The Bullroarer Atlas

No. ADAM1958-001Australia

Lombadina mondegi draws a lover

Lombadina, Dampier Peninsula, West Kimberley, Western Australia

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Front and back drawings of a corded wooden blade: a full female figure with a face and raised arm, and a winding engraved design.
Plate I. Both sides of the Lombadina mondegi: a woman with one arm raised, and a curving design on the reverse. Image source

mondegi

Source term: Schwirrholz; churinga (mondegi)

mondegi: Adam’s name for the Lombadina board and a Karadjeri name for this small love-magic bullroarer type.

To draw a woman’s thoughts toward him, a man could sing or swing a small mondegi. The woman is engraved on the front of this Lombadina board, one arm bent beside her head; the reverse is a curling design. It was found behind loose bark on an old paperbark tree, among trees surrounding a secret men’s meeting place in the dunes near the ocean.

Particulars

Object
A wooden mondegi, 22.2 × 4.5 cm, engraved with a woman on one side and curving designs on the other; both sides are illustrated with the cord attached.
Function
Swung in love magic to draw a woman’s thoughts toward the man sounding it.

Sources

  1. Leonhard Adam, “Anthropomorphe Darstellungen auf australischen Ritualgeräten,” Anthropos 53 (1958), pp. 1–50, pp. 9–10, fig. 1a–b. View
  2. Adam 1958, p. 49: illustration index, locality, dimensions and collection. View

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.