The Bullroarer Atlas

HAD1898-020 - secondary catalog

Patani Malay boatman, Kuala Langat / Selangor

Malaysia - Thailand - Kuala Langat District, Selangor (Federated Malay States, British Malaya) - Southeast Asia - Malay Peninsula

Play / practical

Fig. 40 of Haddon's comparative plate of bull-roarers, engraving nineteen specimens side by side; no. 7, the slim blade on the left of the...
Fig. 40 of Haddon's comparative plate of bull-roarers, engraving nineteen specimens side by side; no. 7, the slim blade on the left of the plate, is the Patani Malay lembing buluh of the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, drawn from Walter Skeat's description of a boatman's instrument at Kuala Langat, Selangor. A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), fig. 40 Public domain Image source

lembing buluh English

Source term: lembing buluh / bamboo spear

lembing buluh — Malay for "bamboo spear," the name the Patani boatman gave the two bull-roarers Skeat collected from him.

Etymology. Haddon/Skeat explicitly translate `lembing buluh` as bamboo spear. (high confidence)

In the Kuala Langat district of Selangor, W. Skeat of the Federated Malay States Service collected a pair of bull-roarers from a Patani boatman, who called them lembing buluh, "bamboo spear." Swung on their cords, they were used to scare elephants away from the plantations, and one informant told Skeat they "make a noise like a tiger." Haddon, publishing the report in 1898, treated it as the first record of the bull-roarer anywhere on the mainland of Asia, and noted that frightening animals with the sound paralleled the way the Bushmen of South Africa and boys in Galicia and Scotland used the same instrument.

The bull-roarers (Fig. 40, No. 7) are used for scaring elephants away from the plantations. One informant said "they make a noise like a tiger." This is the first record of the occurrence of the bull-roarer on the mainland of Asia.

Haddon 1898, The Study of Man, pp. 298-299
Function
Bullroarers used to scare elephants from plantations; described as sounding like a tiger.
Map confidence
medium - representative coordinate for named people, place, or region in Haddon
Source location
pp. 298-299; Fig. 40 no. 7

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