The Polysemy of Bullroarer Names Across Cultures

TL;DR

• Across continents, the name of the bullroarer often doubles as a cosmological term—ancestor, soul/essence, spirit, wind, thunder, even “grandfather.” Examples below with primary citations. ¹
• In Australia, tundun (Gunaikurnai) is “the man” with a paired rukut tundun “the woman”; Arrernte tjurunga names sacred boards that contain a person’s spirit/“essence.” ¹
• In Aotearoa New Zealand, pūrerehua = “moth/butterfly,” a semantic slide from sound to insect, and a rain/healing implement. ^{2 3}
• In ancient Greek, rhómbos spans bullroarer, magic whirler, whirring/rumbling, and the rhombus shape (and more). ^{4 5}
• In the Northwest Amazon, terms tied to Yuruparí/Barasana He bind instruments to “the ancestral/past/spirit world,” not just “a flute set.” ⁶

Why names for a spinning plank keep meaning “soul,” “wind,” or “grandfather”#

Wherever the bullroarer travels, its low, disembodied timbre gets lexicalized: languages tag it with words for Person, Spirit, Wind/Thunder, or Ancestor. That isn’t random—acoustics leaks into ontology. The table collects attested native terms and their other meanings, with tight sourcing to first-hand ethnography, dictionaries, or museum records. ¹

Polysemy index (selected, source‑attested)#

Notes: (i) Where a language field is blank, the cited source documents function/polysemy but not a specific native lexeme. (ii) Orthographies reflect the source; many have standardized forms today.

What the pattern says (and why it repeats)#

1. Voice of the unseen → spirit/ancestor terms. Arrernte tjurunga carries a person’s “spirit part” and transmissible essence; chewing/drinking scraped dust from it literalizes that semantics. The Kurnai tundun is “Grandfather” and male, paired with a “wife”—a gendered ontology mapped onto instruments. ¹

2. Wind/thunder acoustics → weather terms. Gros Ventre nakaantan = “making cold” (also thermometer), and Apache/Navajo terms foreground sound (sounding, groaning) plus lightning‑struck wood. Sound‐symbolism and “wind‑pragmatics” bleed into the lexicon. ^{11 9}

3. Mythic complexes → umbrella names. In the Northwest Amazon, Yuruparí names a cult/instrument complex and a culture‑hero/lawgiver; Barasana He is explicitly called polysemic, glossing to “ancestral,” the past, and the spirit realm. The lexeme becomes a hinge between ontology and gear. ⁶

4. Cross‑domain drift. Māori pūrerehua tracks from moth (insect) to roarer, probably via iconic sound/flight; Greek ῥόμβος packs sound, shape, toy, and rite into one stem. Form–meaning feedback is doing heavy lifting. ^{2 3 4 5}

FAQ#

Q1. Does tjurunga mean “bullroarer” or “soul”? A. Both—and more. Churinga/tjurunga names sacred boards/stones (some are bullroarers) that contain a person’s spirit portion; their “essence” can be ingested during rites. It’s an object–spirit syncretism, not a neat translation.

Q2. Is Yuruparí the instrument or the ancestor/law? A. Regionally it’s all of these: a secret men’s complex (flutes, trumpets, sometimes bullroarers), a class of myths, and a civilizing hero figure—exact senses vary by group. Barasana He captures the logic: “ancestral” in the widest sense. ⁶

Q3. Did Greeks really use rhómbos as a bullroarer? A. Yes; sources gloss ῥόμβος as the ritual whirler in mystery cults and as a magic device/whizzing top—the same word also names the rhombus shape. Polysemy is baked in. ^{5 4}

Q4. Why does Māori pūrerehua mean “moth” and bullroarer? A. Iconic mapping: the instrument’s flighty oscillation and fluttering timbre cue the insect. Māori sources explicitly define pūrerehua for both. ^{2 3}

Footnotes#

Sources#

• Spencer, Baldwin & Gillen, Francis. The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899), ch. “Churinga of the Arunta and other tribes.* (on churinga containing a person’s spirit part and the transference of “essence”).
• Howitt, A. W. The Jeraeil, or Initiation Ceremonies of the Kurnai Tribe (1885) (PDF). (Kurnai tundun “the man,” rukut tundun “the woman,” “Grandfather” appellations). ¹
• Howitt, A. W. Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904), Wikisource edition. (figure list documenting Mudthi [Yuin] and Yuntha [Dieri] bullroarers). ⁷
• Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford). “Howitt–Tylor papers” (archival summary). (Chepara bribbun and wabulkan; initiation “virtue”). ⁸
• Te Aka Māori Dictionary. “pūrerehua.” (moth/butterfly; instrument). ²
• Te Ara – Encyclopedia of New Zealand. “Māori musical instruments – taonga pūoro.” (bullroarer use in healing/rain-making). ³
• Britannica. “Rhombos.” (bullroarer in Greek rites). ⁵
• Wiktionary. “ῥόμβος (rhómbos).” (LSJ-derived sense list: bullroarer, magic wheel/top, rhombus, etc.). ⁴
• Hugh-Jones, Stephen. The Palm and the Pleiades: Initiation and Cosmology in Northwest Amazonia (1979)—chapter excerpts. (on Yuruparí as shorthand and He as polysemic “ancestral/past/spirit world”). ⁶
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Bullroarer (imunu viki) — ‘weeping spirit’” (collection entry). (Gulf of Papua; gloss and ritual context).
• Bourke, John G. The Medicine-Men of the Apache (1892), Project Gutenberg text. (Apache tzi-ditindi “sounding wood,” ritual/weather context). ⁹
• Franciscans of St. Michaels. An Ethnologic Dictionary of the Navaho Language (1910), Internet Archive record. (lexical source for tsin ndi’ni “groaning stick”). ¹⁰
• Kroeber, A. L. Ethnology of the Gros Ventre (1908) (PDF). (Gros Ventre nakaantan “making cold,” also “thermometer”). ¹¹
• Zerries, Otto. “The Bull-roarer among South American Indians” (1953) (PDF). (South American survey of functions/terms). ¹³