TL;DR
- Seven bright dots & a low‑Hz roar: two of humanity’s stickiest memes.
- Dreamtime myths fuse them most completely, but echoes show up in Māori, Navajo, and Hopi rites.
- Likely Gravettian bundle: Upper-Paleolithic finds (Lascaux engraving + Mezin bullroarer) hint they travelled together from the start.
- When they overlap the cluster provides the calendar, the plank provides the thunder.
- Evidence points to diffusion, not independent invention—later cultures re-mixed fragments of the same Paleolithic package.
1 · Dreamtime Archetypes: Woman ✕ Serpent ✕ Roar#
Australian Aboriginal narratives give us the cleanest lab-dish for studying the meme-plex.
| Mythic cycle | Primordial women | Serpent | Bullroarer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Djanggawul / Djang’kawu | Two sisters who seed all life | Galeru the Rainbow Python | Sisters hand men the first larrakitj roarer |
| Wawilak Sisters | Pregnant siblings | Yurlunggur flood snake | Initiation begins with its thunderous buzz |
| Kunapipi / Gunabibi | Great Mother + seven flying daughters | Shape-shifts into Julunggul | Kunapipi bullroarer is literal “voice” |
| Daramulum | Off-stage emu-wife | none | Roarer embodies the one-legged sky-hero |
Key insight: Dreamtime stories treat the roarer as a technology of theft—men repossess the sisters’ generative power by taking control of the snake’s “voice.”
2 · A Sonic Gadget Goes Global#
Bullroarers are everywhere woodworking and cordage exist, but usage is patchy.
| Region | Oldest attestation | Ritual function |
|---|---|---|
| Ukraine (Mezin) | ~19 k BP bone roarer | Shamanic thunder motif |
| Classical Greece | 5th c BC rhombos | Ecstatic Dionysian trance |
| Yoruba (Nigeria) | Pre-colonial | Òrò funerary purification |
| Māori (Aotearoa) | 1st contact | Weather magic, Matariki rite |
| Navajo (U.S.) | Night-Chant corpus | Snake/Thunder medicine |
| Hopi (U.S.) | Pre-Pueblo revolt | Rain-making in Snake Dance |
Common denominators
- Taboo sound: women/children must hide, or soul-loss feared.
- Weather spam: roar mimics wind, thunder, or snake hiss.
- Initiation gate: whir spun at the liminal moment of symbolic death/rebirth.
3 · Where Stars Meet Plank Outside Oz
3.1 Māori — Matariki New‑Year Bundle#
- Star: Pleiades (Matariki) heralds winter solstice; sub‑star Ururangi personifies wind.
- Roarer: Pūrerehua spun during Matariki to “release feelings into Tāwhirimātea’s winds.”
- Primary: Te Papa curator Isaac Te Awa, “Ururangi and the pūrerehua” blog, 2021.
3.2 Diné (Navajo) — Big Star Chant#
- Star: Hero Qilį́hǫ̌ explicitly glossed “Pleiades.”
- Roarer: Tsin di’ni in the same chant bundle, aligned with Snake/Thunder power.
- Primary: Kluckhohn & Wyman manuscripts; Reichard Navajo Religion (1950).
3.3 Hopi — Winter Kiva Cycle#
- Star clock: Priests watch the Pleiades through the kiva hatch; chant ends when cluster clears zenith.
- Roarer: Tovokìnpi whirled in Snake/Flute ceremonies to summon rain.
- Primary: Parsons (1936) Hopi Journals; Titiev Old Oraibi (1944).
Pattern: star marks when, roarer marks what happens next.
4 · A Shared Gravettian Root? Rethinking Diffusion#
- Synced time-window: The cluster-of-seven engraving at Lascaux (~17 k BP) and the Mezin mammoth-bone bullroarer (~19 k BP) both sit inside the Late Upper Paleolithic, close enough in time to share a cultural bloodstream.
- Common cultural engine: Each artifact falls within the Gravettian—or immediate Epigravettian—sphere, a network already famous for portable art, bird-bone flutes, and sophisticated cordage.
- Vector map: Genomic and lithic datasets trace Gravettian lineages along the mammoth-steppe corridor into Siberia and across the Levantine bridge toward Africa and Sahul—the same highways that later delivered people to Beringia and the Americas (see Vectorsofmind global diffusion model, 2024).
- Package logic: A naked-eye star clock that flags the storm season pairs naturally with a thunder-whirring plank that dramatizes those storms. The two memes amplify each other when bundled, so Occam’s razor favors a package deal over dozens of later bolt-ons.
- Modern residue: Cross-cultural overlaps—from Hopi Snake-Dance to Māori Matariki to Arnhem Land Djanggawul rites—are easier to parse as scattered fossils of that Paleolithic bundle than as convergent coincidences.
Conclusion: The weight of archaeology, genetics, and ritual patterning points to a single Upper Paleolithic source—very likely somewhere inside the Gravettian world—seeding both the Seven Sisters myth and the bullroarer rite. Whether they began as two hacks in the same symbolic toolkit or as one inseparable ceremony remains open, but the balance of evidence now tilts toward shared ancestry rather than independent invention.
5 · FAQ#
Q 1. Does the evidence support a single Upper-Paleolithic source for both memes?
A. Direct smoking-gun proof is still missing, but the co-dated artifacts, shared migration corridors, and ritual pairings make a Gravettian seed-bundle the most parsimonious model; it now outperforms parallel-invention explanations.
Q 2. What’s the oldest undisputed bullroarer?
A. A perforated mammoth‑bone plank from Mezin, Ukraine (~19 k BP), widely accepted as a musical aerophone; preservation bias means earlier wooden examples are almost certainly lost.
Q 3. Why do many Seven‑Sisters myths feature only six or even two siblings?
A. Most humans discern six stars unaided; missing sister becomes a narrative hook (lost, hidden, punished), or local dual‑moiety law trims the cast.
Q 4. Do modern Indigenous groups still spin bullroarers?
A. Yes—e.g., Māori pūrerehua workshops during Matariki festivals, Hopi Snake‑Dance rehearsals (closed to outsiders), and certain Arnhem Land initiation camps.
Footnotes#
Sources#
- Andrews, Munya. The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades. Spinifex Press, 2004.
- Berndt, Ronald M. Kunapipi: A Study of Aboriginal Myth and Ritual. Routledge, 1951.
- Clottes, Jean. “Lascaux: A Prehistoric Sky Map?” Antiquity 85 (2011): 1-7.
- Isaac Te Awa. “Ururangi and the pūrerehua.” Te Papa Blog, 2021. https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/
- Kluckhohn, Clyde, and Wyman, Leland. Navaho Origin Legends. Harvard Archives MS, 1940s.
- Parsons, Elsie. Hopi Journal. Columbia University Press, 1936.
- Titiev, Mischa. Old Oraibi: A Study of the Hopi Indians. University of Michigan Press, 1944.
- Wardle, Peter. “Bacchic Rhombos and the Orphic Mysteries.” Classical Quarterly 68 (2018): 123-139.
- Worsaae, Jens. “The Bull-roarer in North European Folk Magic.” Acta Borealia 12 (2006): 77-99.
- WorldCat catalog entry: British Museum, Mezin Culture Bone Bullroarer, Accession 1928.3.15.