Sounds of ethnography

Siamangs

Young lar gibbon

Lar gibbons: duetting couple

Gibbon family: parents and young daughter

Gibbon mother and child

Morning visit from a banded langur

A banded langur paid a visit while I was listening out for gibbons, 16 May 2023.

The call of a young gibbon

Young gibbon — on the cusp of young adulthood, the category Batek call "malar". Note the trills. He will soon be a hnikə̃p, a subadult. I believe this is the same gibbon as the one previously featured here.

Penan sapek music

Penan sapek music from the community of Long Wat, Sarawak, Malaysia. There were were three sets of father-son musicians, and all of them took turns to play the sapek, sometimes two together, sometimes more. You can also hear feet shuffling and stamping on the wooden floor — the sounds of dancing.

Thaipusam festival music

Thaipusam is a Hindu religious festival, which "represents the annual climax of Murukan worship in Malaysia. It occurs in the Tamil month of Tai (January-February). . .The festival is most noted for the extravagant displays of penance, particularly the carrying of kāvaṭi, wooden or metal arches mounted on the shoulders of devotees and often attached to sharp hooks dug into their skin" (anthropologist Raymond Lee, from his article Taipūcam in Malaysia: ecstasy and identity in a Tamil Hindu festival, Contributions to Indian Sociology vol. 23, pp. 317–337).

Making waves in Batu Feringgi

What do we hear when the world is under movement control orders? For me, I'm appreciating the sounds of waves — day and night. Listen...