{"id":"STANNER1959-001","label":"Nanggumiri Karwadi All-Mother cult transmission","people_or_site":"Nanggumiri (Nangiomeri)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"Flora River / central Daly River, Northern Territory","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"Karwadi","source_term":"bullroarer / Karwadi","source_language":"English","object_description":"The Karwadi bullroarer, symbol of the All-Mother.","function_summary":"Karwadi, the name of the All-Mother's bullroarer, named the secret cult that young Nanggumiri men brought back from Victoria River country in the 1920s.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"stanner1959_durmugam_karwadi","source_type":"ethnographic_monograph","source_url":"https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/114726/2/b12269815.pdf","page_or_plate":"p. 84 (White Man Got No Dreaming, 1979 printing); On Aboriginal Religion 2014 introduction p. xxxiii","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"South Australian Museum (Tindale) Nanggumiri tribal-area reference coordinate 131deg20'E x 14deg40'S ('South of central Daly River; along Flora River to its junction with Daly River'); not a ceremony site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In the 1920s the people of the Daly River became convinced that Angamunggi the All-Father — their form of the Rainbow Serpent — had deserted them. Barren women, spreading sickness, dwindling game: proof, people said, that he no longer looked after them; Stanner was told simply that Angamunggi had “gone away.” Into that vacancy came Kunabibi, the All-Mother, whose cult arrived, Stanner wrote, “at a beautifully appropriate time.” On the Daly it took the form of the cult of Karwadi — the name by which the bullroarer, symbol of the All-Mother, had been known even in the days of the All-Father. Young Nanggumiri men carried the rites home from Victoria River country. Durmugam was one of them: not the leader, in Stanner's judgement, but the secular force of the movement. In 1978 Stanner returned to Peppimenarti with three bullroarers collected in the 1930s — one of them Durmugam’s own gift — so they could serve again in a Punj ceremony.","pull_quote":"It was this [Karwadi] that the young Nangiomeri [Nanggumiri] brought back from the Victoria — a secret wisdom, a power, and a dream shared by no one else on the Daly River.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Stanner, 'Durmugam: A Nangiomeri' (1959), in White Man Got No Dreaming (1979), p. 84","term_gloss":"the Daly River name for the bullroarer and for the cult that took its name","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["snake","women_special"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":true,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"W. E. H. Stanner, 'Durmugam: A Nangiomeri' (1959), in White Man Got No Dreaming: Essays 1938-1973 (Canberra: ANU Press, 1979), p. 84; editors' introduction to Stanner, On Aboriginal Religion (Sydney University Press, 2014 ed.), p. xxxiii","url":"https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/114726/2/b12269815.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240316035924/https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/114726/2/b12269815.pdf"}],"source_citations":"W. E. H. Stanner, 'Durmugam: A Nangiomeri' (1959), in White Man Got No Dreaming: Essays 1938-1973 (Canberra: ANU Press, 1979), p. 84; editors' introduction to Stanner, On Aboriginal Religion (Sydney University Press, 2014 ed.), p. xxxiii","source_display":"W. E. H. Stanner, 'Durmugam: A Nangiomeri' (1959), in White Man Got No Dreaming: Essays 1938-1973 (Canberra: ANU Press, 1979), p. 84; editors' introduction to Stanner, On Aboriginal Religion (Sydney University Press, 2014 ed.), p. xxxiii","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"The Karwadi bullroarer, symbol of the All-Mother.","function_display":"Karwadi, the name of the All-Mother's bullroarer, named the secret cult that young Nanggumiri men brought back from Victoria River country in the 1920s.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"nanggumiri","display_name":"Nanggumiri Karwadi All-Mother cult transmission","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-164_agnsw_ia55_1962.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-164_agnsw_ia55_1962_thumb.jpg","alt":"A Gupapuyngu burala made at Milingimbi by Tom Djäwa, with a reddish crosshatched panel and loose cord.","credit":"© Djäwa Estate, licensed by Aboriginal Artist Agency Ltd, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales, IA55.1962","license":"© Djäwa Estate — rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/IA55.1962/","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A Gupapuyngu burala, made at Milingimbi by Tom Djäwa."},"slug":"stanner1959-001-nanggumiri-nangiomeri"}