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Sample Entry - Bullroarer
Archeologists have uncovered evidence in Paleolithic tombs that
suggests that the bullroarer is among the earliest — if
not the earliest — and longest-surviving of artifacts
that can be termed musical instruments. The bullroarer customarily
consists of a thin, flat piece of bone, or a slat of wood, which
is elliptical in shape and pierced at one end. A length of string,
cord or thong is threaded through the hole and tied; the user
holds the string in one hand, and whirls the slat over his/her
head. As the slat spins on its axis, the whirling movement produces
a wailing or even a roaring sound. Found in Australia, New Guinea,
India, West Africa, Europe and the Americas, the bullroarer
is not only one of the oldest but also one of the most widely
distributed of instruments.
Although the bullroarer is musically limited, for more than
a century its social role and its symbolic significance have
been the subject of intense study and innumerable scholarly
papers (Lang 1884). Although it seems little more than a toy,
it has been employed for ritual purposes, and initiation ceremonies
in particular, in cultures the world over. In classical Greece,
as in tribal societies, the bullroarer was whirled by men daubed
in paint or feces. Women were prohibited from using, seeing
or touching it, and it has been widely argued that the fish-shaped
bone or slat is a phallic symbol (van Baal 1966). But the bullroarer
makes 'wind,’ as well as ‘thunder,’ and is,
in Ernest Jones's words, symbolic of ‘flatus, particularly
paternal flatus, [as] is well known to all psycho-analysts’
(1964, 287). In an exhaustive study of the phenomenon and the
literature, folklorist Alan Dundes argues that the pervasive
use of the bullroarer is ‘based upon notions of male pregnancy
envy, anal eroticism, and ritual homosexuality’ (1976,
236).
The Maori version of the bullroarer, the purererhua,
has been used extensively in New Zealand popular music by, for
example, the Upper Hutt Posse, and Hirini Melbourne and Richard
Nunns, as well as in the soundtrack to Once Were Warriors. In
contrast, the bullroarer has been little used in Australian
popular music, there being considerable taboos surrounding its
use in Aboriginal culture. A controversial example of its use
is, however, to be found in ‘Bullima’ by Kooriwadjula
(Dunbar-Hall 1994, 106-108).
Bibliography
Dunbar-Hall, Peter. 1994. Style and Meaning: Signification
in Contemporary Australian Popular Music, 1963-1993. Ph.D.
thesis, School of Music and Music Education, University of New
South Wales, Sydney.
Dundes, Alan. 1976. ‘A Psychoanalytic Study of the Bullroarer.’
Man 11: 220-38.
Jones, Ernest. 1964 (1951). Essays in Applied Psycho-Analysis.
Vol. 2: Folklore, Anthropology and Religion. New York:
International Universities Press.
Lang, Andrew. 1884. ‘The Bull-Roarer: A Study of the Mysteries.’
In Custom and Myth. London: Longmans, Green and Company,
29-44.
Mitchell, Tony. 1995. ‘New Urban Polynesians: Once
Were Warriors, the Proud Project and the South
Auckland Music Scene.’ Perfect Beat 2(3) (July):
1-20.
van Baal, J. 1966. Dema: Description and Analysis of Marind-Anim
Culture (South New Guinea). The Hague: Martinus Nijhof.
Discographical Reference
Kooriwadjula. ‘Bullima.’ Kooriwadjula.
Enrec EN 149CD. 1992: Australia.
Discography
Melbourne, Hirini, and Nunns, Richard. ‘Purerehua.’
Te Ku Te Whe. Rattle Records RAT 10004. 1994:
New Zealand.
Upper Hutt Posse, The. ‘Whakakotahi.’ Movement
in Demand. BMG/Tangata TANG CD619. 1995: New Zealand.
Filmography
Once Were Warriors, dir. Lee Tamahori. 1994. New Zealand.
99 mins. Drama. Original music by Murray Grindlay, Murray McNabb.
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