The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSIN-028 - museum specimen

Derby district

West Kimberley - Western Australia

Restricted

Hambly's plate of a Kimberley whirler carved with two square spiral motifs down its length — region-matched to the Derby district instrument...
Representative image. Hambly's plate of a Kimberley whirler carved with two square spiral motifs down its length — region-matched to the Derby district instrument recorded in Daisy Bates's papers, but not that specific object. W. D. Hambly, Primitive Hunters of Australia (Field Museum of Natural History, 1936), plate VII, fig. f Public domain Image source
A wooden board carved in a fine herringbone pattern and pierced near its point — again a generic Aboriginal Australian type, not the Derby...
Representative image. A wooden board carved in a fine herringbone pattern and pierced near its point — again a generic Aboriginal Australian type, not the Derby district bull-roarer itself, which survives only as an entry in the Bates papers. Science Museum Group (acc. A140596) Image source

mudamud English

Source term: bullroarer

mudamud: Nyulnyul / Dampier Land (West Kimberley) name for the bullroarer; McGregor 2011 records "a large bullroarer (mudamud) from Derby way" obtained in trade.

A plate in Daisy Bates' photograph albums at the State Library of Western Australia is captioned simply "Bullroarer from Derby district," set among shields, boomerangs, and the carved boards she labelled "Larras worn at initiation of Broome and Derby natives." The object itself was never described, but its place in West Kimberley life is well attested. On the Dampier Land peninsula bordering Derby, the bullroarer (called mudamud, one prized example traded "from Derby way") was a secret-sacred instrument of the men's cult, counted among the objects "not to be seen by women or uninitiated males" and bound up with the staged rites of male initiation. The anthropologist A. P. Elkin, who worked the same district, numbered "initiation, the bull-roarer and certain culture-heroes" among the knowledge "tabu to the women and uninitiated."

I have obtained information regarding initiation, the bull-roarer and certain culture-heroes and the songs associated with such, all of which is tabu to the women and uninitiated.

A. P. Elkin, Beagle Bay / Dampier Land fieldnotes (Elkin 1933:441), quoted in William B. McGregor, The Nyulnyul Language of Dampier Land, Vol. 1: Grammar (Pacific Linguistics 632, ANU, 2011), p. 23
Object
Bullroarer from Derby district in Daisy Bates finding aid
Function
Archive/photo catalog evidence for Derby district bullroarer
Map confidence
medium - Derby town/district anchor
Source location
McGregor 2011, Vol. 1, pp. 14, 16, 23 (sacred bullroarers tabu to women/uninitiated; mudamud "from Derby way"; Elkin 1933:441 bull-roarer/initiation quote). SLWA album plate "Bullroarer from Derby district."

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