Tiermensch, pp. 99, 229 n. 290, 253–260; Helmut Petri, Sterbende Welt in Nordwest-Australien (Braunschweig: Limbach, 1954); Helmut Petri, The Dying World in Northwest Australia, trans. Ian Campbell (Carlisle: Hesperian Press, 2011)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bullroarers called buliuana and kadanga, carried and given away by the ancestral brothers Yalgi and Windinbigi; their form is not described.","function_display":"In Nyikina myth the brothers Yalgi and Windinbigi give buliuana to the creatures they name, to make them big and strong: one put into the mouth of the yellow Banaka snake makes it strong and venomous; others mend a hawk's nest and a leaking bees' nest, ring a hole against a bushfire's heat, and go with a cloud that brings rain, lightning and thunder. In a second telling the brothers carry buliuana and kadanga with the Wolowolang circumcision rite to neighbouring peoples and make the law that women may not see bullroarers.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"nyikina","display_name":"Blade in the yellow snake's mouth","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_19/PETRI1954-001_mathews1907_pl9_figs1-4.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_19/PETRI1954-001_mathews1907_pl9_figs1-4_thumb.jpg","alt":"Drawing of both faces of a long narrow bullroarer covered in concentric rectangles, with small cross-sections at right.","credit":"R. H. Mathews, Notes on the Aborigines of New South Wales (1907), plate 9, figs. 1–4","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/notesonaborigine00math/page/n31/mode/1up","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Both faces of an Oscar Ranges bullroarer, Kimberley."},"slug":"petri1954-001-nyikina-nyigina"}