{"id":"SEA-009","label":"Kayan (Borneo) padi-clearing bullroarer","people_or_site":"Kayan, Baram and Rejang rivers, Sarawak","country_current":"Malaysia","historic_region":"Sarawak rivers, Sea Dayak country","macroregion":"Southeast Asia / Borneo","local_name":"","source_term":"","source_language":"","object_description":"Wooden bull-roarer used as a boys' toy, sometimes suspended on a cross-piece of a tree left standing when clearing jungle for padi.","function_summary":"A boys' toy; and when jungle was cleared for padi, a bull-roarer was sometimes hung on the cross-piece of a spirit-tree left for the Toh, to dangle and flicker in the breeze.","attestation_type":"secondary_catalog","source_key":"mining2026","source_type":"secondary_literature","source_url":"https://archive.org/stream/pagantribesofbor02hose/pagantribesofbor02hose_djvu.txt","page_or_plate":"p. 23","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Middle Baram River Kayan country (Long Lama reach) — the heart of Hose's Residency and of the book's Kayan material; regional anchor.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"When the Kayan cleared jungle for padi, a few trees were left standing on high ground as resting-places for the Toh, the spirits of the locality. A tree might be stripped of its branches, with a pole lashed across the stem and bunches of palm leaves hung from it. A bullroarer was sometimes hung on this cross-piece too, to dangle and flicker in the breeze. The same instrument was a boys’ toy.","pull_quote":"Death and sickness, especially madness, accidental bodily injuries, failure of crops, in fact almost any trouble may be ascribed to the malevolent action of Toh.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Hose & McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo (1912), vol. II, p. 23","term_gloss":"","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["agriculture","toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Hose & McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo (1912), vol. II, p. 23","url":"https://archive.org/details/pagantribesofbor02hose/page/23/mode/1up"}],"source_citations":"Hose & McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo (1912), vol. II, p. 23","source_display":"Hose & McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo (1912), vol. II, p. 23","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Wooden bull-roarer used as a boys' toy, sometimes suspended on a cross-piece of a tree left standing when clearing jungle for padi.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"secondary catalog","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"kayan","display_name":"Kayan (Borneo) padi-clearing bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/BATCH4-020.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/BATCH4-020_thumb.jpg","alt":"A Kenyah and Klemantan child's bullroarer, with a long wooden spindle and shorter flattened blade tied together at one end.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum, As1905,-.629","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_As1905-629","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Kenyah bullroarer rig from the Baram River.","pool_id":"auto-BATCH4-020"},"slug":"sea-009-kayan-baram-and-rejang-rivers-sarawak"}