The Bullroarer Atlas

EXH2026-033 - secondary catalog

East-coast Malays

Malaysia - East-coast Malay states (Pahang-Terengganu-Kelantan) - Southeast Asia - Malay Peninsula

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Haddon's 1898 comparative plate of bullroarers, drawn from museum specimens and published descriptions; no. 7, sketched from W. Skeat's...
Haddon's 1898 comparative plate of bullroarers, drawn from museum specimens and published descriptions; no. 7, sketched from W. Skeat's account, is the Patani Malay lembing buluh of the east-coast Malay Peninsula documented here. A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), fig. 40 Public domain Image source

lembing buluh English

Source term: bull-roarer

lembing buluh — Malay for "bamboo spear" (lembing = spear), the name Haddon records, citing W. Skeat, for the thin board whirled on a string.

A Malay bull-roarer with a working job. W. Skeat of the Federated Malay States Service collected a pair of them from a Patani boatman in the Kuala-Langat District of Selangor and reported their use to A. C. Haddon, who published the note in The Study of Man (1901). The Malays called the thin whirling blade by a name Skeat glossed as "bamboo spear," and swung it not in any rite but to drive elephants off the plantations; one man said it "make[s] a noise like a tiger." Haddon flagged it as the first record of the bull-roarer on the mainland of Asia, and set the elephant-scaring trick beside the same homely use among the Bushmen of South Africa and farm boys in Galicia and Scotland. Here the roar guards the gardens, with no secret cult, no spirit behind it, and no rule keeping women away.

Mr. W. Skeat, of the Federated Malay States Service, has informed me that he has collected a couple of bull-roarers (lembing buluh, "bamboo spear") from a Patani boatman, of the Kuala-Langat District in Selangor. Patani is an Independent Malay State on the East Coast of the Malay Peninsula. The bull-roarers ... are used for scaring elephants away from the plantations. One informant said "they make a noise like a tiger."

A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1901), "The Bull-Roarer," pp. 298-299, reporting W. Skeat
Object
Not described.
Function
East-coast Malay bull-roarer presence note; no rite or function recorded in the checked source.
Map confidence
low - Pahang coast (broad regional anchor)
Source location
Haddon 1901, The Study of Man, pp. 298-299, Fig. 40 No. 7

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