The Bullroarer Atlas

No. CARR2018-001Australia

Tim Ella's roarer for the whales

Australia · Kamay Botany Bay (La Perouse) and Watsons Bay, Sydney, New South Wales · Southeast

Sacred / spirit

Fig. 29, no. 1: long dark Yuin mudthi blade with small notches at its ends and a cord hole near the upper end.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. A Yuin bull-roarer of the New South Wales south coast, figured by Howitt. Public domain · Image source

Source term: bullroarer

On the cliffs of Kamay Botany Bay and Watsons Bay, where whales pass Sydney on their long migration north and back, Tim Ella spins a bullroarer for his totem, the whale, wishing it safe passage on its journey. A Dharawal and Yuin man of the La Perouse community, and brother of the famous Ella brothers of rugby, he walks visitors through the country where his people first met Europeans, with bush food, an ochre ceremony and a welcome to country. In the whale season, from May to November, the walkers may see the whales go by below the clifftops as the blade turns.

Particulars

Object
A bullroarer spun by Tim Ella on his coastal cultural walks; form and material unrecorded.

Sources

  1. Deb Carr, "Kadoo Aboriginal Cultural Tours Sydney," SydneyChic, 4 July 2018 View
  2. ABC Sydney, "Eora Nation #39: Indigenous heritage of Watsons Bay," 17 February 2017 View

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.