The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSMAIN-006 - secondary catalog

Theddora (Dhudhuroa)

Australia - Mitta Mitta - Kiewa - Upper Murray (Omeo, Wodonga) - Northeast Victoria

Restricted

A Kurnai (Gunai) bull-roarer as figured by Howitt in 1904, its broad blade crossed edge to edge with bold diagonal hatching and cord wound at...
Representative image. A Kurnai (Gunai) bull-roarer as figured by Howitt in 1904, its broad blade crossed edge to edge with bold diagonal hatching and cord wound at the notched grip; the Theddora of the upper Murray and Mitta Mitta country used a similarly whirled slat in their Kuringal and Jeraeil initiations, though no specimen has been photographed. A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904), fig. 37 Public domain Image source

madjigani / yirragaminanga

madjigani: bullroarer; the small bullroarer is yirragaminanga (Dhudhuroa/Theddora, north-east Victoria). Recorded by R. H. Mathews from Neddy Wheeler; B. J. Blake & J. Reid, Aboriginal History 26 (2002), p. 198.

The Theddora of Omeo, in the high country where the Mitta Mitta and Kiewa rivers fall toward the Upper Murray, belonged to the southeastern world Howitt described in which the whirled slat was the voice of Daramulun. In Howitt's account of these initiation rites a messenger sent to call in the tribes carried male attire together with a bull-roarer wrapped in a skin and concealed from women and children; as the visiting party came within hearing of the camp the women and children were sent off a little way so the sound of the bull-roarers reached the initiated men but was masked from them. Howitt records the Theddora chiefly through marriage and kinship ties to the Ngarigo rather than through a witnessed account of a Theddora rite, and the point on the map marks their Omeo country, not a single documented ceremony.

a bull-roarer (mudji) carefully wrapped in a skin and concealed from women and children

Howitt 1904, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, ch. 9 (messenger carrying the bull-roarer to summon the tribes)
Object
Whirled slat used in initiation ceremonies of the Kuringal/Jeraeil sphere.
Function
Initiation voice and women-taboo signal.
Map confidence
medium - approximate territory centroid (mining 2026)
Source location
Howitt p.565

View source Open this point on the interactive map