The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSIN-008 - secondary catalog

Mitirinji / Quoin Island

Australia - Princess Charlotte Bay - Stewart River - Queensland

Restricted

A reddish wooden board incised with concentric rings and pierced near its point — a generic specimen, not the panmadda bull-roarer figuring in...
Representative image. A reddish wooden board incised with concentric rings and pierced near its point — a generic specimen, not the panmadda bull-roarer figuring in the girls' story recorded at Quoin Island. Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. RV-2306-6) CC BY-SA Image source

panmadda English

panmadda: the bull-roarer of the I'wai story on the eastern Cape York coast, restricted to initiated men.

Etymology. Panmadda is the bull-roarer of the I'wai (crocodile-hero) cult on the eastern Cape York coast: at Mitirinji (Quoin Island) two girls carried to the island by I'wai were turned to stone for using the panmadda, which may be seen and touched only by men. The word itself carries no recorded translation. (medium confidence)

On Mitirinji, the island Europeans named Quoin Island off the northeast coast of Cape York, a cave on the side restricted to initiated men holds two girls turned to stone. In the account Donald Thomson set down in 1933, the crocodile hero I'wai carried the girls to the island, and they were punished for using the panmadda, the bull-roarer, which from then on could be seen and touched only by men. The island is one of the places I'wai is said to have visited in his travels through this stretch of the Coral Sea; on its other side is a beach where he slept after swimming ashore. To the south, around the mouth of the Stewart River, the Yintjingga of this coast hunted dugong and turtle, and crossed the waters of the reef by canoe to gather turtle and bird eggs.

a cave where two girls carried to the island by I'wai have been turned to stone after being punished for using the panmadda (bull‐roarer) which today can only be seen and touched by men

National Cultural Flows Research Project, Community Literature Review, p.24 (citing Thomson 1933:466)
Object
Restricted-site story involving girls using panmadda bullroarer
Function
Thomson-derived account says panmadda may only be seen or touched by men in present rule set
Map confidence
medium - representative on-land anchor at Mitirinji / Quoin Island (regional coordinate fell just offshore of the rendered coastline); not an exact findspot
Source location
page around

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