The origin of the “tulang mawas”
This note by H. G. Quaritch Wales, prompted by a recent find in the Raub district, argues for an Indochinese origin of the tulang mawas, a strangely shaped tool or weapon found in Malaya (p. 110).
Wales supports Sieviking’s earlier conclusion that the Malayan Iron industry derived from Indochina rather than India, noting that a tulang mawas said to have come from Indochina was once held in the Raffles Museum (p. 110). He further links the tulang mawas to the Khmer phkak, a weapon prominent in twelfth-century Angkor bas-reliefs, and to a similar tool carried by Moi (Stieng) tribesmen as illustrated by Aymonier (p. 110). Wales concludes that the phkak represents a prehistoric element of material culture that survived among the Khmers, while the tulang mawas entered Malayan Iron Age culture from Indochina and was later suppressed there by more thorough Indianization (p. 110).