The “ palang” concept extended: Ma Huan, 1433 A.D
Tom Harrisson presents a newly available English translation of a passage from Ma Huan’s Ying-yai Sheng-lan (1433), documenting a Thai penis bead-insertion practice, as further evidence for the widespread historical distribution of male genital modification in Southeast Asia.
Summary
Harrisson draws on Dr. J. V. G. Mills’s 1970 Hakluyt Society edition of Ma Huan’s text, which records that in Siam in 1433 men of the upper classes had tin or gold beads inserted into the skin surrounding the membrum virile, with specialist operators performing the procedure as a profession (p. 89). The author argues this constitutes a clear parallel between Buddhist Thai and animist Dayak practices, even though the mainland form lacks the actual bar device characteristic of the Borneo palang (p. 90). He suggests the bar may have developed from bead insertions or vice versa, and that the new record strengthens his earlier hypothesis of a mainland connection, possibly with Tantric Buddhism. The note closes by listing the known geographical distribution of such practices—Borneo, the Philippines, Java, Celebes, and now Thailand—and calls for further study of diffusion routes, particularly via the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra (p. 90).