The Bullroarer Atlas

EXH2026-061 - secondary catalog

Sundanese (West Java)

Indonesia - Sundanese districts, West Java - Southeast Asia

Function not recorded

A Batak dengeng-dengeng from North Sumatra — a long cane switch paired with a small teardrop blade on its cord (Wereldmuseum RV-1680-1) — shown...
Representative image. A Batak dengeng-dengeng from North Sumatra — a long cane switch paired with a small teardrop blade on its cord (Wereldmuseum RV-1680-1) — shown for the general form; not the Sundanese (West Java) piece documented here. Wereldmuseum / NMVW (acc. RV-1680-1) CC BY-SA 4.0 Image source

kekinciran English

Source term: kekinciran (bullroarer)

kekinciran: Sundanese (West Java) term for the bullroarer, from the kincir / kekincir root for a whirling or spinning device; recorded in the New Grove with a cross-reference to the Borneo "jata" bullroarer entry.

Its Sundanese name is built on kincir, to whirl — the word for a thing that spins. Swung on a cord through the districts of West Java, the kekinciran roared, yet the lexicographers who caught the word never set down the occasion: who whirled it, in what season, to summon spirits or to scare them. The dictionaries pass the name hand to hand, pointing across the sea to the Dayak roarer of Borneo, and hand down a whirling word emptied of its rite.

BULLROARER of the Sundanese districts of West Java. See JATA.

New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, s.v. "Kekinciran"
Object
Bullroarer term/name-entry for the Sundanese: kekinciran.
Function
Source-checked bullroarer term/cross-entry for the Sundanese; wider regional ritual context is not row-specific in the recovered evidence.
Map confidence
medium - Priangan/Bandung area, West Java
Source location
New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, s.v. "Kekinciran"

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