Mystery spear

[A. G. Maisey]

Nenggala is, I believe, North Coast Jawa terminology for this blade form, in Central Jawa it is known as a "Cis" (pron. : "chis"). The Javanese word "cis" means "angkus" or "elephant goad".

In East Jawa it is known as "pancing buaya" = "crocodile fish hook", for the very good reason that it was used as a crocodile spear.

In parts of East Jawa these were still being made & used as crocodile spears up until about 1950.

Interestingly, the word "nenggala" means "plough" in some dialects & in Balinese, it does not take much imagination to understand the similarity in form of this blade shape to the shape of a Javanese/Balinese plough blade.

Gustav

Do we know where in Raffles that this word "nenggala" appears, & if it is connected to a picture of the implement under discussion?

Amongst the plates following P296, Vol.1 there is picture of a spear that has a "forked" head, both double & single examples, that is very vaguely similar to the nenggala, but it is identified as a "tumpuling".

This name might indicate it is some sort of hunting spear : "tumpu/numpu" means to hunt , I think specifically to hunt deer --- these are guesses, but informed guesses.