Gongs

Bronze Musical Instruments  in the History of Music in Thailand and Southeast Asia

Paper read at the 14th International Conference on Thai Studies, “Thailand at a Global Turning Point“. April 29 - May 1, 2022, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Japan

Sources for the study on the history of music of Thailand and Southeast Asia provide a working chronology of bronze musical instruments and may be enumerated as follows : dated sites with pellet bells, cave paintings, excavated bronze drums, gongs, bells and cymbals in shipwrecks, temple bas reliefs and paintings, and references in inscriptions and literary works. These archaeological records document the successive changes in the musical life in Thailand in relation to Asia and the rise of new musical ideas, a legacy that is much shared across contemporary Asia today. Recent new data allows for a reinterpretation of the network of gong cultures in Southeast Asia.

This paper presents two problems in the study of gongs in shipwrecks in Southeast Asia.

The first refers to the distribution of shipwrecks with flat gongs, dated 10th to 13th centuries along the east coast of Borneo, the Java Sea and Sumatra. These ships are identified as originating from Guangdong, Fujian, and Quanzhou. So far, no flat gongs have been found on excavated shipwrecks along the coasts of Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand and West Malaysia, as well as beyond Java.  After the 13th century, no shipwrecks have been found to carry flat gongs.  However, from the 16th century on, Spanish dictionaries and documents in the Philippines have described flat gongs, and whose names are generally called gangsa, similar to the Isan term panghat today, both derived from the Sanskrit term kangsa. Flat gongs called luo are today widespread played in Chinese temples in Southeast Asia.

The second refers to the distribution of shipwrecks with bossed gongs dated 12th to 15th century Bossed gongs have been found in five shipwrecks in the Gulf of Thailand and the Riau Archipelago --- Rang Kwien (13th-14th CE), Dam Island (Phu Quoc, 14th-15th CE), Klang Aow (Sattahip, 16th CE)) --- dated 13th to the 16th centuries, Dam (Phu Quoc) off south Vietnam (14th-15th CE), and 15th century Riau-Lingga site. No shipwrecks with bossed gongs have been excavated on the eastern shores of Vietnam, West Malaysia, as well as beyond Java.

This presentation updates my article “Gongs, Bells and Cymbals. The Archaeological Record in Maritime Asia from the Ninth to the Seventeenth Century, CE” (2009)

The Sanskrit term kangsa appears in dated inscriptions in Old Khmer in the seventh century; Old Cham in the ninth, tenth and twelfth centuries; and in Old Javanese from the ninth century, thereby establishing a firm reference for a historical sequence is Southeast Asia.  A new 16th century dating of the bas-reliefs of musical instruments in the bas reliefs of the North gallery-East wing of the third enclosure of 12th century Angkor Wat, is proposed, based on studies on inscriptions and stylistic features of the reliefs.

This paper discusses how Igorots of the Cordillera Administrative Region in the Philippines negotiate their indigeneity through performance in an urban center like Baguio City. Baguio City, a highly urbanized city located in Benguet Province, is said to be a melting pot of different indigenous groups from the different provinces in the region.  My paper argues that indigeniety and identity, which moves in a constant state of flux, is not a cultural given but rather a continuous process of negotiation. I intend to build on discussions on how the different modes of performance- playing the gangsa (Igorot flat gongs), dancing, chanting, singing in schools, and other institutions, and performing rituals are ways in which identity and indigeneity are articulated by the indigenous peoples in urban centers, where the concept of “ili” or village and community is not as clearly defined and observed. With descriptions of the environmental and social milieu of an urban center like Baguio, and taking into account the issues of globalization, de-territorialization, modernization and urbanization, this paper explores the many ways indigenous peoples culturally adapt in such an environment through different performance modes and creation of new performance and ritual spaces. This paper also argues that indigenous peoples are agents of their own identity building and that they continually assert their presence while adapting to the changing times by finding ways to articulate, create, and negotiate their identity in an ever-changing and transcultural city.

Papre read at the 10th International Conference of East Asian Music Archaeology, East Asia Music Archaeology Academy, South China Normal University, Guang Zhou, PROC, October 11-14, 2018


Chronologically, three bronze music cultures may be identified in Asia. The present scholarship describes these three as having distinct and separate histories, metallurgy, and cultural contexts.

Thai Summary of Nicolas 2009 Gongs, Bells and Cymbals.  In Janejira Benjapong, compiler and Sujit Wongthes, editor. 2012. Southeast Asia Music : Development of Southeast Asia Music Research Project for Southeast Asia Music Museum of College of Music, Mahidol University. Bangkok : College of Music, Mahidol University.

An excerpt from one of my contributions to the yet unpublished book "Karoo Cosmos". This narrative is of great ethnographic value among other things because is one of the few indigenous accounts of the use and function of rock gongs in an area laden with rock engravings. The narrative was told in November 1879 by /xam storyteller /han=kass'o, who had heard the story from his wife, who was present during the cataclismic flood that almost wiped out the Karoo town of Victoria West in the night of 27-28 February 1871.