Bardi galaguru, flung into the Coalsack

galaguru

Source term: Classification List of Bullroarers

galaguru: the Bardi sacred bullroarers, first made by the creator-hero Djamar.

Etymology. Among the Bardi (Bād) of Dampier Land the sacred bullroarers are called galaguru.

The creator-hero Djamar rose from the sea off the Dampier Peninsula and struck south whirling a bullroarer. In the bush he felled a "silver-blood" tree, split boards from it, and drove them into a creek's stone bed in a long line — the first galaguru. On the Burumar sandhill he swung one so hard the hair-string snapped and the roarer shot into the Coalsack Nebula, the black realm of the dead. Among the Bardi the same word names the plug that stops the blood when a novice's arm-vein is opened at the fifth grade of initiation. The roarer also worked out of sight. Elkin was told by the Bardi that a doctor could make a man sick, though not kill him, by touching him in a dream with kalakor, an initiation bullroarer — and that such a doctor carried within his own body a small snake and short sticks cut to the shape of bullroarers.

Particulars

Object

Sacred bullroarer boards, swung on hair-string.

Function

Sounded in men's initiation; in a medicine-man's hands it could also bring sickness through a dream.