CURR1887-001 - ethnographic attestation
Upper Paroo-Warrego and Mungalella Creek tribes (incl. Peechera)
Australia - Upper Paroo and Warrego Rivers - Mungalella (Mungallala) Creek, south-west Queensland - Oceania - Sahul
Restricted
Source term: bull-roarer
“To it are ascribed mysterious qualities, and the women fly from the sound.” On the upper Paroo and Warrego Rivers and along Mungalella Creek, the bull-roarer came out when young men were made. Several distinct tribes shared this stretch of mulga and river-frontage country, their speech so alike it was almost one language; their four marriage classes — Murri, Combo, Cubbi, Ippai — were those of the Kamilaroi tribes two hundred and fifty miles to the south-east. What the mysterious qualities were went unrecorded; the flight of the women was testimony enough.
The toy known as the 'bull-roarer' is in use amongst these tribes when making young men... To it are ascribed mysterious qualities, and the women fly from the sound.
Curr, The Australian Race, vol. III (1887), no. 177, p. 274
- Object
- No object described; Curr records only the instrument's English name, its initiation use, and its effect on the women.
- Function
- Used when making young men; credited with mysterious qualities; the women fled from its sound.
- Map confidence
- medium_high - Modern Mungallala locality as a representative regional anchor inside Curr's stated scope (Paroo and Warrego north of lat. 27 deg. 30 min., and Mungalella Creek); deliberately not the downstream creek point south of that boundary.
- Source location
- pp. 270-271, 274
- Initiation rite