Bandai (gong)

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Bandai , also bebendai, babendai, bandil, babandih, selegai, is a flat hanging hump gong made of bronze , which is mostly used in a gong ensemble in the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah . The bandai (in Sarawak), like the bandil (in Sabah), is usually played by women. A large gong ensemble that performs at ritual events and to accompany dance is called engkerumong in Sarawak and kulintangan in Sabah . A typical gong ensemble includes a melody-leading row of gongs , a barrel drum gendang and hanging hump gongs: a bandai , a smaller flat gong canang , two larger tawaks with a high rim and a very large gong agung . The flat bandai have a lower material and ideal value than the gongs with a higher rim.

origin

Bronze gongs of every shape and size are the most important traditional musical instruments in much of Southeast Asia. No later than the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Kettle gongs - known as " bronze drums ", which are associated with the Dong Son culture and still have a cultic significance in some areas , emerged in the region of southern China and Vietnam . Regardless of an earlier find from the Han Dynasty, it is certain that bronze gongs were in use in China from the beginning of the 6th century AD. Since 9/10 In the 19th century, humpback gongs were widespread across the Southeast Asian mainland and islands. Finds from sunken ships in the South China Sea around Borneo are divided into an early period from the 9th to the 13th centuries, when flat gongs, cymbals and bells were common, and into a second period from the 13th to the 17th centuries. The ships that sank on the coasts mainly contained humpback gongs as musical instruments. Large companies that manufacture gongs are mainly based on Java . The entire Malay island world is now supplied by gongs from Java. In the past, the gongs were mainly made in Brunei .

In Southeast Asia bronze gongs are the most diverse instrument group among the idiophones and in Malaysia they occur almost exclusively in the form of humpback gongs. Borneo belongs to the Southeast Asian cultural region of the gong circles (several differently tuned, recumbent humpback gongs in a row), which includes Myanmar ( hsaing waing ), Thailand ( pi phat ), southern Philippines ( kulintang ) and the Sunda Islands ( gamelan ). In Malaysia, humpback gongs are part of ensembles that accompany song, dance, theater and rituals. The humpback gongs have also reached the jungle areas of Borneo, where there are often only one or two gongs in an ensemble and these few gongs are struck rhythmically. In the entire region, however, gongs are used more often to form melodies, this also applies to the gong rows that belong to the gong ensembles in Borneo.

The population of Borneo is generally divided into Muslims ( Malays ) and non-Muslims ( Dayaks ). The term Dayak encompasses the original, inland peoples whose religion typically combines Christian and animistic elements. In the special Malay-Islamic culture with oriental roots, gongs are usually missing, only in some urban stage performances, for example in the dance form Zapin , humpback gongs can be used.

Outside of music, humpback gongs are essential as ritual objects. Some gong types represent the wealth of a family and are highly valued. Gong ensembles play in Borneo at ceremonial and social events. They are used in some places to create a connection to the powers on the other side through music and dance. One of the cosmogonic ideas of the Lotud, an ethnic group of the Dusun in Sabah, is the ritual Mamahui Pogun (“purification of the world”), in which the world has to be purified and renewed with the help of gongs in order to avert disasters that would otherwise arise.

Many of the gongs that exist in Borneo are over 100 years old, they were not and are not made locally, but come from Java or Brunei. Some are commodities from the south of the Philippines, only large flat gongs come from China. The old gongs came to their owners as individual pieces through the exchange of goods, compensation payments or, in the case of higher classes, through bride price payments .

Names

Babandil , a similar gong in the Kulintang ensemble. Handling atypical

Variants of the name bandai are bebendai or bandil among the Iban and other ethnic groups in Sarawak and bandil in Sabah. Individual hanging gongs with a related name in the southern Philippine Kulintang ensemble are called babandil or babendil for the Magindanaon ( Maguindanao province ) and babndir for the Maranao ( Lanao del Sur province ). Bandai, Bandil, babandil and similar notations are the old Javanese word Bende returned, which represents a small hanging gong according to Jaap Kunst not in the 1930s in Java in actual gamelan played, but as a sacred instrument of Kraton of Yogyakarta at Processions was carried. In today's Balinese gamelan beleganjur , a bendé occurs in an unusual shape as a large hanging humpback gong with an inward curvature in the middle. The word is known from two written sources from the 14th century: the Ranggalawe dated 1341 and the verse epic Kleid Sunda from the end of the 14th century. Bendé in these texts is translated as a cymbal or small gong. The Kajang in Sarawak call the gong selegai .

Design

Humpback gongs have a bent edge and a bulge in the middle. The diameter of the bandai is a maximum of 40 to 50 centimeters. The edge is bent three centimeters or a little more. Such a flat edge distinguishes the bandai , which are part of the gong kecil (“small gong”), from the gong besar (“large gong”, also the name of an ensemble) or tawag called gongs with a high edge bent at an acute angle. These two types of gong are used equally. In some bandai , the area around the small hump in the middle is decorated with geometric patterns or dragon figures. A short string, which is attached to two holes on the edge, serves as a handle. The bandai is played hanging and struck on the hump or on the edge with a wooden stick.

Similar medium-sized flat gongs with a small hump are called canang (“hand gong”, “small gong”) in Malaysia and Indonesia . They are played in a wooden box individually ( canang tunggal , "sole gong"), in pairs or in groups of six in a gong circle in different ensembles. The largest gong in Sarawak is the gong agung , a hanging humpback gong with a wide rim and in Malaysia with a diameter of at least 76 centimeters.

Style of play

In a large ensemble for hanging gongs in Sarawak ( gong besar ), as occurs with the Kayan , Kajang and Bidayuh , which are part of the Dayaks , bandai are used together with the large gong agung , the medium-sized wide-rimmed gong tawag (also tawak-tawak ), the smaller flat gong canang (also gan ) and a single-headed tubular drum ( katoa and other names) played. The plural tawak-tawak refers to two gongs that hang in a frame with the face facing each other.

The Iban and Bidayuh in Sarawak own the ensemble engkerumong , which got its name from a series of five to nine small humpback gongs in a wooden box. The name of the gong row is related to the keromong in Terengganu Gamalan and corresponds to the kulintangan in Sabah. The row of gong struck with two wooden sticks is the leading melodic instrument, which, like the other gongs, is usually played by women while the men beat the drums. Two or more hanging gongs ( bandai or tawak ) and one or two drums serve as accompaniment . The engkerumong ensemble plays on various occasions, including the annual harvest festival gawai . The music for this is called gendang kawai . The ensemble also plays the accompanying music for war dances, gendang ajat , the wedding music gendang ngambi bini and the music gendang berumah , which is needed for the construction of a new house.

In another gong ensemble of the Bidayuh, the three differently sized humpback gongs ketawak (also katawak , corresponds to tawak ), bandil and sanang with the rare flat gong puum are played together at seasonal festivals and religious rituals as well as to greet visitors.

Batitik is a gong ensemble of the Bajau in Sabah, in which the melody-leading kulintangan (a row of humpback gongs corresponding to the southern Philippine kulintang ) is accompanied by two large hanging gongs ( gong besar ), two smaller bandil and two hand-struck barrel drums ( gendang ). Over the course of the four to eight hour performance, the musicians gradually increase their playing style to a frenzied tempo that they can only maintain for a short time. The close cultural contacts to the southern Philippines explain the musical forms adopted by the kulintang ensemble there . The bandil is also found among other ethnic groups in Sabah. Among the Dusun , the bandil, along with the gong besar , the mouth organ sumpotan and the barrel drum, are gendang among the most popular musical instruments. The same applies to the Murut , but where a tagunggak -called set of several bamboo gongs is paramount popularity. Muslim ethnic groups in Sabah prefer the kulintangan , the bamboo xylophone gabbang, the plucked gambus and the biola (violin) to the bandil and the gong besar .

A Dayak gong ensemble in the Ketapang administrative district in the Indonesian province of Kalimantan Barat (on the upper Jelai River) consists of the melody-leading kelinang (series of eight humpback gongs), a barrel drum gendang and, depending on the occasion, additional gongs, for example three babandih and one tawak . The four individual gongs are each operated by a musician.

In general, up to nine hanging gongs with diameters between 30 and over 70 centimeters are used in a large ensemble in Borneo, which are struck rhythmically together with the horizontal row of gongs and the drum (English: interlocking ). Often the drummer gives a rhythmic pattern with four beats, which is taken up by the player of the gong row and the player of the large hanging gong ( gong agung ). A musician emphasizes every second beat of the rhythm pattern with the small hanging gong, which is kept practically unchanged until the end. With the unison strike on the smallest gong of the gong row, a high drone is added. The piece, which began at a medium pace, is accelerated towards the end.

Other cultural significance

The appreciation for bandai, bandil and other flat gongs in Sarawak and Sabah is less than for the large gongs. In principle, like all gongs, they can be used as the bride price in individual cases, which is to be paid by the groom to the father of the bride and his family. The bride price can also consist of money, water buffalo and Chinese ceramic vases.

The term canang kimanis (also chanang or chenang kimanis ), which is occasionally heard instead of bandil, stands, as Ivor HN Evans reported in 1922, for a very valuable small gong that is considerably more expensive than a gong agung . Evans notes that the gongs were made in Java, Brunei or possibly China. Their value was offset against a certain number of water buffalo and by 1922 could be around $ 200. Owen Rutter (1929) mentions an extremely unusual gong with two humps and the associative name chenang betina ("small female gong") in the district of Kimanis .

literature

  • Edward M. Frame: The Musical Instruments of Sabah, Malaysia. In: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 26, No. May 2, 1982, pp. 247-274
  • Patricia Matusky: Bandai . In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Vol. 1, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 214
  • Patricia Matusky: An Introduction to the Major Instruments and Forms of Traditional Malay Music. In: Asian Music, Vol. 16, No. 2, Spring-Summer 1985, pp. 121-182

Individual evidence

  1. Matusky, 1985, p. 126
  2. ^ Arsenio Nicolas: Gongs, Bells, and Cymbals: The Archaeological Record in Maritime Asia. From the Ninth to the Seventeenth Centuries. In: Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 41, 2009, pp. 62–93, here pp. 62f
  3. Matusky, 1985, p. 126
  4. See Jacqueline Pugh-Kitingan, Hanafi Hussin, Judeth John Baptist: Symbolic Articulation of Interactions between the Seen and the Unseen through Gong Music and Dance in the Lotud Mamahui Pogun. In: Borneo Research Journal , Vol. 3, 2009, pp. 221-237
  5. a b Frame, 1982, p. 254
  6. VK Gorlinski: gongs among the Kenyah Uma 'jalan: Past and Present position of an instrumental tradition . In: Yearbook for Traditional Music , Vol. 26, 1994, pp. 81-99, here p. 84
  7. Danongan S. Kalanduyan: Magindanaon Kulintang Music: Instruments, repertoire, performance contexts, and social functions . In: Asian Music , Vol. 27, No. 2, spring – summer 1996, pp. 3–18, here p. 10
  8. ^ Jaap Art : Music in Java. Its History, its Theory and its Technique . Vol. 1. Springer Science + Business Media, Dordrecht 1949, p. 150
  9. Michael B. Bakan: Music of Death and New Creation: Experiences in the World of Balinese Gamelan Belanjur. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago / London 1999, p. 43f
  10. Arsenio Magsino Nicolas: Musical exchange in early Southeast Asia: the Philippines and Indonesia, CA. 100 to 1600 CE. Cornell University, New York 2007, p. 186
  11. Matusky, 2014, p. 214
  12. Matusky, 1985, p. 127
  13. Large Brass Gong (Tawak-tawak). Sarawak (Malaysia) or Brunei 18th – 19th century. michaelbackmanltd.com (image tawak-tawak )
  14. See Haji Mubin Sheppard: Joget Gamalan Trengganu . In: Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society , Vol. 40, No. 1 (211), July 1967, pp. 149-152
  15. Matusky, 1985, pp. 166f
  16. Don Michael Randel (Ed.): The Harvard Dictionary of Music . The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) 2003, p. 828
  17. ^ Frame, 1982, p. 273
  18. ^ Philip Yampolsky: Supplement to the CD Kalimantan: Dayak Ritual and Festival Music. (Music of Indonesia 17) Smithsonian Folkways 1998, p. 14
  19. Patricia Matusky: Borneo: Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei, Kalimantan In: Terry E. Miller (Ed.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 4: Southeast Asia. Routledge, London 1998, p. 830
  20. ^ Frame, 1982, p. 250
  21. ^ Ivor Hugh Norman Evans : Among Primitive Peoples in Borneo. Seeley, Service & Co., London 1922, pp. 131, 135 ( at Internet Archive )
  22. ^ Owen Rutter : The Pagans of North Borneo. Hutchinson and Co, London 1929, p. 112; after: Heinrich Simbriger : Gong and gong games . ( Franz Boas et al. (Ed.): International Archives for Ethnography, Volume 36) EJ Brill, Leiden 1938, p. 29