HORNE1924-001 - primary ethnography
Wangkangurru inchitcha bullroarer
Australia - Mungeranie - country east of Lake Eyre - Oceania - Sahul
Restricted
inchitcha English / Wonkonguru name
Source term: Churinga or bull-roarer
inchitcha: Wonkonguru name glossed Churinga or bull-roarer
When Wangkangurru men prepared a ceremony at Mungeranie, a large inchitcha growled after a woman looked out from her shelter; a smaller one then sent every woman and child away from camp. In the Wilyaroo initiation a leader swung the same bullroarer into a circle of waiting women, thrust it under warm ashes, jerked it out and hid it at once. Horne and Aiston stated the rule plainly: women were not to see it.
The bull-roarer - not to be seen by women.
Horne and Aiston 1924:174
- Object
- Wooden bullroarer with a drilled hole for its string; large and small forms are sounded. No dimensions or isolated object figure.
- Function
- Sounded to clear women and children from ceremonial preparation; swung and hidden during Wilyaroo initiation; forbidden for women to see.
- Map confidence
- high - Mungeranie source-locality anchor for the recorded ceremonies; not a centroid for all Wangkangurru country.
- Source location
- printed pp. 90, 112, 174-175
- Initiation rite
- Forbidden to women