The Bullroarer Atlas

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A series in ten essays

What's in a Name?

What people call the bullroarer is never just a label. Athabaskans from Alaska to Arizona call it the wood that speaks; Arnhem Land men asked for its name gave the Mother's; the Yoruba god Orò carried his name across a language line into the Niger Delta; half the world names it for a fly, a bee or a beetle on the wing; and the Austronesian voyagers who carried it across the Pacific never let its true name travel at all.

The essays

  1. The Wood That Speaks From Alaska to Arizona, Athabaskan peoples call the bullroarer the thing that speaks: Ahtna deniiyi, Navajo tsindi’ni’, Apache tzi-ditindi. Read the essay →
  2. Ask for the Bullroarer Asked for the word bullroarer in 1938–41, Arnhem Land men gave Arthur Capell the public names of two Mothers’ rites: the Ubar in the west, the Kunapipi elsewhere. Read the essay →
  3. The Old One and His Wives Around Papua New Guinea’s Huon Gulf, named ancestors and senior spirits had wives, distinctive voices, and lessons for the boys they swallowed. Read the essay →
  4. Orò Crosses the Water The Yoruba night-god Orò reached the Niger Delta in pieces: its name became the Kolokuma bullroarer oróro, and its law became the Brass Noin-nama. Read the essay →
  5. Names That Travel A bullroarer name changed hands in days in Nigeria. In northern Australia and Brazil, neighboring languages share names for the same sounding board. Read the essay →
  6. Mero-Mero Meroo, Mirudi and mero-mero in Western Australia; mérmér in New Guinea; meromero in Peru. A small instrument with a remarkably familiar name. Read the essay →
  7. Mantiki Mantiki in Central Australia, mandagi among the Luritja, mandargi in the Great Sandy Desert, mandaki on the Kimberley coast: one name for the small bullroarer a young man swings for the woman he means to marry. Read the essay →
  8. When the Aeroplane Came When the aeroplane came, the bullroarer and the aeroplane traded names: in New Guinea and Namibia the roarer's name took to the sky; in Venice and Ukraine the plane's came down. Read the essay →
  9. The Voice on the Wing From Samoa to Sicily, Cameroon to the Amazon, peoples named the bullroarer for the fly, the bee, the beetle and the dragonfly. They heard a wingbeat in the dark. Read the essay →
  10. The Wing and the Ghost From Taiwan to Aotearoa the bullroarer is named for wings: a flutter, a fly, a bee, a moth. Only around New Guinea is it named for the dead. Read the essay →