BULLROARER  , the

English name for an instrument made of a small flat slip of wood, through a hole in one end of which a string is passed; swung round rapidly it makes a booming, humming noise . Though treated as a toy by Europeans, the bullroarer has had the highest mystic significance and sanctity among primitive people . This is notably the case in Australia, where it figures in the initiation ceremonies and is regarded with the utmost awe by the " blackfellows." Their bullroarers, or sacred " tunduns," are of two types, the " grandfather " or " man tundun," distinguished by its deep tone, and the " woman tundun," which, being smaller, gives forth a weaker, shriller note . Women or girls, and boys before initiation, are never allowed to see the tundun . At the Bora, or initiation ceremonies, the bullroarer's hum is believed to be the voice of the " Great Spirit," and on hearing it the women hide in terror . A Maori bullroarer is preserved in the British Museum, and travellers in Africa state that it is known and held sacred there . Thus among the Egba tribe of the Yoruba race the supposed " Voice of Oro," their god of vengeance, is produced by a bullroarer, which isactually worshipped as the god himself . The sanctity of the bullroarer has been shown to be very widespread . There is no doubt that the rhombus (Gr. poµ/3os) which was whirled at the Greek mysteries was one . Among North American Indians it was common . At certain Moqui ceremonies the procession of dancers was led by a priest who whirled a bullroarer . The instrument has been traced among the Tusayan, Apache and Navaho Indians (J .

G .

Bourke, Ninth Annual Report of Bureau of Amer . Ethnol., 1892), among the Koskimo of British Columbia (Fr . Boas, " Social Organization, &c., of the Kwakiutl Indians," Report of the U.S . National Museum for 1895), and in Central Brazil . In New Guinea, in some of the islands of the Torres Straits (where it is swung as a fishing-charm), in Ceylon (where it is used as a toy and figures as a sacred instrument at Buddhist festivals), and in Sumatra (where it is used to induce the demons to carry off the soul of a woman, and so drive her mad), the bullroarer is also found . Sometimes, as among the Minangkabos of Sumatra, it is made of the frontal bone of a man-renowned for his bravery . See A . Lang, Custom and Myth (1884) ; J . D . E . Schmeltz, Das Schwirrholz (Hamburg, 1896) ; A .

C . Haddon, The Study of Man, and in the Journ . Anthrop . Instil. xix., 189o; G . M . C . Theal, Kaffir Folk-

Lore; A . B . Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples (1894); R . C . Codrington, The Melanesians (1891) .