The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSMAIN-001 - secondary catalog

Wiknatara (Wik-Iiyanh)

Australia - Western Cape York, Aurukun region - Cape York Peninsula

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An emu-totem churinga of the Arunta, drawn by Spencer and Gillen in 1899 — a lens-shaped plaque dotted all over with small concentric-circle...
Representative image. An emu-totem churinga of the Arunta, drawn by Spencer and Gillen in 1899 — a lens-shaped plaque dotted all over with small concentric-circle bosses; the Wiknatara bullroarer complex (moiya, pakapaka, and male and female moipaka) of western Cape York has never been illustrated. Spencer & Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899), fig. 20 Public domain Image source

moiya / pakapaka / moipaka English

moiya and pakapaka: Wikmunkan bullroarers; moipaka: Wiknatara bullroarers, male and female, described as husband and wife.

Etymology. The moipaka of the Wiknatara are a male and female pair of bullroarers explicitly said to be husband and wife — the male phallus-shaped, the female described as a wantyu pian or 'grown-up woman' — swung by married men as a charm to draw a married woman's attention. The account is Ursula McConnel's, as summarized and quoted by Geza Roheim. (medium confidence)

"It belongs to us women, we found it" — so the girls sing in the Wik-Mungkan and Wiknatara myth, whirling the bullroarers they discovered before ceding them: "But no matter! We leave it for the men! It is they who will always use it." Then they hid the roarer in the crack of a bloodwood tree and went down under the water, and that place became the auwa, the totem centre of the bullroarer. Four voices sound in the story: the Wik-Mungkan moiya and pakapaka, and the Wiknatara moipaka, a husband-and-wife pair, one bullroarer male and one female, married to each other. Among these Cape York peoples the roarer also closes a boy's initiation and turns in a married man's love-magic.

It belongs to us women, we found it.

Roheim, The Eternal Ones of the Dream, pp. 79-82, quoting McConnel, 'Bonefish and Bullroarer Totems' (1935)
Object
Wikmunkan and Wiknatara bullroarer totem complex: moiya, pakapaka, and male/female moipaka bullroarers.
Function
Women-first and gendered bullroarer myth: girls first sing and whirl the bullroarers, then leave them to men; Wiknatara moipaka are male/female husband-and-wife bullroarers.
Map confidence
high - approximate territory centroid (mining 2026)
Source location
Roheim/McConnel source chain; McConnel AA191/29 and AA191/16/43 identifiers | AIATSIS MCCONNEL_U01-001390A, 00:11:35–00:29:48

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