The Bullroarer Atlas

HOWITT1904-002 - ethnographic attestation

Wurunjerri / Wurundjeri, Kulin

Australia - Yarra River - Kulin country, Victoria

Restricted

Per-bo-re-gan whirler at Coranderrk, Kulin country — fish-shaped bark blade on a kangaroo-sinew cord and stick, figured by Smyth (1878). The...
Representative image. Per-bo-re-gan whirler at Coranderrk, Kulin country — fish-shaped bark blade on a kangaroo-sinew cord and stick, figured by Smyth (1878). The openly-published boys' toy form of the instrument; not the restricted Wurunjerri object Howitt's account concerns. R. Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, vol. I (1878), fig. 17, p. 176 — via archive.org Public domain Image source

Ball-berau-gan English

Source term: bull-roarer

Ball-berau-gan: Barak's Wurundjeri bullroarer term; Bau-berau and Berbero are variant hearings of the same word.

In the Kulin nation of the Yarra River, when a Wurundjeri headman wished to gather the people to make boys into men, he sent out a young messenger, a wirrigirt, hung with the emblems of his errand. For a friendly meeting he carried a man's belt and a woman's apron on a reed; to summon a fight, a jag-spear of ironbark; but when the message was to call a meeting for the initiation of boys, the Talangun, the messenger carried also a bull-roarer and a man's kilt, and that bull-roarer was kept hidden from the eyes of women and children. The detail comes from A. W. Howitt, who learned the secret of the instrument among the neighbouring Kurnai, where there were two bull-roarers: the larger, called Tundun, "the man," whose grandfather-name was Wehntwin, and the smaller, Rukut, "the woman," his wife. Howitt's Wurundjeri informant was Berak (William Barak), "an extraordinary repository of information as to his tribe." A 1901 letter preserves William Barak's term Ball-berau-gan, though its vowels were heard in several ways. Howitt is describing the Kulin messenger procedure in general rather than a single ceremony at a fixed spot.

when calling a meeting for the initiation of boys (Talangun), the messenger carried also a bull-roarer and a man's kilt hung upon a reed. The bull-roarer was kept secret from the sight of women or children.

when calling a meeting for the initiation of boys (Talangun), the messenger carried also a bull-roarer and a man's kilt hung upon a reed. The bull-roarer was kept secret from the sight of women or children.

Howitt 1904:700-701
Object
Howitt's Wurunjerri/Kulin message-stick section says a messenger calling a boys' initiation meeting carried a bull-roarer.
Function
Initiation summons credential, carried by the messenger calling the Talangun; never shown to women or children.
Map confidence
medium - representative coordinate for named people or regional territory in Howitt
Source location
pp. 700-701; Jibauk context pp. 609-613; Howitt-Spencer correspondence, Letter 27 (7 March 1901)

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