The Bullroarer Atlas

FRAZER1913-013 - ethnographic attestation

Anula / Anula neighbours of Binbinga

Australia - Western Gulf of Carpentaria

Restricted

A bright red-ochred Aboriginal Australian bullroarer crossed by four white painted bands, the topmost just under the tip, its finely striated...
Representative image. A bright red-ochred Aboriginal Australian bullroarer crossed by four white painted bands, the topmost just under the tip, its finely striated surface pierced by a small hole near one rounded end — shown for the general type, not the Anula mura-mura (Wi-dirpi). Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. RV-1863-43) Image source

mura-mura; Wi-dirpi English

Source term: sacred stick / bull-roarer

In the Anula initiation narrative the bull-roarer is called mura-mura; the book's glossary separately records "Wi-dirpi — Name of bull-roarer. Anula tribe," so two forms for the same object survive in the source.

Etymology. Mura-mura is the Anula name for the sacred bullroarer presented to a newly subincised youth, described to him as kurta-kurta (tabooed) and, in Anula tradition, first made by the whirlwind; after the boy is struck on the back with it, the slat is buried in a hole representing a spot where the whirlwind totem emerged from the earth. Women and children were taught its roar was the voice of the great spirit Gnabaia, who swallows and afterwards disgorges the boy as an initiated youth. (high confidence)

Among the Anula of the western Gulf of Carpentaria, a newly subincised novice was handed a sacred stick that Spencer and Gillen gloss directly as a bull-roarer, called mura-mura. He was told it had been made, in the first instance, by the whirlwind, that it was kurta-kurta (tabooed), and that it must on no account be shown to women or children. The women and children took its roaring for the voice of a great spirit named Gnabaia, come to swallow the boy up; the Anula women believed Gnabaia swallowed the novice and afterward disgorged him in the form of an initiated youth. Gnabaia, in Anula belief, was a pair of spirits who arose in the Alcheringa at Wuntirri on the Robinson River and went up into the sky, hostile to people, watched by a third, friendly Gnabaia living in the woods; the medicine men, who alone could see them, would "sing" to the earthly one to come and heal a sick man. At the close of the whirlwind ceremonies the initiated boy was struck on the back with the sacred mura-mura he had carried through his time in the bush; the stick was then laid in a hole, the soil heaped over it, and there it was left.

When all was over the boy was presented with a sacred stick (bull-roarer) called mura-mura and told that it was made, in the first instance, by the whirlwind; that it was kurta-kurta (tabooed), and must on no account be shown to women or children, who think that its roaring is the voice of a great spirit called Gnabaia, who has come to swallow up the boy.

Spencer & Gillen 1904, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 372-373
Function
Initiation spirit-voice bullroarer with swallowing/disgorging belief and women/children taboo.
Map confidence
medium - representative western Gulf of Carpentaria anchor near Anula/Binbinga source context; source does not give a ceremony locality
Source location
pp. 372-373 (initiation, sacred stick = bull-roarer / mura-mura) and p. 501 (Gnabaia swallow/disgorge belief); glossary, "Wi-dirpi — Name of bull-roarer. Anula tribe."

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