The Bullroarer Atlas

MAT1898-001 - ethnographic attestation

Adelaide tribes / Kaurna region

Adelaide region - South Australia

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Eyre's 'Mooyumkarr' (figs 6-8, Plate IV) - the first published illustration of an Australian bull-roarer, the incised slat-on-cord type of the...
Eyre's 'Mooyumkarr' (figs 6-8, Plate IV) - the first published illustration of an Australian bull-roarer, the incised slat-on-cord type of the Adelaide/Kaurna region. E. J. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery (1845), vol. II, Plate IV (figs 6-8) Public domain Image source

kadnomarngutta / wimmarri English

Source term: bull-roarer

Adelaide-language (Kaurna) names: kadnomarngutta, the smaller secret bullroarer barred to women and children; wimmarri, the larger form used in hunting incantations and over youths during scarification.

Etymology. The Adelaide source defines `kadnomarngutta` as a thin oval wood piece tied to a string and swung rapidly to make a humming noise. (high confidence)

The Adelaide tribes kept two of these instruments. The smaller, the kadnomarngutta, was a thin oval of wood about five inches long, tied to a string and swung to make a humming noise in the night; women and children were forbidden to see it, though the women, the grammar adds, knew well enough what it meant. The larger one, the wimmarri, was the same in shape but bigger, and was invoked in the incantations men made while out hunting. Its name was also repeated over the youths while their bodies were being scarred, in the belief that this would soothe the pain. The two terms were recorded by the Lutheran missionaries Teichelmann and Schürmann in their 1840 grammar of the Adelaide language; R. H. Mathews drew them into his 1898 survey of Australian bullroarers more than half a century later.

Kadnomarngutta, s, a thin oval piece of wood, about five inches long and one and a half wide, tied to a string, by which the natives swing it rapidly round, and thus cause a humming noise in the nights. Females and children are not allowed to see it, much less to use it; the former, however, well know what it indicates.

Teichelmann and Schürmann 1840, Outlines of a Grammar... of the Aboriginal Language of South Australia, vocabulary s.v. "kadnomarngutta"
Function
Mathews cites Teichelmann and Schurmann for Adelaide bullroarers, including a smaller secret form and a larger hunting/scarification form.
Map confidence
medium - representative coordinate for named people, ceremony, river, or region in Mathews
Source location
JAI 27:52-60

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