,
who call it _bribbun_, have a custom that, 'if seen by a woman, or
shown by a man to a woman, the punishment to both is _death_.'

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.[18] 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.

[Illustration: {A New Zealand bull-roarer}]

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':--

Loud wind,
Lasting wind,
Violent whistling wind,
Dig up the calm reposing sky,
Come, come.

In New Zealand[19] 'the natives regarded the wind as an indication of
the presence of their god,' a superstition not peculiar to Maori
religion. The 'cold wind' felt blowing over the hands at
spiritualistic _seances_