Yeah, I guess "gelung" could have been used differently in past times. I've just asked a couple of native speakers of Javanese and their immediate answer was that it could only be used for women, but then when I asked if it could be used for a man if he had long hair, after discussion between themselves they decided that it could be, so since wayang characters have long hair it seems legitimate to use it in that context --- or, as you say, it could be a legit wayang term. I know very little about wayang so I don't have any opinion on this.
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