No. KUNST1973-001Southeast Asia
Alor bamboo humming toy
Indonesia · Alor Island, Alor Regency, East Nusa Tenggara (Lesser Sunda Islands) · Southeast Asia
Play / practical
Source term: bull-roarer (Kunst’s first Javanese form, the (o)wer-(o)wer)
On Alor, the rugged island at the eastern end of the Lesser Sunda chain north of Timor, children swung a sliver of bamboo on a string: a narrow, thin lath pierced at one end, which hums as it turns. It took the same guise as in Java and kept the same company, the whizzing bow, a strip of coconut leaf folded over a bent leaf-rib and whirled on a long rib for a cord. On Alor, as on Java, Nias and Timor, both had come down to the rank of toys.
They have been degraded to the rank of toys in these places, as well in Java
Jaap Kunst, Music in Java (3rd ed., 1973), vol. I, p. 241
Particulars
- Object
- A narrow, thin bamboo lath with a small hole at one end for its cord, swung round to hum; reported on Alor in exactly the form of the Javanese toy.
- Function
- A children’s toy.
Sources
- Jaap Kunst, Music in Java: Its History, Its Theory and Its Technique, 3rd enlarged ed. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), vol. I, pp. 240–241. View
- Jaap Kunst, “Indonesische Musik,” Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 1st ed., vol. 6, col. 1195.