The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSIN-013 - ethnographic attestation

Iwaidja / Port Essington

Australia - Port Essington - Cobourg Peninsula - Top End

Restricted

Spencer's plate of six Northern Territory sacred bull-roarers — plain polished blades, hatched boards, and dotted ones bound to their cords;...
Representative image. Spencer's plate of six Northern Territory sacred bull-roarers — plain polished blades, hatched boards, and dotted ones bound to their cords; from the same 1914 survey that recorded the Kurrabudji shown to Iwaidja youths during the Naialpur initiation at Port Essington, itself unphotographed. Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory (Macmillan, 1914), Plate II Public domain Image source

Kurrabudji / Kurahudji English

Iwaidja name for the bull-roarer; Spencer also spells it Kurahudji.

At the Naialpur initiation of the Iwaidja, or Port Essington, tribe, the boy was made to sit on the koar ground with his head bent low so that he could not see; painted old men crept up behind him whirling the bull-roarers, and the pappam told him to look up. He was then shown the Kurrabudji and told that the noise was made by it, not, as the lubras believed, the voice of a great spirit that takes the boys away. At first he was very frightened. The sticks were thought to be full of magic, so the old men rubbed them over their own bodies to modify that power before placing them in his hands; he looked at them and handed them back. His body was rubbed over with the sticks, sometimes standing, sometimes lying down. Baldwin Spencer recorded that the boy was repeatedly shown the Kurrabudji and warned that the lubras and children must not see them on any account.

As usual the lubras think it is the voice of a great spirit that takes the boys away, but the old men tell him that it is not so.

Spencer 1914, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia, p. 119
Object
Bullroarer sticks shown to the youth during the Naialpur initiation.
Function
Port Essington bullroarer shown to young men during initiation; women and children must not see it.
Map confidence
high - representative on-land anchor at Iwaidja / Port Essington (regional coordinate fell just offshore of the rendered coastline); not an exact findspot
Source location
Spencer 1914

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