Origin of bronze Lantaka?

This 4-foot-long Lantaka has about a 1.5” bore. Lantaka aka Lela were used for money in many countries of Southeast Asia. They look like cannons and some were certainly made as weapons, but I’m told most have bores unsuited to pairing projectiles. Precious little reliable written information exists on these items.

This one is unusual in that the Cascabel (tubular extension of the breech) has. Square hole in it. Every other one of the hundreds of Lantaka I’ve inspected has a round hole in the Cascabel. I’m pretty sure that square hole means that Lantaka was cast in a different place from all those with round holes, but where is that? Do the decorations on the barrel indicate the origin?
More photos coming.

 

Difficult to say. I've seen this style with the lotus petal shapes from Malaysia and Brunei.

 

Notice the small brown areas, usually rectangles. These are the outside ends of chaplets, which are steel pins inserted in the mold to hold cores in place when the molten bronze is poured in. Cores are removed and cut/filed off after the bronze has solidified and cooled. Cores are used as a quick way to make hollow cavities in the casting, especially the bore.

 

Thanks AJ, now all we have to do is find the geographic area where the people hold some belief that favors squares over circles, or something like that. The hollow Cascabel on light portable bronze cannons was intended as a socket to fit a stick used as a “tiller” for aiming the weapon. Round sticks are easier to find than square ones. All of which does nothing to help my understanding of the origin of this piece. The paper rolled up in the bore is just a copy of some misinformation about Lantakas typed by a former owner. Possibly some smart person knew a round stick pounded into a slightly undersized square hole would jam very tightly and be much less likely to work loose and fall out compared to a round or conical stick.???

 

Would be nice, but there is no belief like that in that region. If only it were that simple....