Here are differences between an ordinary corroboree and a sacred corroboree:
- The ordinary corroboree is performed for social amusement, storytelling, and to welcome other tribes or even curious white settlers while the sacred corroboree were used for initiation, law, connection to ancestors and totems, and religious and magical rites
- Everyone including women, children, and outsiders are allowed access to an ordinary corroboree while access to the sacred corroboree was strictly forbidden to the uninitiated, which included all women, children, and outsiders.
- During an ordinary corroboree, decorations were elaborate but made from common materials while the decorations for sacred ceremonies were vastly more elaborate and used specific sacred materials such as birds’ down (undattha), and the Waninga and Kauaua (a sacred pole smeared with blood).
- The music of the ordinary corroboree was characterized by rhythmic beating and chanting. In the Narrinyeri account women beat tightly rolled skin rugs (planggi) placed between their knees, and men beat time by knocking two waddies (tartengk) together. However, in the sacred corroboree, while chanting was still present, unique sacred instruments were used. Sadleir’s account mentions an instrument made of “a piece of hollowed wood fastened to a long piece of flax string; by whirling this rapidly round their heads a loud shrill noise was produced… the blacks seemed to attach a great degree of mystic importance to the sound of this instrument, for they told me that if a woman heard it she would die.”
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