The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSMAIN-014 - lexical attestation

Butchulla (Badtjala)

Australia - K'gari (Fraser Island) and adjacent Hervey Bay coast - Southeast Queensland

Restricted

A Kurnai (Gunai) bull-roarer, its whole face hatched with crossed diagonals down to a small corded grip, as figured by Howitt in 1904; the...
Representative image. A Kurnai (Gunai) bull-roarer, its whole face hatched with crossed diagonals down to a small corded grip, as figured by Howitt in 1904; the Butchulla bon'da'ban of K'gari (Fraser Island) and the Hervey Bay coast, a ceremonial noisemaker restricted to men, has not been photographed. A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904), fig. 37 Public domain Image source

Bon'da'ban Butchulla / English

Bon'da'ban / Bundanaba / Bondaban: bullroarer; ceremonial noise maker, men only.

Butchulla men kept the bullroarer's roar to themselves. Their dictionaries record it as Bon'da'ban, a ceremonial noise-maker marked men only, a sound barred to the women and children of K'gari (Fraser Island). It belonged to the same closed men's ceremonial life as the bu'rul, the major man-making rite that outsiders learned to call a bora, in which initiated men led boys out of childhood. What the instrument actually did inside that rite the Butchulla have kept secret.

Bullroarer (ceremonial noise maker, men only)

Korrawinga Aboriginal Corporation, Butchulla Mini Dictionary V4 (2021), p. 7, entry Bon'da'ban
Object
Butchulla bullroarer, described in the language dictionary as a ceremonial noise maker for men only.
Function
Ceremonial noise maker; the dictionary marks the bullroarer as men only.
Map confidence
medium - approximate territory centroid (mining 2026)
Source location
p. 7, entry Bon'da'ban

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