{"id":"SEA-012","label":"Baling, the whirling fishing-rod rig","people_or_site":"Pattani","country_current":"Thailand","historic_region":"Pattani, lower Siam (Malay coast)","macroregion":"Southeast Asia / Mainland","local_name":"baling / berbaling","source_term":"baling","source_language":"","object_description":"A wooden blade of sword shape, 256 x 25 mm, on a cord tied to a 1.2 m stick — the complete rig, collected 1901-02 (PRM 1902.88.99).","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"review2026","source_type":"museum_catalog_record","source_url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-200356","page_or_plate":"PRM 1902.88.99","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Pattani town, the museum's recorded collection place.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In the market town of Pattani, on the Malay coast of lower Siam, the naturalists Nelson Annandale and Herbert Robinson picked up a whirling rig built like a fishing rod: a sword-shaped blade a quarter-metre long, corded to a stick that runs past a metre. Its maker was a Patani boatman, the same man who had made W. W. Skeat the pair of \"bamboo spears\" that gave mainland Asia its first recorded bull-roarer. The Malay name, baling or berbaling, is the word for whirling round; inland at Jalor the same expedition found its small twin driving elephants out of the plantations.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"Malay baling / berbaling, 'to whirl, revolve' — the name the expedition recorded at both Pattani and Jalor.","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Pitt Rivers Museum 1902.88.99, Pattani, collected by N. Annandale & H. C. Robinson (purchased 1902)","url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-200356","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260917174840/https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39663"},{"citation":"Henry Balfour, 'Report on a Collection of Musical Instruments from the Siamese Malay States and Perak,' in Annandale & Robinson, Fasciculi Malayenses, Anthropology Pt II(a) (1904), pp. 11-12, item 32","url":"https://archive.org/details/fasciculimalayen02anna/page/11/mode/1up"}],"source_citations":"Pitt Rivers Museum 1902.88.99, Pattani, collected by N. Annandale & H. C. Robinson (purchased 1902); Henry Balfour, 'Report on a Collection of Musical Instruments from the Siamese Malay States and Perak,' in Annandale & Robinson, Fasciculi Malayenses, Anthropology Pt II(a) (1904), pp. 11-12, item 32","source_display":"Pitt Rivers Museum 1902.88.99, Pattani, collected by N. Annandale & H. C. Robinson (purchased 1902); Henry Balfour, 'Report on a Collection of Musical Instruments from the Siamese Malay States and Perak,' in Annandale & Robinson, Fasciculi Malayenses, Anthropology Pt II(a) (1904), pp. 11-12, item 32","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A wooden blade of sword shape, 256 x 25 mm, on a cord tied to a 1.2 m stick — the complete rig, collected 1901-02 (PRM 1902.88.99).","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"pattani","display_name":"Baling, the whirling fishing-rod rig","image":{"full":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_18/SEA-012_prm_1902_88_99.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/review_2026_07_18/thumbs/SEA-012_prm_1902_88_99_thumb.jpg","credit":"© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1902.88.99)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum — non-commercial/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-200356","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The whole Pattani rig: the pointed blade on its cord, beside the long crooked stick that swung it."},"slug":"sea-012-pattani"}