Nukunu wiithanha

wiithanha

Source term: bullroarer

wiithanha: Nukunu bullroarer.

Nukunu country runs up the eastern shore of Spencer Gulf, from about Port Germein into the southern Flinders Ranges around Mount Remarkable. Out of the knowledge Nukunu people gave Luise Hercus for her 1992 dictionary comes wiithanha: bullroarer. The community wordlist built from that dictionary carries a sound file for the word, so a learner can hear it said rather than only read it. What it was for, the dictionary's own story section tells. Malbunga, having divided the people into those who would stay and those who would go, called them all together by means of his bullroarer: there is a sandhill right by the salt lake, and he struck the sandhill with it and sang, "The bullroarer hits right against the sandhill." He used it like that to muster the people, ready to go.

wiithanha — bullroarer

Mobile Language Team Nukunu Wordlist, from Hercus, A Nukunu Dictionary, 1992

Particulars

Object

A bullroarer known in Nukunu as wiithanha; in the Nukunu story of Malbunga it is struck against a sandhill and sung to, to call the people together.

Function

In a Nukunu story the ancestor Malbunga struck the sandhill by the salt lake with his wiithanha and sang, mustering the people and calling them all together.