{"id":"SPENCER1914-001","label":"Ngalakan (Nullakun) Kunapippi bullroarer","people_or_site":"Ngalakan (Spencer's Nullakun)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Roper River / southern Arnhem Land (Ngalakan country)","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"kunapippi","source_term":"bull-roarer or kunapippi","source_language":"English","object_description":"Pair photographed by Spencer: long, plain, dark tapering blades; no dimensions printed.","function_summary":"Shown to the novice for the first time at the final stage of initiation, during the totemic ceremonies of his own sub-class; women are told its noise is the voice of the spirit Mumanna who takes the boy away.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"spencer1914_nullakun_kunapippi","source_type":"ethnographic_monograph","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/cu31924028623076","page_or_plate":"printed p. 176; Plate II figs. 1-2 (facing p. 212)","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"South Australian Museum Ngalakan language-group centroid (14 deg 20 min S, 134 deg 05 min E); territory anchor, not a ceremony site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At the last stage of a Nullakun man's making, his guardian, the kinda, clapped both hands over the new bandari's eyes and ears at a special camp out in the bush. Men decorated with birds' down performed the totemic ceremonies of his own sub-class, and then — for the first time in his life — he was allowed to see the bull-roarer, the kunapippi. The women back in the main camp were told that its noise was the voice of Mumanna, the spirit who carries the boy away. Spencer photographed a Nullakun pair: two long blades of plain dark wood, left bare where the neighbouring Mungarai stippled theirs with spots. The Nullakun are today's Ngalakan of the Roper River country.","pull_quote":"It is during the performance of these that, for the first time, he is allowed to see the bull-roarer or kunapippi, the noise made by which is supposed by the lubras to be the voice of a spirit called Mumanna, who takes the boy away during the initiation ceremony.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (1914), p. 176","term_gloss":"kunapippi: Nullakun (Ngalakan) name for the sacred bullroarer, shared with the neighbouring Djauan and Mungarai — the regional Kunapipi/Gunabibi vocabulary; no literal meaning recorded for the Nullakun.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","snake","initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"Baldwin Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (London: Macmillan, 1914), p. 176 and pl. II figs. 1-2","url":"https://archive.org/details/cu31924028623076"}],"source_citations":"Baldwin Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (London: Macmillan, 1914), p. 176 and pl. II figs. 1-2","source_display":"Baldwin Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (London: Macmillan, 1914), p. 176 and pl. II figs. 1-2","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Pair photographed by Spencer: long, plain, dark tapering blades; no dimensions printed.","function_display":"Shown to the novice for the first time at the final stage of initiation, during the totemic ceremonies of his own sub-class; women are told its noise is the voice of the spirit Mumanna who takes the boy away.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"ngalakan","display_name":"Ngalakan (Nullakun) Kunapippi bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/SPENCER1914-001_nullakun_kunapippi_plateII_figs1_2_clean.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/SPENCER1914-001_nullakun_kunapippi_plateII_figs1_2_clean_thumb.jpg","credit":"Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory (Macmillan, 1914), Plate II figs. 1-2","license":"Public domain (Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory, 1914)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/cu31924028623076","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Nullakun kunapippi pair, Spencer 1914, Plate II figs. 1–2.","also":[{"label":"Spencer's full Plate II of sacred bull-roarers, the Nullakun kunapippi pair printed above the Larakia bidu-bidu and the Mungarai kunapippi with all three captions","page":"assets/objects/shared_spencer1914_plateII_full.jpg","credit":"Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory (Macmillan, 1914), Plate II","license":"Public domain (Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory, 1914)"}]},"slug":"spencer1914-001-ngalakan-spencer-s-nullakun"}