The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSMAIN-025 - secondary catalog

Mardu / Mardudjara (Western Desert; Jigalong)

Western Desert of Western Australia, around Lake Disappointment (Kumpupintil) on the Little Sandy - Gibson Desert margins; people now centred on Jigalong

Restricted

Representative—not this record’s object: a Western Australian bullroarer from the Gascoyne.
Representative—not this record’s object: a Western Australian bullroarer from the Gascoyne. W. D. Hambly, Primitive Hunters of Australia (Field Museum of Natural History, 1936), plate I, fig. 10 Public domain Image source
Western Australia, Giglioli 1886. The entire historical page is shown; object 3 is handwritten Mooryumkarr, probably the Gascoyne-mouth...
Western Australia, Giglioli 1886. The entire historical page is shown; object 3 is handwritten Mooryumkarr, probably the Gascoyne-mouth spirit-chaser later described by Pettazzoni. Enrico H. Giglioli, Western Australian objects at the Colonial Exhibition, London (1886) Public domain Image source

Source term: bullroarer-class sacred board (regional identification)

For the Mardu of the Western Desert, the world is the work of Dreaming beings who hunted and camped across it; when their wanderings ended they 'died' into landforms and celestial bodies, where their essence remains 'withdrawn from, but watchful of, human affairs.' They answer neither prayer nor sacrifice — only ritual, properly performed. The most sacred things a Mardu group owns are stones that are metamorphosed pieces of the beings' own bodies, and the wooden boards men carve 'in representation of similar power-laden objects that were carried by the creative beings' — incised boards of the Western Desert bullroarer class. A youth is circumcised amid ceremony 'modeled symbolically on death and rebirth,' but the heart of his initiation is the Mirdayidi, a feast at his group's secret cache where the objects are revealed to him for the first time; in the final stage he learns to cut and carve them himself, on bush grounds tabooed to women and children.

The most sacred are stones said to be the metamorphosed parts of the bodies of ancestral beings and wooden boards that men carve in representation of similar power-laden objects that were carried by the creative beings.

Tonkinson, 'Mardu Religion,' Encyclopedia of Religion (1987; 2nd ed. 2005)
Object
Power-laden wooden boards carved by Mardu men to represent sacred objects carried by creative beings, retained in the atlas as Western Desert bullroarer-class boards.
Function
Sacred boards carved in representation of the power-laden objects the Dreaming beings carried; revealed to novices at the Mirdayidi and carved by them in the final initiation stage, on grounds tabooed to women and children
Map confidence
low - Midpoint of Tonkinson's stated Mardu homeland range (22-25°S, 122-126°E); not an object findspot or ceremony location.
Source location
Online sections: Life Cycle and Male Initiation; Ritual; Sites and Portable Objects

View source Open this point on the interactive map

  • NambutjiAustralia - Northern Western Desert, Luritja-speaking country north of the Pitjantjatjara and west of the Aranda, around the Mount Liebig–Haasts Bluff–Lake Macdonald corridor on the Northern Territory side near the Western Australia border - Restricted
  • Ngatatara (Ngadadjara / Ngaatjatjarra)Australia - Western Desert, centred on the Warburton Ranges (eastern WA, extending into SW Northern Territory and NW South Australia); the namatuna myth was recorded by Roheim from the Ngatatara man Kulaia (with the Aranda man Thomas) at Hermannsburg Mission, Aranda country (NT) - Restricted
  • Ooldea native campAustralia - Ooldea Soak, South Australia - Restricted
  • Pindupi (Pintupi)Australia - Western Desert, between Lake Mackay and Lake Macdonald along the WA/NT border (Kintore Range / Walungurru); Roheim's Pindupi data gathered from his 1929 base at Hermannsburg in Central Australia - Restricted
  • PitjantjatjaraAustralia - Anangu lands, NW South Australia / SW Northern Territory near Uluru - Restricted
  • Anula / Anula neighbours of BinbingaAustralia - Western Gulf of Carpentaria - Restricted