The Bullroarer Atlas

PARKER1905-001 - ethnographic attestation

Euahlayi Narran River Gayandi / Gurraymi Boorah bullroarer

Australia - Narran River - north-western New South Wales

Restricted

Kamilaroi murrawan from the Weir River.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Kamilaroi murrawan from the Weir River. · Public domain Image source

Gayandi / Gurraymi; garrarana (regional Yuwaalaraay) English

Source term: Gayandi / Gurraymi

Gayandi: men's name for the Boorah spirit; Gurraymi: women's name for the same spirit. Parker also uses Gayandi for its bullroarer voice. garrarana: Yuwaalaraay word for 'bullroarer' (also 'dragonfly'), used in some Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay areas (Gamilaraay Yuwaalaraay Yuwaalayaay Dictionary); not recorded by Parker for the Narran River community.

Among the Euahlayi, the hidden roar of the Boorah was Gayandi in men's speech and Gurraymi in women's — a spirit-voice heard from the scrub as old men whirled concealed boards. Parker recorded how Byamee, the All-Father, made the first. He began with a stone figure in a man's image, meant to knock out an initiate's tooth; it proved too strong and began eating the boys' faces, so Byamee turned it into Nahgul, a hairy devil that has haunted Boorah grounds ever since. A stone roarer came next, too heavy to sing. Then, chopping a coolabah by Weetalibah waterhole, he heard the flying chips whizz past — 'That is what I want,' he said, 'I'll make a Gayandi of wood.' He cut beefwood and kurrajong, hung them singing in the branches, and when his wives came asking about the strange voices he sent them off to build a fire and hid the boards away. Only after a man's fifth Boorah were those oval boards openly shown.

the sound of the Gayandi, as the men call the Gurraymi, or bull roarer.

K. Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe (1905), p. 63; AIATSIS PDF scan p. 101.
Object
Oval wooden boards pointed at both ends, fastened to a string and swung round.
Function
Hidden Boorah spirit-voice; whirled to announce and summon the Boorah; revealed to men after the fifth initiation.
Map confidence
medium - Angledool / Narran River regional anchor; Parker locates the Euahlayi in Narran country, not a performance site. Weetalibah water-hole is unresolved.
Source location
Page references

printed pp. 62-63, 74, 81; PDF scan pp. 98, 101, 112, 121; glossary p. 192

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