Coast Murring Mudji bullroarer

Mudji

Mudthi (also Mudji) — Yuin/Coast Murring name for the bull-roarer; its hand-sign is a small circling motion of the forefinger.

Among the Coast Murring (Yuin) of the south coast of New South Wales, the roaring of the mudthi was the muttering of thunder, and thunder was the voice of Daramulun, the being who first made the Kuringal initiation and ordered the fathers to hold it, and by whom these mudthi were first made. A. W. Howitt's messenger, summoning men to the ceremonies, carried a bull-roarer wrapped in skin and concealed from women and children. When he swung it near the council-place, the men sprang up at its roar and ran for the camp in a long sinuous line behind Umbara, the tribal bard, striking the ground on either side: the snake-run that opens the ceremonies to the cry 'Gari! gari!', 'A snake, a snake!' Umbara gave Howitt the words for what the thunder meant: Daramulun calling on the rain to fall and make everything grow up new. Because the sound was Daramulun's own voice, Howitt recorded, it was of the most sacred character.

This is a mudthi which he (pointing to me) has brought from a long way off. It is the same as that which we know of, and which was given to our fathers by that great Biamban [master] you know about.

Brupin, a Yuin headman, holding the bull-roarer Howitt gave him; A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904), pp. 517–518

Particulars

Function

The voice of Daramulun calling the initiated together; its roar is his thunder, calling down the rain.