Urban myths about recognizing genuine Australian didgeridoos

You are out to buy your first didgeridoo, but how can you recognize an authentic Australian didgeridoo? Easy! Everybody becomes an instant expert on didgeridoos just by listening to some urban myths, even though they cannot tell apart hardwood, eucalyptus didgeridoo from softwood or bamboo didgeridoo, not even from a moulded one.

•   By pushing your fingers into the mouth of didgeridoos (like when you buying a horse) you'll instantly recognize the hallmarks the termites leave behind.

You can be wrong even if we suppose you've seen a couple of split termite hollowed branches (but it is rarely the case). You could miss out on the very fine Naiuwa didgeridoos, because the waxing is done by dipping the didge into the melted mass of the beeswax. The procedure gives a perfect grip, an easy to keep hygienically clean glossy surface, but also an up to 5 cm-s (2'-s) deep very smooth inner surface the wax covers. Apart from the fact that the fingering in this case will not help you, it is very unhygienic: if someone played the didgeridoo for a considerable time before your fingering, it can be very slimy and filled with bugs (pfuj!), but it is sexy and people cannot resist to push their fingers into the mouthpiece of the didgeridoo.

•   Look into the base of didgeridoos to see the grooves the termites left behind. (First the mouth, now the 'behind'!)

Wrong again, because most of the grooves at the base can be chiselled away for good, to improve on the sound quality of the didgeridoo. By making the opening at the base of didgeridoos wider, using a chisel, rasp or file, you can make the didgeridoo more responsive, the sound clearer and louder (look at the brass instruments and clarinets). And by making the base wider is the only way to fine tune a didgeridoo downwards - by shortening it, you do the didgeridoo tuning upwards, to the next higher tone.

*In the museum of the Benedictine Monastery of New Norcia in Western Australia there is on display a nicely scratched drone tube - kalumburu in the local language - from the pre-commercial era of the didgeridoo donated by Father Th. Hernandez. Its base is flared out to a very smooth surface, I suppose, to improve the sound quality of the instrument. So, the Aborigines used this technic before the occurrence of any need or push to cheat for material gain.

Amusingly enough, most people are applying this method exactly in reverse, to reject, as drilled or manufactured, some very good Australian didgeridoos.*
•   Just ask for a printed copy of authenticity.

To some people, with a printed authenticity label you can sell an exhaust pipe as genuine Australian didgeridoo. Without that carbon copy you cannot sell them even the most natural looking stick with bark, branches and the termites still inside. For large companies, who are making didgeridoos on an industrial scale, the printing of a fancy label with big words will not blow out the advertising budget. But when you are a small operator, than even the hassle and red tape to obtain a free authenticity label from the National Indigenous Arts Advocacy Association (NIAAA) can be a frightening adventure. With such mouthful of a name, no wander...