bull-roarer

Still the unconquerable superstition that now seeks to tell fortunes by the cards, and, in your time, resorted to the sorceress with her magical “bull-roarer” or turndun.

Letters to Dead Authors 2006

And in Autralian aboriginal culture, the name of the sky god is divulged in the sound of the bull-roarer, which Mickey Hart writes about in

The Annotated Weather Report Suite: Part II (Let It Grow) John Perry Barlow 2005

The sound had the fullness of a baritone, rhythmic and slow, the noise of a bull-roarer, booming from that massive diaphragm.

The Skrayling Tree Moorcock, Michael, 1939- 2003

A sound like a single bell chime followed by the growl of a bull-roarer suddenly came to our ears.

The Hand of Oberon Zelazny, Roger 1976

The "bull-roarer," known to the modern English boy, the ancient Greek, the South African, the American Indian, etc., is in actual use to-day by children, -- Mr. Lang does not seem to be aware of the fact, -- as a "wind-raiser," or "weather-maker."

The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain

It is highly significant that all these tribes of New Guinea apply the same word to the bull-roarer and to the monster, who is supposed to swallow the novices at circumcision, and whose fearful roar is represented by the hum of the harmless wooden instruments.

Chapter 67. The External Soul in Folk-Custom. § 4. The Ritual of Death and Resurrection 1922

Some tribes of Northern New Guinea—the Yabim, Bukaua, Kai, and Tami—like many Australian tribes, require every male member of the tribe to be circumcised before he ranks as a full-grown man; and the tribal initiation, of which circumcision is the central feature, is conceived by them, as by some Australian tribes, as a process of being swallowed and disgorged by a mythical monster, whose voice is heard in the humming sound of the bull-roarer.

Chapter 67. The External Soul in Folk-Custom. § 4. The Ritual of Death and Resurrection 1922

While they are not in use, the bull-roarers are stowed away in the men’s club-houses, which no woman may enter; indeed no woman or uninitiated person may set eyes on a bull-roarer under pain of death.

Chapter 67. The External Soul in Folk-Custom. § 4. The Ritual of Death and Resurrection 1922

Further, it deserves to be noted that in three languages out of the four the same word which is applied to the bull-roarer and to the monster means also a ghost or spirit of the dead, while in the fourth language (the Kai) it signifies “grandfather.

Chapter 67. The External Soul in Folk-Custom. § 4. The Ritual of Death and Resurrection 1922

While he is out in the bush recovering from his wounds, he must swing the bull-roarer, or a being who lives up in the sky will swoop down and carry him off.

Chapter 67. The External Soul in Folk-Custom. § 4. The Ritual of Death and Resurrection 1922