Telling the spirits we are here

Source term: bullroarer

No local instrument name recorded.

In June 1838, a party of stockmen rounded up and killed at least twenty-eight Wirrayaraay people — mostly women, children and old men — at Myall Creek Station in northern New South Wales; seven of the killers were hanged for it, an almost unheard-of outcome on the colonial frontier. Descendants of both the murdered and the murderers now walk to the memorial boulder there together each year. At the memorial a man twirls a bullroarer, and its low thrum spins out over the paddocks to tell the spirits that people have come to pay their respects.

You've come here in reconciliation, you've come here to pay respect; and that's all we've ever wanted.

Wirrayaraay man Kelvin Brown, quoted by Tom Plevey, Guardian Australia, 16 July 2022

Particulars

Object

A bullroarer sounded at the Myall Creek Memorial on Wirrayaraay and Gamilaraay country.

Function

Sounded at the memorial to tell the spirits that visitors have come to pay their respects.