{"id":"SEA-010","label":"Narom bullroarer, Lower Baram, Sarawak","people_or_site":"Narom (?), Lower Baram, Sarawak","country_current":"Malaysia","historic_region":"Sarawak / ?Narom","macroregion":"Southeast Asia / Borneo","local_name":"","source_term":"Bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Cambridge MAA E 1916.142 A: a bullroarer attached to a stick.","function_summary":"Swung to scare birds from the padi (rice) fields — the use Hose was told at the Kenyah discovery, and which the Narom, who knew the instrument well and used it frequently, confirmed.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"MAA_E_1916_142_A","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/497733/","page_or_plate":"MAA E 1916.142 A","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Representative Sarawak anchor; ?Narom locality not independently geocoded.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On Borneo the bullroarer earned its keep in the rice fields. Charles Hose first came upon one in a Kenyah house up the Tinjar River and was told it was swung to scare birds off the padi; when he showed his find to the Narom, a small people of the lower Baram near Claudetown (today's Marudi), they knew the instrument well, used it often, and made him several to order — flat spear-head-shaped blades with two projecting 'ears' at the corded end, whirled from a stick nearly a metre long. The slat here, lashed to its stick, was collected by the Cambridge anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon.","pull_quote":"Dr. C. Hose first discovered the bull-roarer in Borneo in a Kenyah house up the Tinjar River, Baram district and was told that it was used to scare birds off the padi fields; Dr. Hose bought the unique specimen and subsequently showed it to some Narom, a tribe living near Claudetown, Baram River; the Narom stated that they were well acquainted with the instrument and frequently used it; they made several specimens to order.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"R. Shelford, 'An Illustrated Catalogue of the Ethnographical Collection of the Sarawak Museum — Part I, Musical Instruments', Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 40 (1904), pp. 58-59.","term_gloss":"","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, E 1916.142 A; R. Shelford, 'An Illustrated Catalogue of the Ethnographical Collection of the Sarawak Museum, Part I: Musical Instruments,' Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 40 (1904), pp. 58-59, no. 1121","url":"https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/497733/","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013133233/https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/497733/"}],"source_citations":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, E 1916.142 A; R. Shelford, 'An Illustrated Catalogue of the Ethnographical Collection of the Sarawak Museum, Part I: Musical Instruments,' Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 40 (1904), pp. 58-59, no. 1121","source_display":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, E 1916.142 A; R. Shelford, 'An Illustrated Catalogue of the Ethnographical Collection of the Sarawak Museum, Part I: Musical Instruments,' Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 40 (1904), pp. 58-59, no. 1121","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Cambridge MAA E 1916.142 A: a bullroarer attached to a stick.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"narom","display_name":"Narom bullroarer, Lower Baram, Sarawak","image":{"full":"assets/objects/BATCH4-021.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/BATCH4-021_thumb.jpg","alt":"A wooden bull-roarer blade and its separate long stick handle lie apart, joined by a cord; the flat blade widens to a point.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum, As1905,-.630","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_As1905-630","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A wooden bull-roarer with a separate carved stick handle."},"slug":"sea-010-narom-lower-baram-sarawak"}