The Bullroarer Atlas

AUSMAIN-030 - ethnographic attestation

Ngatatara (Ngadadjara / Ngaatjatjarra)

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)

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Spencer and Gillen's emu churinga stands in for the general form; the Ngatatara namatuna, one of the small pierced tjurunga whirled to roar,...
Representative image. Spencer and Gillen's emu churinga stands in for the general form; the Ngatatara namatuna, one of the small pierced tjurunga whirled to roar, was recorded by Roheim from the Warburton Ranges storyteller Kulaia at Hermannsburg Mission, without a photograph of the object itself. Spencer & Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899), fig. 20 Public domain Image source

namatuna Aranda/Luritja (Western Desert); Roheim glosses the small bull-roarer as Aranda namatuna and Luritja mandagi (p. 82), recorded for his central-group informants including the Ngatatara man Kulaia

namatuna: the Aranda name (Luritja mandagi) for the small pierced slat whirled as a bull-roarer, distinguished from the larger unpierced tjurunga.

Etymology. namatuna, the Aranda term for the small pierced bull-roarer tjurunga (Luritja mandagi), is the word in the initiation myth Roheim's Ngatatara informant Kulaia related, in which the old men chase the novices out with it; no literal meaning is recorded. In the love-magic songs of the same area the instrument is sung as quatja para, 'penis of the water,' that is, lightning. (high confidence)

Among the Ngatatara — the Western Desert people Roheim also called the Ngadadjara — the small whirled slat was the namatuna. Roheim, working from Aboriginal informants in 1929, set it apart from the large unpierced tjurunga: a little sacred board, one of the small ones with holes in them to be used as bull-roarers and whirled. In the initiation he recorded, the old men chased the novices out with the namatuna, then whirled it through the night to frighten the women and children, who did not dare leave their camp until dawn. The same slat had a second life as love magic, sung with a man's ornaments to draw women toward him. The myth in which the old men drive the boys out with the namatuna Roheim credited, in his own footnote, to Kulaia, a Ngatatara man, told at Hermannsburg Mission.

The old men chased them out with the namatuna (bull-roarer).

Geza Roheim, The Eternal Ones of the Dream (1945), p. 26; the myth is credited in Roheim's footnote to 'Thomas (Aranda) and Kulaia (Ngatatara) at the Mission, Hermannsburg.'
Object
A flat wooden slat — one of the small pierced tjurunga "with holes in them to be used as bull-roarers and to be whirled," as opposed to the large unpierced tjurunga — swung on a cord to roar.
Function
Whirled in male initiation to chase and frighten the novices and to keep women and children away; the same slat is "sung" in love magic to draw women.
Map confidence
high - approximate territory centroid: Ngadadjara/Ngatatara Western Desert country, anchored on the Warburton Ranges heartland (Warburton community 26.13S 126.58E) extending east toward the Rawlinson/Blackstone Ranges
Source location
pp. 26 (myth: 'the old men chased them out with the namatuna (bull-roarer)' + footnote 'Myth related by Thomas (Aranda) and Kulaia (Ngatatara) at the Mission, Hermannsburg'), 43 (Ngadadjara = my Ngatatara), 54 (central group: Jumu, Pindupi, Ngatatara, Pitjentara), 82 (small tjurunga with holes, used as bull-roarers and whirled; Aranda namatuna / Luritja mandagi), 109 (namatuna whirled all night to frighten women and children)

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  • 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
  • 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
  • Mardu / Mardudjara (Western Desert; Jigalong)Australia - Western Desert of Western Australia, around Lake Disappointment (Kumpupintil) on the Little Sandy / Gibson Desert margins; people now centred on Jigalong - Restricted
  • Anula / Anula neighbours of BinbingaAustralia - Western Gulf of Carpentaria - Restricted