Kintak Bong bĕtaling, the tiger’s call

bĕtaling

Source term: bull-roarer

bĕtaling: the Kintak Bong bullroarer name given to Evans in 1935; he compared Malay bĕrbaling.

The bĕtaling was a children’s toy with a dangerous place to play. Sound it in the forest, the Kintak Bong said, and a tiger might come looking for the companion it thought it heard. At Lubok Tapah, headman Mempelam gave Ivor Evans another identity for the sound: the ghosts’ Jew’s-harp. The living Jew’s-harp, called genggong by Malays, was cut from bamboo or palm wood. Sounding the bĕtaling in the forest offended Kaei, the thunder god; beside Kaei lay Tanogn, a dragon or snake who roared thunder whenever an offence was committed.

The bull-roarer, of which I obtained a specimen at Lubok Tapah, is used as a toy by Kintak Bong children, but Mempelam told me that it is the ghosts' Jew's-harp.

Evans 1923:177

Particulars

Object

Specimen obtained by Evans at Lubok Tapah

Function

Forbidden in the jungle, where its sound offended the thunder god Kaei and drew a tiger. Otherwise a children’s toy, also called the ghosts’ Jew’s-harp.