Fast Fact Tag: instrument design

No. Historical descriptions show considerable variation in length, material, width and decoration. There was no single standard didgeridoo shape.

Some early northern instruments were short. Barker described a hollow cane about three feet long, while Stokes described a bamboo instrument two to three feet long. Other writers recorded instruments around four or five feet long, and surviving examples can be longer again.

Herbert Basedow described bamboo instruments as well as long hollow eucalyptus limbs. Baldwin Spencer also recorded wax or resin around the mouth end to make a better seal, while some instruments were painted or decorated.

The evidence is therefore better understood as a family of regional instruments rather than one fixed design. Size and shape depended on available material, local tradition and how the instrument was to be played.