Ende, Flores (jata)

jata

Source term: jata (bullroarer)

jata — the Ende name for the bullroarer and also for the distinct whizzing bow; in central Flores jata is also the Brahminy kite.

In Ende, boys swung the little bamboo jata while girls played a different whizzing bow of coconut leaf. The jata went into the fields to call rain. Farther east among the Lio, its sound meant danger: children were warned that the noise resembled a poisonous snake moving—and might bring the real animal near.

The bull-roarer is met with in Central-Flores, Endé, where it is called jata. It consists of a flat piece of bamboo about 12 cm long and 2 cm wide. A hole is pierced at one end, and a length of cord introduced. When this piece of bamboo is swung round on the cord it makes a whizzing or buzzing sound.

Jaap Kunst, Music in Flores (1942), p. 158

Particulars

Object

A flat bamboo blade about 12 × 2 cm, pierced at one end for a cord and swung to make a whizzing or buzzing sound.

Function

Swung in the fields to draw rain in the Ende region; among the neighbouring Lio, children were warned off it because its whirring was heard as a moving snake and might call real ones.