VOICE OF THE ANCESTORS THE MYSTERIOUS BULLROARER

Oxford’s wonderful Pitt Rivers Museum first opened its doors in the late 19th century. Thousands of ethnographic and archæological artefacts collected from around the world are on show in display cases of wood and glass. One of the largest cases is filled with wooden slats of differing shapes and sizes, each attached to a string. Some are carved, others painted. Signs explain that these are all examples of the “bullroarer”, ¹ a ritual object found all around the world. The bullroarer makes a sound when it is whirled around by its string, and plays a vital role in tribal ceremonies of male initiation. The Pitt Rivers cabinet contains bullroarers collected from Papua New Guinea, Australia, Tasmania, India, Africa, the Americas, and rather curiously, from Britain. The British examples, collected in the 1930s, are described as “boys’ toys”.

To the early anthropologists of the 19th century, the bullroarer was ubiquitous and fascinating. It could be found, it seemed, on every continent. So many races and cultures had invented the bullroarer independently, yet the customs and mythology surrounding it were often the same. Its ritual use was typically for men only; women were not allowed to see, hear, or know the bullroarer existed – often on pain of death. To many cultures it symbolised the wind, or storms; often, it was regarded as the voice of a god, or of the ancestors. And why did some cultures hold the bullroarer in awe and terror, whilst others treated it merely as a children’s toy?

The generic name “bullroarer” was coined by Reverend Lorimer Fison, who initially left England in 1856 to dig for gold in Australia. After a sudden religious conversion, he trained as a Methodist missionary and worked for seven years in Fiji. On returning to Australia, he began studying the Aboriginal culture and learned of the ritual importance of the (also spelled ‘tundun’), which he recognised as identical to the bullroarer of his