Among the Kurnai, the sacred mystery of the turndun is preserved by a
legend, which gives a supernatural sanction to secrecy. When boys go
through the mystic ceremony of initiation they are shown turnduns, or
bull-roarers, and made to listen to their hideous din. They are then
told that, if ever a woman is allowed to see a turndun, the earth will
open, and water will cover the globe. The old men point spears at the
boy's eyes, saying: 'If you tell this to any woman you will die, you will
see the ground broken up and like the sea; if you tell this to any woman,
or to any child, you will be killed!' As in Athens, in Syria, and among
the Mandans, the deluge-tradition of Australia is connected with the
mysteries. In Gippsland there is a tradition of the deluge. 'Some
children of the Kurnai in playing about found a turndun, which they took
home to the camp and showed the women. Immediately the earth crumbled
away, and it was all water, and the Kurnai were drowned.'

In consequence of all this mummery the Australian women attach great
sacredness to the very name of the turndun. They are much less
instructed in their own theology than the men of the tribe. One woman
believed she had heard Pundjel, the chief supernatural being, descend in
a mighty rushing noise, that is, in the sound of the turndun, when boys
were being 'made men,' or initiated. {35} On turnduns the Australian
sorcerers can fly up to heaven. Turnduns carved with imitations of water-
flowers are used by medicine-men in rain-making. New Zealand also has
her bull-roarers; some of them, carved in relief, are in the Christy
Museum, and one is engraved here. I have no direct evidence as to the
use of these Maori bull-roarers in the Maori mysteries. Their
employment, however, may perhaps be provisionally inferred.

One can readily believe that the New Zealand bull-roarer may be whirled
by any man who is repeating a Karakia, or 'charm to raise the wind':--