Worimi

goonanduckyer

goonanduckyer (Kutthung/Gathang): the bull-roarer of the Keeparra, swung as the "voice of Goolumbra"; a larger one was called barroway.

Among the Kutthung (Worimi) of Port Stephens, the bull-roarer of the Keeparra initiation was the goonanduckyer, sounded as the voice of a being called Goolumbra, "of whose terrible powers" the novices were warned. W.J. Enright, admitted as an initiate through his friend R.H. Mathews and gathering his account with Mathews's help, recorded that no woman or uninitiated person might ever see the goonanduckyer or the sacred message-stick, and that he had been assured "instant death would overtake a female or boy unfortunate enough to see one of these implements." The novices first heard the instrument while lying face-down under rugs, taken out of sight of the women; the climax came on the morning before they returned to the women's camp, when, with the boys' heads still covered, two men swung the goonanduckyer, then uncovered their heads so they might see for the first time the instrument whose sound had so impressed them. The secret knowledge was held and exchanged at a winggerah, a closed council of initiates. Even the instrument's name was a relic: Enright rendered goonanduckyer as "eating human dung," a hint, he thought, that Kutthung novices had once been made to eat excrement, as boys in some tribes still were. By January 1899 the dwindling Port Stephens people could no longer gather enough men to hold the rite, and Enright judged that the last Keeparra had probably already been performed.

When a messenger approaches a camp, he swings the goonanduckyer so that it may be heard by some of the older men, who immediately recognise the significance of the sound as soon as they hear it.

Enright, "The Initiation Ceremonies of the Aborigines of Port Stephens, N.S. Wales," Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of N.S.W. 33 (read 5 July 1899): 117

Particulars

Object

Sacred bull-roarer whirled during the Keeparra.