PIDDINGTON1952-001 - ethnographic attestation
Karadjeri / Karajarri initiation bullroarer
Australia - La Grange - Bidyadanga, West Kimberley
Restricted
Source term: bull-roarer
Among the Karadjeri (Karajarri) of the West Kimberley, the novice was circumcised sitting down, his eyes blindfolded and his ears stopped up; immediately after the cut, the bull-roarers were shown to him, and only once the blood of the wound had dried was he allowed to see the flint instruments that had done the work. The whole rite repeated the deeds of the Bagadjimbiri, the twin ancestors who had instituted circumcision and first used the sacred instruments—the stone knife, the bull-roarer, and the pirmal—so that each initiation re-enacted the founding of the world. The candidate also drank blood. Ralph Piddington recorded the Karadjeri ceremonies in the country around La Grange (Bidyadanga) in 1930–31; the placement of the bull-roarer within the Milya rite rests on his summary of that fieldwork rather than the full account. The twins' own end is serpentine: killed and revived, the Bagadjimbiri turned into water-snakes, and Piddington devoted a separate study to the water-serpent in Karadjeri mythology.
Among the Karadjeri, the novice is circumcised in a sitting position, his eyes blindfolded and his ears stopped up; immediately after the operation, he is shown the bull-roarers, and — after the blood of his wound has dried — the flint instruments with which the operation was performed.
Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation (1958), p. 22, drawing on Piddington's Karadjeri fieldwork
- Object
- Bull-roarer in Karadjeri/Karajarri initiation sequence.
- Function
- Piddington's Karadjeri initiation summary places the bull-roarer in the Milya circumcision/initiation rite.
- Map confidence
- medium - representative public coordinate for Karajarri country around La Grange / Bidyadanga, not a ritual site
- Source location
Page references
Piddington 1952 Google Books summary pp. 74-105; primary Piddington 1932 article pp. 46-87
- Snake-linked
- Initiation rite