Fast Fact Tag: ilpirra

No. Historical writers recorded several hollow tubes or trumpet-like instruments, and it is risky to label every one of them a didgeridoo.

Spencer and Gillen described a short Central Australian instrument called the ilpirra or ulpirra as a “rudimentary trumpet”. Their description indicates that it was used by singing or voicing through the tube rather than simply being played in the same way as the better-known northern lip-buzzed didgeridoo.

Alice Moyle later noted that old recordings and written descriptions included different trumpet forms, including the “conch”, yiki-yiki and northern wooden trumpets. Some are clearly connected with the didgeridoo tradition; others need to be treated separately unless the evidence is strong enough.

That distinction matters when reading old sources. A writer’s use of the word “trumpet” is a clue, not automatic proof that the object was the same instrument now called a didgeridoo.