Bullroarer (music)

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Bullroarers from Africa, in the Pitt Rivers Museum
Bullroarers from Africa, in the Pitt Rivers Museum

The bullroarer, rhombus, or turndun, is an ancient ritual musical instrument and means of communicating over extended distances. It dates back to the Paleolithic period, being found in the Ukraine dating from 17,000 B.C. It is found in Europe, Asia, the Indian sub-continent, Africa, the Americas, and Australia.[1]

In ancient Greece it was a sacred instrument used in the Dionysian Mysteries and is still used in rituals worldwide.[2]

Along with the didgeridoo, it is prominent technology among Australian Aborigines, though was not developed by them.

The bullroarer is sometimes used as a means of demonstrating the Doppler effect, by using sound. As the instrument travels round, its sound goes up or down according to its speed, and distance from the hearer.

Contents

[edit] Design, use, and sound

It consists of a weighted aerofoil, a rectangular slat of wood about 15 cm (6 in) to 60 cm (24 in) long and about 1.25 cm (0.5 in) to 5 cm (2 in) wide, attached to a long cord.

The cord is given a slight initial twist, and the roarer is then swung in a large circle in a horizontal plane. The aerodynamics of the roarer will keep it spinning about its axis even after the initial twist has unwound. The cord winds fully first in one direction and then the other.

It makes a characteristic roaring vibrato sound with notable modification from both Doppler effect and the changing speed of the roarer at different parts of its circuit.

By modifying the expansiveness of its circuit and the speed given it, the modulation of the sound can be controlled, making the coding of information possible. The low frequency component of the sound travels extremely long distances, especially on the wind.

[edit] In culture

This instrument has been used by numerous early and traditional cultures in both the northern and southern hemispheres but in the popular consciousness it is perhaps best known for its use by Australian Aborigines (it is from one of their languages that the name turndun comes).

[edit] Australian Aboriginal culture

Bullroarers have accompanied the didgeridoos in initiation ceremonies and in burials to ward off evil spirits, bad tidings, and even women and children.

Bullroarers are considered secret men's business by some Aboriginal tribal groups, and hence taboo for women, children, non-initiated men and/or outsiders to even hear[citation needed]. They are used in men's initiation ceremonies and the sound they produced is considered by some Indigenous cultures to represent the sound of the Rainbow Serpent[citation needed]. In the cultures of South-East Australia, the sound of the bullroarer is the voice of Daramulan, and a successful bullroarer can only be made if it has been cut from a tree containing his spirit.

In 1987, Midnight Oil included a recording of a bullroarer on their album Diesel and Dust (at the beginning of the song, Bullroarer) inadvertently causing offence[citation needed] to the Aboriginal people of Central Australia from whom the recording was taken.

The bullroarer can also be used as a tool in Aboriginal art[citation needed].

Bullroarers have sometimes been referred to as "wife-callers" by Australian Aborigines[citation needed].

A bullroarer is used by Paul Hogan in the 1988 film Crocodile Dundee II.

[edit] Endnotes

  1. ^ Gregor, Thomas. Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People. University Of Chicago Press (1987). p. 106 "Today we know that the bullroarer is a very ancient object, specimens from France (13,000 B.C.) and the Ukraine (17,000 B.C.) dating back well into the Paleolithic period. Moreover, some archeologists—notably, Gordon Willey (1971,20)—now admit the bullroarer to the kit-bag of artifacts brought by the very earliest migrants to the Americas."
  2. ^ Bayley, Harold. The Lost Language of Symbolism: An Inquiry into the Origin of Certain Letters, Words, Names, Fairy-Tales, Folklore, and Mythologies Book Tree (2000). p. 86: "The bullroarer, used always as a sacred instrument, is still employed n New Mexico, the Malay Peninsula, Ceylon, New Zealand, Africa, and Australia, and under the name of Rhombus it figured prominently in the Mysteries of Ancient Greece."
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