Bedil (term)
Maritime Southeast Asian term for gunpowder weapons.
Bedil is a Maritime Southeast Asian term for various firearms and gunpowder weapons, from small pistols to large siege guns. The word originates from the Tamil wedil (or wediyal) and wediluppu (or wediyuppu), referring to gunpowder blast and saltpeter, respectively. After being absorbed into Malay and other archipelago languages, it came to denote all types of gunpowder-based weapons.
Quick Facts
- Origin language
- Tamil
Facts from the source article.
History
Gunpowder weapons may have been used in Java by Kublai Khan's Chinese forces during their 1293 invasion attempt. The Javanese gun of the Majapahit era was also called bedil. True firearms knowledge likely reached Southeast Asia in the late fifteenth century via Islamic nations of West Asia, probably the Arabs, no earlier than 1460. This led to the Java arquebus, also termed bedil. After the Portuguese capture of Malacca in 1511, Portuguese influence produced a hybrid matchlock firearm, the istinggar. Portuguese and Spanish invaders were occasionally outgunned; Duarte Barbosa recorded abundant gunpowder weapons in Java around 1514, including one-pounder cannons, long muskets, arquebuses, hand cannons, Greek fire, and cannons. Breech-loading swivel guns (cetbang) and muzzle-loading swivel guns (lela and rentaka) were captured by the Portuguese at Malacca. By the early 16th century, Javanese produced large guns weighing 3–8 tons and 3–6 m long, some surviving as sacred cannons. Saltpeter harvesting was common in small villages, collected from decomposing dung hills. Dutch colonial rule prohibited gunpowder ownership and manufacture, with amputation as punishment for possession. Purest sulfur came from a crater near the straits of Bali.
List of weapons classified as bedil
Weapons historically called bedil include the bedil tombak, a locally made pole gun-type hand cannon; the cetbang, a Majapahit cannon; the ekor lotong, a swivel gun resembling a lutung monkey's tail; the istinggar, a Portuguese-influenced matchlock; the Java arquebus, an early long matchlock; the lantaka, a bronze portable cannon or swivel gun; the lela, a larger cannon; the meriam, formerly a 6 lb shot cannon; the miniature meriam kecil, a novelty currency cannon; the pemuras, a blunderbuss; the rentaka, a native swivel gun; and the terakul, a dragoon pistol.
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