No. MADDOCK1978-001
Dalabon Lumaluma bullroarer
Australia · Southern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory
Restricted
Source term: bull-roarer
Lumaluma: the Dalabon name of a snake-like All-Mother, Jingana or a version of her, whose voice is the bullroarer.
The Dalabon of southern Arnhem Land tell of a serpent who was mother to all Aboriginal people. As Lumaluma she lived in the salt water and swallowed the men given to her in the Gunabibi, vomiting back only their bones. A father and son stopped feeding her and put bullroarers in her place. When she next spoke, a left-handed night bird caught her voice by swinging one, a feat likened to recording a voice on tape. Lumaluma stayed in the sea, and the bird swung her voice south as the Gunabibi spread.
When next she spoke a left-handed nocturnal bird caught her voice by swinging a bullroarer.
Maddock 1976:166
Particulars
- Object
- A bullroarer made in myth by a bird to stand in for Lumaluma, the snake-like All-Mother.
- Function
- Sounded in the Gunabibi as the voice of Lumaluma, the snake-like All-Mother who once swallowed the ceremony's dancers; in the Gunabibi the novices are said to be swallowed by her.
Source
Kenneth Maddock, 'Communication and Change in Mythology', in N. Peterson (ed.), Tribes and Boundaries in Australia (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1976), p. 166 (the Dalabon Lumaluma myth: bullroarers put in her place, a left-handed night bird catches her voice by swinging one); Kenneth Maddock, 'Introduction', in Ira R. Buchler and Kenneth Maddock (eds), The Rainbow Serpent: A Chromatic Piece (The Hague: Mouton, 1978), pp. 7, 11-12; and Maddock, 'Metaphysics in a Mythical View of the World', same volume, p. 104 ('The bull-roarer is Lumaluma')