The Bullroarer Atlas

CALGA2026-001 - ethnographic attestation

Darkinjung / Guringai communities

Australia - Calga Aboriginal Cultural Landscape - Peats Ridge songline - Central Coast - Oceania - Sahul

Restricted

Representative—not this record’s object: Gascoyne bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available...
Representative—not this record’s object: Gascoyne bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. 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

At Calga on the Peats Ridge songline, Darkinjung and Guringai knowledge holders say boys were called to initiation by the bullroarer: its sound was Daramulan's thundering voice. A one-legged Daramulan engraved at the site holds a large ovoid form that may be the instrument itself. The landscape is remembered as the place where Daramulan received the Law and where boys were separated from their mothers — dying as boys and returning as men.

Boys are called to initiation by the sound of the bullroarer, which represents Daramulan's thundering voice.

Heritage NSW 5064142 (Hodgetts 2018)
Object
No surviving object is documented. A one-legged Daramulan engraving holds a large ovoid form that the listing says may be a bullroarer; the identification is not certain.
Function
Called boys to initiation as Daramulan's thundering voice within the Calga ceremonial landscape.
Map confidence
high - Official Heritage NSW coordinates for the Calga Aboriginal Cultural Landscape.
Source location
Historical notes: Ancestral Beings; Physical description: eastern ridgeline

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