Based on the study, here are the ways in which the Didgeridoo was used by the Aborigines of Australia:
- It was a way to fill the heavy, humid air with sound during moments of rest. It was played intermittently, “blowing occasionally,” a backdrop to the scene rather than the focus (Retribution, 1908).
- It was part of the Aboriginal soundscape, a “droning noise” as earlier described by Roderick J. Flanagan in The Aborigines of Australia, that, as Herbert Basedow noted in The Australian Aboriginal, could be heard for miles around in the stillness of the night, signaling the presence and pace of life in the north.
- Sir Baldwin Spencer documented their crucial function in the initiation ceremonies of the Northern Territory.