The Bullroarer Atlas

MATHEWS1908-001 - primary ethnography

Birdhawal (Bidawal)

Australia - Northeast Gippsland - Cann River - Victoria-New South Wales border - Oceania - Sahul

Restricted

Representative—not this record’s object: Gascoyne bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available...
Representative—not this record’s object: Gascoyne bullroarer, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. W. D. Hambly, Primitive Hunters of Australia (Field Museum of Natural History, 1936), plate I, fig. 10 Public domain Image source
Western Australia, Giglioli 1886. The entire historical page is shown; object 3 is handwritten Mooryumkarr, probably the Gascoyne-mouth...
Western Australia, Giglioli 1886. The entire historical page is shown; object 3 is handwritten Mooryumkarr, probably the Gascoyne-mouth spirit-chaser later described by Pettazzoni. Enrico H. Giglioli, Western Australian objects at the Colonial Exhibition, London (1886) Public domain Image source

Turndun English / Birdhawal name

Source term: bullroarer

Turndun: Birdhawal name explicitly identified by Mathews as a bullroarer

At daybreak in Birdhawal country, the hum of Turndun approached and every woman and child left for another camp. Later, painted men swung a larger and louder bullroarer before the novices. An elder rubbed it across each boy's chest and body as the instrument was revealed, while another man warned that betraying what he had learned meant death. Mathews distinguished three voices: the morning summoner, the larger instrument of revelation, and a much smaller roarer sounded with it at the gathering's close.

Soon after daylight next morning the humming sound of Turndun, the name of a bullroarer, was heard in the near distance.

Mathews 1908:212
Object
Three sizes of bullroarer are distinguished: a morning summoner, a somewhat larger and louder instrument shown to novices, and a much smaller instrument sounded with the larger one at the close; material, dimensions, and cord construction are not recorded.
Function
Sounded to remove women and children from the initiation area; the larger instrument was swung before novices and rubbed across each boy's chest and body during its revelation.
Map confidence
high - Broad Cann River anchor within northeastern Victorian Birdhawal country; not a documented ceremony or consultant residence.
Source location
printed pp. 212-214

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