AUSIN-008 - secondary catalog
Mitirinji Quoin Island panmadda
Australia - Princess Charlotte Bay - Stewart River - Queensland
Restricted
panmadda English
panmadda: the bull-roarer of the I'wai story on the eastern Cape York coast, restricted to initiated men. I'wai (also spelled Iwai) is the crocodile culture-hero of the Koko-Jao/east-coast Cape York hero cult (Thomson 1933) — a crocodile, not a serpent figure; no snake-lens link.
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: two girls had found it, and I'wai turned on them — 'You mustn't do that! You gotta give up now. Give up!' — before breaking a taboo of his own with his sister and paddling on to camp two nights at Forbes Island. The island is one of several 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 references
Cultural Flows review p.24 (citing Thomson 1933:466); Thomson 1933:492 (Iwai/panmadda identification, per later citers); myth-text via Archiv für Völkerkunde 24 (1970)
- Death and rebirth
- Forbidden to women