BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official

Subject: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Davetnova
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:19 PM

In a PhD Thesis it By Dymphna Lonergan. It's claimed that the digeridoo was named by Irish settlers and that the word comes from dudaire dubh, which is stated as meaning either black pipesmoker or black trumpeter. This seems to make sense but as I don't have gaelic I don't really know. Any comments from those with the language.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Declan
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:43 PM

Possibly. There is a word Duidin which means a little pipe.

But I doubt it. Is not a Aboriginal word? If not what did the Native Australians call it ?

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:50 PM

That's just part of the great Irish Instrument Theft Conspiracy.

Wolfgang (grinning)

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: MMario
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:53 PM

which is actually just a coverup to take the heat off the Dutch for their world domination through ocean rising scheme.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:55 PM

it is entirely possible, given that it is not a word the aborigines used for the instrument - each tribe had a different word, some that meant 'bamboo' (which they were made from), some meaning 'throat';

the most common belief up to now is that it is an onomotopeic English word, mention of the repeated sound that it produces as didjerry, didjerry, didjerry... could be some variation of duideen dubh, but that would make sense if they were always black in appearance, which they were not,

OR that it was used in the racial sense, 'pipe of the blacks' which is very likely, given the tradition of racial epithets among colonials.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Declan
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:55 PM

LOL Wolfgang !

Grinning back :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:55 PM

Any ozzies who can ask the locals?

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 03:54 PM

We honestly wondered after seeing and hearing the replicas of ancient instruments on the recent series on ancient Ireland. They sounded a lot like digeridoos.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST,ciarili at work
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:05 PM

I don't think didgs are made outta bamboo. They're eucalyptus, and each man makes his own, traditionally.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:15 PM

in the north of Australia, I've read, they were originally of bamboo. and some still are today made of bamboo. and I hope katlaughing isn't thinking the Irish invented this instrument, and I for one despise it's use in so called Celtic music, it has no place there, nor dumbek, when there is the bodhran, for that matter. Not an Afro-celt fan either.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:16 PM

Of course a lot of didgs on sale in England are made out of bamboo. But I think ciarili is right about eucalyptus being more traditional.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: MMario
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:19 PM

several of the history sites I've looked at over the years say that bamboo is used some areas, eucalyptas in others.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:24 PM

Didgeridoos have as much right to be brought into Irish music as bouzoukis did.

If it sounds right, use it. Used as a kind of bass drone, I'd think a bouzouki could fit in pretty well with Irish music. Preferably not with the barks and animal imitations many didgeridoo blowers like to go in for.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:27 PM

I'd think a bouzouki could fit in pretty well with Irish music

I think we already know that, McGrath...

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:33 PM

Surely the traditional Irish didgeridoo is made from a vacuum cleaner rigid tube?

I thought that this was necessary for transport in convict ships...

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:37 PM

Ah but what I meant to write was:

Didgeridoos have as much right to be brought into Irish music as bouzoukis did.

If it sounds right, use it. Used as a kind of bass drone, I'd think a didgeridoo could fit in pretty well with Irish music. Preferably not with the barks and animal imitations many didgeridoo blowers like to go in for.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:38 PM

hard to get barks and animal imitations out of a bouzouki, I would think! or a bass drone for that matter!

not to start another thread debate on what is traditional, I'm just stating my preferences, and questioning katlaughing's thoughts on Irish ancient instruments having anything to do with didgeridoos.

I guess I should have said I prefer traditional music, and I guess for Irish I'd be taken to task for just about any instrumentation except the harp, and a particular kind of harp at that, the bodhran, and then I'd say pipes and fiddle would about do it. Squeeze box for dance tunes since late 19th c., but not my favorite use of the instrument. I enjoy 'Irish' music of a later vintage that uses guitar, and octave mandolin/bouzouki, but I guess I wouldn't call it traditional instrumentation. I would concede that one can play a traditional tune on anything, electrified or otherwise.

But I still say I do not like the didgeridoo outside of Australian aboriginal music, nor the dumbek outside of the middle east, nor Greek bouzouki outside of Greece. Irish bouzouki is another story, as I've said. Nor an electric or acoustic bass line under any Irish song, sets my teeth on edge, unnecessary and intrusive. Give me sean nos or give me death, (one and the same to some people I'm sure!)

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Davetnova
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 05:35 PM

So personal musical preferences and regional material variations aside (I had a friend who busked in Amsterdam with a roadkill exhaust pipe as a didgeridoo)do you think the name could be from the Erse.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST,Chris B (born again scouser)
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 05:41 PM

I'm with Bill Kennedy on this one. Can't stand the bloody thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 05:41 PM

see Katlaughing - there have been ancient metal instruments a bit like didgeridoos found in bogs in Scotland and Ireland; info is available on line but I'm not going to look for it now. I would think many cultures have come up with similar types of instruments, sometimes independently of each other.

I don't know anything about the language story. Could be true, but sometimes people make up these sorts of stories for fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 05:43 PM

If you want animal imitations and a bass drone why not stick with the pipes? They can be tuned as well and as a bonus have a useful thing called a chanter which can play melodies.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 05:55 PM

Cripes, Bill! All I said was the replicas of ancient Irish instruments which were played on the recent PBS show, "In Search of Ancient Ireland" SOUNDED a lot like digeridoos! Far be it for this no-nothing to claim anything concerning such matters as this thread! It was an observation, NO claim of anything, other than what my ears, and those of other people who viewed the program with me, heard.

Did you see the program? If you don't believe me, go have a look at a link from the main site: Bronze Age Horns in Ireland. Unfortunately they don't have any audio files. If I can find some, I will post them.

katnotquiteasstupidasyoumightthink

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: greg stephens
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 06:18 PM

OK Declan, come clean. this is your thread isnt it?

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: firínne
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 07:30 PM

As far as I am aware, 'dudaire dubh' means black pipers. That doesn't mean that the Irish ever used didgeridoos themselves for traditional music. It obviously was just a descriptive term.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 07:33 PM

I was told, by a friend of mine who works with aborigines out by Alice, that the wood selected depends entirely on what the predominant local timber is, and that it was usual for naturally hollowed roots or branches to be used. These were finished by hand, but the bulk of the work was done by mother nature with termites etc. So bamboo, or eucalupt, or whatever... up to the recent discovery of the PVC pipe. Also, as has been pointed out, they were usually prized possessions and decorated - for a specific purpose too - so if there is a connection with the irish term for black, it would have referred to the player, not the instrument.

Quite apart from the whole question of whether the thing has an authentic aborigine name, a made-up pseudo-aboriginal name, or irish colonists named the didg after seeing the thing in Oz, or even whether the ancient irish had a similar instrument, has anybody else wondered why these discoveries of "lost" creations of the irish ancient culture are found in bogs? Was this a result of an form of positive action by early music critics? If so, what are they going to find in the bogs two or three thousand years from now?

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 08:27 PM

G'day,

Actually, Kat is right in saying some replicas of ancient Irish instruments sound like didges. There were a lot of Bronze Age, metal tubular instruments found, for which nobody has ever found any convincing mouthpieces. There is a belief that these were, indeed, played like the didgeridoo ... and I remember seeing an Irish couple demonstrate them at the Australian Museum.

I don't see any reason to reject this theory, but:

This doesn't mean the Irish invented the didgeridoo, since the Australian Aborigines have had at least 60,000 years of acquaintance with termited eucalypt branches. (Human ingenuity is pretty well universal ... I'm reminded of "boomerangs" found among children's toys in Egyptian tombs ... as well as quite functional light wood 'gliders'!)

This doesn't mean that the recent Irish 'folk etymolgy' Gaelic name ever applied to the Bronze Age Irish instruments ... nothing being known of them until they were dug out of the bogs.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: alison
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 01:38 AM

I was at a festival a few months back where a fella was playing one of the long bronze age horns....... he did play it like a didgeridoo.... no mouthpiece..... sounded pretty good... like a cross between a didge and an alpine horn......

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Declan
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 05:22 AM

As far as I know the 'didg' was introduced to Irish Music by Stephen Cooney (Irish Australian) when he started playing with Stockton's Wing. There may have been earlier instances, but I'm not aware of them. The sound Steve makes on the instrument fits in very well with certain tunes, particularly in a band context. Steve is also an excellent guitar and bass player and tends to use the didg sparingly and to good effect. Personally I'm not thrilled when I see one coming into a session, but it works well sometimes.

The person who did most research into the ancient Irish horns or Adharcs was a man called Simon McBride who played the didgeridoo a lot in sessions before he started researching the older instruments. Whether they were originally played like this or were adapted for this sound by someone who played didgeridoo is, in my opinion, open for debate.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: greg stephens
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 05:36 AM

Sounds like we have a connection with Browning's "slughorns" here.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Scabby Douglas
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 06:03 AM

Hmm I think this is like the story that suggests that the native American word "Moccasin" is actually a corruption of the Scots Gaelic "mo casan)(sp?) - - "my feet".

There's all sorts of cod-etymology trotted about and there always has been. Sometimes things are floated as quasi-jokes, and attain currency - cf. Mr Crapper the "inventor" of the flushing toilet.

One of my favourites is the suggestion that a district in Glasgow called Cowcaddens was named that because there were cow-byres there and the cows' lowing led to the place being called "Cow-cadence".

Cheers

Steven

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: greg stephens
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 06:16 AM

Is that Mr Crapper really a joke? I've always believed it. I hate to have my cherished beliefs destroyed. I was mortified when I read the other day that the famous etymology Torpenhowe Hill (Hill Hill Hill Hill) was a complete fallacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Wolfgang
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 07:22 AM

Scabby Doug,

nobody gets a PhD on a joke. The lady mentioned in the first post is real as is her PhD. She may be wrong, after all, but for to get a PhD there has to be some sounder basis than a joke.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: greg stephens
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 07:25 AM

Wolfgang, you have a sweet and touching faith in the academic world. I wish I could share it!

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 08:10 AM

G'day greg stephens,

Have faith in some things ... Crapper was real ... was the patentee of an advance in toilet flushing cistern design ... was "Sanitary Engineer to her Majesty Queen Victoria - even if he was not the "inventor" of the first flush toilet. (A much earlier one was constructed for Queen Elizabeth the First ... and continuous flush toilets date back, at least, to Minos, c. 1500 BCE.

There is a biography (C. 1975 ...?) of Thomas Crapper ... very imaginatively called "Flushed With Pride" complete with a photograph of his name on a plaque on the floor of Westminster Abbey (an access point to plumbing pipes!). Much more real than Irish names for the didge. For that to have any credence requires a good linguistic history of the early use of the term and clear "Irish" connections.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Scabby Douglas
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 08:31 AM

Greg, far be it from me to (as they say) pish on yer chips.. but have a look at this link to Snopes..

Mr Crapper..

Agreed he was a real person , but snopes seem to think that the biog is a hoax.

Cheers

Steven

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 09:19 AM

katlaughing - I never said you or your opinions were stupid, very sorry if you tok my comments that way, no harm at all intended. I just wanted to be clear to others in my assertion that there is absolutely no cultural connection between aboriginal didgeridoos and any sort of Irish or Scottish bog horn ever found. The fact that somebody makes a replica of one of these bog artifacts and decides it CAN be played as a didgeridoo, does not IN ANY WAY mean that it WAS played like a didgeridoo. It is entirely possible that mouthpieces were fashioned of another material, say wood, perhaps, or that there are/were other bits to these instruments that have not survived, or that they were ceremonial offerings, made to look like instruments but not actually playable, or that they were mouthed in some way like a didgeridoo, but does that mean they actually were part of any musical performance? for dancing? doubt it. more likely a horn like this would have been a war trumpet of some kind, designed to produce a rather loud and terrifying sound, not likely to be used for rythmic droning. Though I suppose some argument could be made that a score or so of these all going together as didgeridoos might have sounded pretty loud and eerie to an enemy force. The fact is, right now we just don't know, it is all conjecture, and we may never know for certain what exactly the function of these bog instruments were in the culture that produced them.

As to the initial post, I say there is a possibility that the term comes from the Irish, haven't read the dissertation, but I would expect it attempts to describe when the first Irish speaking colonists arrived in Australia, and where, and where they dispersed too, and when the first use of the word didgeridoo appears in Australian English usage. It is not an aboriginal word or expression. Even having demonstrated all of this, it is still conjecture on her part, and perhaps just another cod-etymology attempted by someone who stumbles on the apparent similarites of sounds between languages and tries to make a connection that was never there. Interesting discussion though.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 09:23 AM

G'day again,

Having argued for language citations on "didgeridoo" ... I though I should check the only Australian dictionary giving the full OED treatment: The Australian National Dictionary, a dictionary of Australianisms on historical pronciples, ed. W. S. Ransom, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Australia, 1988.

The AND gives the word, in general, as "Yolngu" (Northern territory Aboriginal) ... and as "imitative", not native language. Interestingly, the first citation for didgeridoo comes from about as far from didgeridoos as you get in Australia -Jan 3/4 1919, The Huon Times, Franklin Tasmania - almost as far south as you get without swimming! (i was outside of their little office in February, visiting friends in Franklin.)

Anyway, this is clearly used in imitation of the sound: "The ... crew is making merry with the Didgery doo and the eternal ya-ya-ya-ye-ye-ye cry ...".

The second citation, 5 April, 1919, from Smith's Weekly, Sydney, also appears "imitative" in nature: "It produces but one sound - 'didjerry, didjerry, didjerry -" and so on ad infinitum ...".

I don't see anything in either of these, or the 10 following citations, that provides evidence of the putative Irish Gaelic phrase ever being applied to the instrument. Ms Lonergan (as I said of Luke Kelly, in a thread on another latter-day musical hijack) "should have taken more water with it!".

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 10:07 AM

Bill Kennedy, thank you, I am sorry if I misread. I agree with what you are saying. My only point was that the bog horns, as played on that show, sounded like a didg.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 10:55 AM

Yes, I believe I have heard that 'didgeridoo' is an approximation or white immigrant's imitation of an Australian aboriginal word. But make believe DIY etyomology can be fun.

I don't think any of us suggested the Irish & Scottish Iron age horns were directly related to the didgeridoo, just that the instruments have similarities.

I searched Google for +"John Purser" +horn and found that there should be a wav sample at www.kht.org.uk/music/cry-prayer.html of the Dord Iseal (large Bronze Age horn) (Simon O'Dwyer, John Purser) 2'37. 317k sample (.wav). Bronze Age horn. But I could not access the site.

Information on the Scottish Carynx can be found at http://www.carnyx.musicscotland.com/lecture.htm Click there on Deskford carynx for pictures and history.

Loughnashade trumpet and click listings on your left side of the page for loads of info on prehistoric instruments in Ireland. note: "Download sounds" under Bronze Age

this summerJohn Purser and Simon O'Dwyer are doing a bronze horn workshop in Sound SymposiumSt. Johns, Newfoundland,Canada. the "symposium" takes place from 5-13 July.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Declan
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 11:27 AM

Apologies for misleading information earlier. Simon's surname is indeed O'Dwyer and not McBride, and he is no relation to Willie or Arthur.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 11:28 AM

Philippa, neither the Loughnashade nor the carynx are at all similar to a didgeridoo. they are both trumpets, played like trumpets, not hollow tubes without mouthpieces. and the bog find hollow tubes referred to by katlaughing are not at all like didgeridoos in appearance, they are curved in arcs, not straight tubes, but lack a trumpet mouthpiece (at least when found). I suppose one could add a bellows and some regulators and claim they were the prototype for uilleann pipes, but that would be just as far fetched. I don't recall any reference anywhere, in Latin or Irish mss. of any instrument that was played in any way or produced any sound like a didgeridoo. Have you? If so I would be very interested to read it. Just because some guy on a television show decides that because he can produce a didgeridoo like tone on a replica of an object found in a bog, does not mean that is how it was played or sounded by the people who produced them. I guess it doesn't mean it wasn't played that way either, but I don't think Simon O'Dwyer is on to something here. I think it is an enormous reach in speculation.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Big John
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 09:25 PM

Don't we all love being IRISH. Sure didn't we invent everthing from the wheel to the light bulb. Eddy's son it was that done that. And didn't Fionn McCool have a flute bigger than any of your your digger -i -doo yokes. And look at New Grange ( and that was there before the Egyptians invented the pyramid). Sure isn't that perfectly round and the spirals there carved on the rocks prove that Irish astronomers were big into spiral galaxies a week or two before the Hubble telescope went up. And down in Kerry they had so much land they had to put it into big heaps - that's how we invented mountains. And we invented the kangaroo when the early Irish deportees to Australia were issued with Wellington boots and the string which tied them together compelled Paddy to bounce along using both legs. Why doesn't sombody sart a thread about IRISH INVENTIONS. Don't mind me, Declan, I was gigging at a 90th. Birthday Party(serioulsly) tonight and the craic was 90.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: greg stephens
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 10:09 PM

Anybody done a PhD on the etymology of doggie doo?

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 10:45 PM

....or doggy don't

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Declan
Date: 28 Jun 02 - 07:18 AM

Big John,

If I'd known it was the craic's birthday I'd have come along.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 28 Jun 02 - 08:25 AM

G'day yet again,

Whilst looking for something else, quite unrelated, I came across this article printed nearly 40 years ago in the Bush Music Club's magazine. It is an interesting view of the didgeridoo (however you spell it ...) by someone who was in the area of its prime use ... at the time that the name was first used.
Regards

Bob Bolton

(From: Singabout, volume 5, number 1, January 1963, p. 4)

In the introduction, we read: " Frederick T. Macartney, who wrote the article for us on Didjeridoo, says: "it is intended to correct some misunderstandings among the relatively few people interested in such subjects."

DIDJERIDOO Frederick T. Macartney

Apart from the boomerang, which has become almost an emblem of Australia, nothing in the vanishing tribal life of our aborigines has attracted so much attention as the didjeridoo. It is their only musical instrument, unless you include sticks beaten together or against a hollow log to keep time. There is, of course, the churinga or "bullroarer", a slab of wood whirled round and round on a string to make a loud buzzing noise, but it is a sacred object, used only in tribal rites and kept out of the sight of the uninitiated.

The word "didjeridoo" is possibly not an aboriginal one, or if it is, it is apparently of recent rather than traditional origin, for I have not come across it in the vocabularies in authoritative books. Different tribes, with their sometimes vastly different dialects, use other names — for instance "yiraki" in East Arnhem Land and "ulpirra" or "ulbura" in Central Australia.

I first heard the didjeridoo mentioned by this name in 1921, while watching the last initiation ceremonies of the Larrakeyah tribe of the Darwin region, before their detribalization put an end to such occasions; so perhaps it is one of their words, though (Sir Walter) Baldwin Spencer, during his investigations there a decade earlier, does not seem to have known it. It is obviously an imitation of the sound that the instrument makes — four syllables of a rhythm accented at the end. There are performers whose special skill varies its accent and tone, but its recurrent sound is that of the name by which it is now generally known.

Another possibility not usually recognized is that the didjeridoo, like so much else in primitive art and ritual, had its origins in the food-quest. Walter E. Roth, whose book records his close knowledge of the natives of North-West Queensland in the 1890s, mentions their use of a "call tube" to lure emus into a snare by imitating the bird's cry, which has a booming sound. So, very likely, a hunter's trick, when he found it could be varied to please the ear, became the first wood-wind instrument.

The didjeridoo is made either of a hollow bough or of bamboo. The bough is frequently one obligingly eaten out by the so-called white ants, which, being careful to avoid the light, leave a substantial casing intact. Sometimes the hollowing is completed by the aborigine with a fire-stick, and by this means, when bamboo is used, the partitions at the nodes are removed.

The average length is four or five feet, and the width externally is about 1½ inches at the top, widening towards the base according to the growth of the bough or stem chosen, and occasionally a bent bough is used. These differences do not appreciably change the sound, which is made in the player's mouth and merely amplified by the tube.

As bamboos do not grow in arid country, didjeridoos of that make are not often seen except in the more coastal areas. They are customarily ornamented with a pattern of criss-cross lines cut or burnt in lightly. The more common hollow-bough sort are mostly left plain and may even have the bark still on, but they are generally smoothed, and some are decorated with symmetrical patterns in red and white. A specimen in the National Museum in Melbourne is there described as "used for charming women" — a misleading limitation oddly worded. For the purpose of this sorcery the native holds the didjeridoo over a fire of green bushes until the smoke penetrates it and him too, and that night he plays at the corroboree ground. The right girl succumbs to the spell, for you may be sure she knows what he has been up to, and the intimidation of magic does the rest.

In another instance of magic, a didjeridoo made from a bent bough figures as an ancestral snake in an initiation ceremony. The youth who is "being made a man" is held from behind while it is poked vigorously against his stomach, supposedly biting him to instill the myth. The involuntary grunts that this treatment evokes, though not unlike the sound the instrument makes when used ordinarily, are not regarded as attuned in any such way, being a mere by-product.

But the didjeridoo in its native setting has magic in a more comprehensive sense, especially when heard at night and from a distance. Whether played alone or with a clicking of "clap-sticks", or to the wailing of an aboriginal song, or as an undertone of wild dance-choruses, it seems the mysterious heart-beat of a land where, throughout uncounted centuries, man and earth were united by a dream-time tradition now forever lost.

Subject: RE: BS: Digeridoo Irish, Official
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Jun 02 - 11:37 AM

Thank you, Bob, that is most interesting!