Tati Tati (Ta-ta-thi) Kalk bullroarer name

Kalk

Kalk: Tati Tati (Ta-ta-thi) name for the bullroarer, glossed by Cameron as 'word'; the neighbouring Wathi-wathi called the same instrument Kalari. Among the Kulin, kalk ('wood') was the message-stick, and Kurnai elders said of the summons to initiation, sent with the bullroarer: 'When that kalk goes to a man he must come, he cannot stop away.'

In Tati Tati speech the bullroarer's name was Kalk — 'that is to say, word,' as Cameron glossed it. Kalk named the roarer of the Burbung of their Wathi-wathi neighbours on the Murray, ceremonies the Tati Tati travelled to attend, where a man hidden in the scrub whirled the humming instrument while a novice's tooth was knocked out. Among the peoples of the river junctions, each language named the same feared instrument its own way — and in this one, its name was Word itself.

The Ta-ta-thi call it Kalk, that is to say, word.

A. L. P. Cameron, 'Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute 14 (1885), p. 359 n.

Particulars

Object

Named instrument only; Cameron describes no Ta-ta-thi object.

Function

Not recorded.