49 



use among tlie natives at Port Essington in 1838, and wrot©'^ 

 that they blow through it with their noses. This, in all pro- 

 bability, is a mistake. 



Leichardt also found it at Raffles Bay in 1845. He callsf 

 it "eboro," and describes it as a long tube of bamboo, by 

 means of which the natives variously modulated their voices. 



The same instrument is also recorded from Port Essing- 

 ton by Macgillivrayl as tlie '^ihrro," a piece of bamboo, three 

 feet in length, which, by blowing into it, is made to produce 

 an interrupted, drumming, monotonous noise, and by Kep- 

 pel§ as a bamboo tube through which a monotonous sound is 

 transmitted by the performer's breath; and Coppinger,^ in 

 the vicinity of Port Darwin, observed a hollow reed, about 

 four feet in length, that was used like a ''cow-horn," with 

 the production of a rude burlesque of music. 



More recently, Etheridge has described[! these bamboo 

 trumpets from the Alligator River tribes, of the Northern 

 Territory. 



The instrument is known to the various tribes as mamil- 

 lima (Larrekiya), kanhi (Wogait ), niolk (Sherait ), and kanhi 

 (BerringinJ. 



Manufacture. 



The shells"^^'" of large helices ( XanthomeJon ^poiinim) are 

 much used in the making of weapons and implements. A 

 hole is carefully tapped into the m.ain whorl, leaving the edges 

 of the fracture as sharp and abrupt as possible. 



For rasping and smoothing surfaces of wood, the shell 

 is held, by the little finger of the right hand, at the open 

 end of the body whorl, so that the made aperture rests below 

 the finger. Held in that position, the lower edge of the hole 



* Discoveries in Australia, Vovage H.M.S. "Beagle," 1837- 

 1843 (London, 1846), vol. i., p. 394. 



t Journ. Overland Exped. in Australia from Moretoii Bay 

 t^ Port Essington, 1844-1845 (London, 1847), p. 534. 



: Narrative of a Voyage of H.M.S. "Rattlesnake." " 1852. 

 vol. i., p. 151. 



§ k Visit to the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii.. 1853, p. 163. 



IF Voyage of the "Alert," 1883, p. 204. 



II Macleay: Mem. Vol., Linn. Soc, N.S.W., 1893. p. 242. pi. 

 XXX., fig. 7, and pi. xxxi., fig. 6. See also T. Worsnop : Pres. 

 Address Sect. Ethnology, Austr. Assoc. Adv. Science, 1895, vol. 

 vi., p. 145, and "The Prehistoric Arts, Manufactures, "Works, 

 Weapons, etc., of the Aborigines of Australia." Adelaide, 1897, 

 p. 155. 



** Ci. Vv. E. Roth: North Queensland Ethnography. Bull. 

 No.. 7. 1904. p. 21, and figs. 109 to 115. 



