Jalor (Yala) Malays

baling / baling / berbaling

Source term: baling

Malay baling (also berbaling), "whizzing-stick," the term Annandale and Robinson recorded at Jalor. At Biserat, W. W. Skeat took down another name: brong-brong gajah, gajah being "elephant."

Etymology. Malay baling (also berbaling) means "turnabout" — something that whirls or turns around, from the verb baling, to whirl or throw in a circular motion overhead. The same word also names the toy wind-mills.

In the Malay villages of Jalor, now Yala in southern Thailand, the baling or berbaling drove elephants out of the plantations: a very thin bamboo blade, eight inches by three-quarters, strung to a slender stick and whirled to a hum. When Annandale and Robinson collected one at Kampong Jalor in 1901-02 the device was already nearly obsolete, kept up mainly as a child's toy — a farm voice slipping into play.

Now almost obsolete, but occasionally made as a Malay child's toy. Formerly it was used for scaring elephants from plantations.

Annandale & Robinson, Fasciculi Malayenses, Anthropology Pt II(a) (1904), p. 11, item 31

Particulars

Object

Very thin bamboo blade (~8 in) on a string and stick, whirled to produce a humming sound. PRM 1902.88.100 is a complete Jalor example: blade 200 x 17 mm, with cord and a 330 mm whirling stick.

Function

Formerly used to scare elephants from plantations; now nearly obsolete, occasionally a child's toy.