The Australian National University (ANU) Library - Asia-Pacific Digital Collections: Boyes/Some Notes on Java

As we are swiftly and pleasantly carried through the Javan uplands in our well-found stage carriage, drinking in the soft morning air of an April day, we can follow up at our leisure the thoughts suggested by the scenes we pass through and the faces we meet on the wayside. Life in the country in Java is astir very early in the day. With the dawn the roads begin to look like ant-tracks, so thickly are they thronged with the peasantry on their way to the fields or the bazaar. For the markets are held at sunrise and all such business is concluded early in the day. The village markets look like what are sometimes seen in India- " meena bazaars:" for not a male creature is to be seen in them. Buyers and sellers are one and all women, and very practical dealers they seem, doing their business without one-fifth of the noise which rises from an Indian bazaar. All the village women dress in one unvarying colour - indigo blue - wearing nothing on their heads, their hair drawn off the face and knotted at the back of the head. Their clothes are universally neat and good of their kind. The cloth is all woven in the peasants' own houses, each

house containing a spinning wheel and a loom. Scarcely a man, woman or child is to be seen in rags. The women wear the sarong, a cloth joined at the ends and wrapped round the waist and legs as a petticoat. Round the body, supporting the breasts, is wrapped a cloth called the kemban, and over all is worn a loose chemise or gown (kalambi) reaching to the knees. The ladies in the upper classes wear coloured sarongs of bright red and yellow patterns, the manufacture of which sometimes is very costly, the process of getting out the pattern with the aid of wax and the dyeing tub involving much time and labour. Over the body is worn a white jacket (kobaia), and on the feet which are bare the smartest of slippers. Voila tout! The Dutch ladies most sensibly have adopted this dress, and up to five o'clock in the afternoon they wear nothing else, walking out, driving and doing their shopping in this costume, supplemented by a smart sunshade. The native men of the lower orders wear drawers, the sarong (unjoined and called a jarit) folded round the waist, a jacket with short sleeves and a handkerchief on the head, worn turban fashion. Often to this is added an enormous spreading hat made of leaves or of bamboo, and still more often a hat

which looks like an inverted basin, in which the head half disappears and which is coloured outside with gold, red and blue patterns. Neither men nor women cut their hair. The former gather it into a knot on the top of the head, as the women do at the back.

The pan-dan must have been imported from India by those who came from there in the first settlements, and pan-eating is as much a habit as in India. Other favourite delicacies are not so unobjectionable, especially trasi or blachang, which are dried shrimps, salted and pounded into cheeses. The putrescent fluid from these is made into a sauce, and the intolerable stench which loads the air as a consignment of this truly awful concoction goes by on its way up from the coast is indescribable. Some Javans still refuse to eat cow's or bullock's flesh, retaining their Hindu prejudices. Neither will they eat any milk food, butter or cheese - the idea being doubtless the same as the reason which induced Manu to forbid the flesh of cattle, namely, the protection of agricultural stock. A Javan again points to his Hindu descent when he refuses to use his left hand at his dinner. The meals are served exactly as in Hindustan, the diners sitting on the ground, cross-legged, and the meals being

served on brass or wooden dishes. The staple food is of course rice. But of whatever the dinner may consist, all certainly get enough and are well fed. This fact is well marked. The children especially show signs of care and good nourishment. Their sturdy little limbs and quick movements are very pleasant to watch. No such miserable little scarecrows are to be seen as are only too common in villages in British India.

The villages and the houses in them match their owners. There is no crowding of hut, against hut, as in India, where the pressure of population or other causes have compressed the village dwellings into as small space as possible. In Java it is not unusual for the inhabited portion of the village to occupy at least one-tenth of the whole area, and when we penetrate the neat trellis work fence which surrounds the "campong" we find that each cultivator's hut has an enclosure with a small garden, the bamboo being again brought into requisition to make a surrounding fence, with an ornamental lych gate at the entrance. The houses have no mud walls. They are made entirely of wood, bamboo, wattle and thatch. Flowers and creepers are not wanting and the signs of comfort and prosperity are conspicuous. The open

"alum-alum" (or "chaupal") is kept clean and trim: and on one side is the unpretentious mosque, a structure of bamboo and leaves, and opposite to it the house of the bakal, or, as he would be styled in Hindustan, lumberdar or patel. In the middle of the alum-alum grows the familiar fig tree, and as we gaze we admire the tenacity with which the Hindu clung to the remembrance of his old home when he was transplanted into this new country. Looking from a hillside down upon a plain studded with these picturesque villages, each embowered in a luxuriant growth of bamboos and trees, the spectator is reminded much of some of the lovely "duns" on the road into Kashmir, short of the Rattan Pir. The hamlets look like green islets in a sea of golden rice.

Immediately outside the ring fence which has been described commences the rice or other cultivation. Not a square yard of ground seems to be wasted, and the care and evident labour with which each bit of slope is terraced and supported, the greatest area thus being obtained for the rice crop, is most admirable. These terraces are carried up the sides of the highest mountains, the mighty volcanoes themselves allowing the cultivation to creep up within what looks a dangerous distance from their

craters. The water for irrigating the crops is brought from the hillsides and is unfailing. This enables the cultivator to get two rice crops off the same field, and this staple appears on the Village lands in the month of April, stages of growth from sowing to harvest. The main crops are rice, Indian I corn, beans, sugarcane (eight kinds), coffee, pepper, indigo and tobacco. During the past three years a blight has affected the sugarcane, stunting the growth and seriously diminishing the outturn. This has been a severe blow to the factories. Rice is still an article of export, so that, in spite of the enormous increase of the population, which now is said to reach twenty millions as against five millions in Raffles' time, the island more than feeds itself. The cocoa tree, with its beautiful blossoms and fruit, both on the tree at the same time, is to be found in many of the peasants' gardens, and the cocoanut and the sugar palms abound. All the Indian fruits are to be seen in the bazaars, together with the dorian and the mangosteen.

Wayside stalls for refreshment are numerous, those for cooling drinks, apparently mostly concocted with rice water, being especially notiecable. But the "kalwar," with his tempting array of dirty bottles, is conspicuously

absent. Not a liquor shop is to be seen, and it is a fact that the people are eminently temperate. No doubt the Mahomedan religion has much to say to this, and such drinking as goes on is done in private. The Dutch, however, discourage all liquor traffic, and the use of opium is much restricted. The upper classes, corrupted by luxury, just as in British India, indulge in drinking far more than the lower orders, as they also excel them in other forms of vice and sensuality. Those who smoke - and the habit is certainly not so prevalent as in Hindustan - smoke cigarettes, the tobacco being rolled up in the thin dry leaf that is stripped off the head of the Indian corn. Chewing or sucking tobacco is the commoner mode of enjoying the weed among the vulgar, and the sight of a twist of shag tobacco stuck betweeen the front teeth and the lips, protruding out of the mouth and obstructing all speech, is not pleasant to look upon.

As the Anglo-Indian passes through the outskirts of the villages he is not surprised to see going on the very same competition in kite-flying which is so familiar in Hindustan. This with cock-fighting, quail-fighting, pigeon-flying and also, among those who can afford such spectacles, animal fights, such as tiger versus

buffalo, bull versus bull, and ram versus pig, are clearly survivals of Hindu customs brought with them by the emigrants. Not so with their music and musical instruments. Fortunately the original Indian colonists left behind their tomtoms and their other instruments of ear-torture. Neither in the Javan airs nor in the character of their orchestra is there any trace to be found of the music of Hindustan. The immigrant Hindus have got their scales, their melodies and their instruments from the aborigines or from the neighbouring islands. The gamlan, pelog, or full band, consists mainly of large metal or wooden harmonicas struck in slow cadence, blows on metal gongs of varying depth of sound marking the pauses. There is also a harp which plays a subordinate part and a drum which is unobtrusive. There are no stringed instruments other than the harp, and there are no wind instruments. The airs are in the major key and the effect is exceedingly good. A complete "gamlan" costs from.3,000 to 4,000 florins.

The national dance is almost the exact reproduction of the Indian nautch, and the nautch girls also correspond both in appearance and in their mode of life. The drama of the country consists of shadow plays, shadows being

cast upon a screen with the aid of puppets. The plots are taken from the Hindu mythology, the wars of the Pandus and the story of Rama. Scenes from the earlier history of Java are also enacted, and a careful study of these shadow plays would probably throw some light on the first days of the Hindu occupation.

While the surroundings and the amusements of Javan peasantry are under notice, it will not be out of place to quote more or less fully Sir Stamford Raffles' opinion of the Javan character. When he inquired of the Dutch their character he found them stigmatised as indolent, treacherous and deceitful. Sir Stamford admits that among the higher orders were to be found in many cases violence, deceit and gross sensuality, but he considers the Javan peasants to be simple, natural and ingenuous. He found them generous and warm-hearted; in their domestic relations kind, affectionate, gentle and contented; in their public relations obedient, honest and faithful. In their intercourse with society this keen observer saw them display in a high degree the virtues of honesty, plain dealing and candour. Prisoners brought to the bar in nine cases out of ten, he found, confessed without disguise or equivocation the fall extent and exact circumstances of their offences, and

communicated, when required, more information on the matter at issue than all the rest of the evidence, reminding us forcibly of the ordinary Indian offender.

They seemed to be liberal and profuse where this was possible, and fond of show and display, while they undoubtedly were most hospitable. He found them most keenly sensitive to praise or shame, but he thought that either national oppression or their agricultural habits bad rendered them somewhat indifferent to military glory. They were characterised rather by passive fortitude than by active courage, and endured privations with patience. While mostly strangers to unrelenting hatred, jealousy would urge them to serious crime, and a husband's wounded honour would be seldom healed. In manners they were easy, courteous and respectful even to timidity, while in every family the respect for parents and old age was most marked. A strong corroboration of the truth of this picture of the Javan peasant's character is found in the fact that the description might be applied word for word to the Indian ryot, where he can be found living his own simple life, undemoralised by strife in the law courts or struggles with an oppressive landlord.

Raffles says that when the English took Possession of the country they found that the Dutch invariably slept with closed doors and guarded houses, but that the English kept their houses open night and day, and their confidence was not misplaced. But it must be remembered that this remark was made in 1811 A. D., just after the terribly vigorous administration of Marshal Daendels. That officer, as we have seen, was sent to Java "to protect the natives." This shows that, in the opinion of Holland, the people bad not altogether been well treated, but Marshal Daendel's idea of protection was to sacrifice 10,000 lives in the construction of his system of military roads, and under his administration many districts were nearly depopulated by the migrations from the Dutch Provinces to the Native States. Under this state of things it is not wonderful that the Dutch slept uneasy in their beds, or that they pronounced the Javans to be deceitful and treacherous.

The Javans proper are an agricultural race, closely attached to the soil, of quiet habits and contented disposition. They leave trade almost entirely to the Malays and, Bujis, who being maritime and commercial races, are adventurous and accustomed to distant and hazardous

enterprises. These people are found mostly in the seaports and generally have their own quartiers in the cities. The trade in the interior is almost entirely in the hands of the Chinese, of whom, in Raffles' time, there were 100,000 in the island: and the mixed race between these people and the Javans is also very numerous. Prior to the English occupation the settled policy of the Dutch had been to depress the natives and encourage the Chinese, whom they found to be exceeding useful as farmers of the revenue. A reaction from this policy has now set in and immigration from China is discouraged. It is possibly the great superiority of the soil which accounts for the tenacity with which the Javan clings to his agricultural pursuits; it is more probable that the characteristics of the Indian race are reproduced in the Javan. Again, as in India, "infancy and marriage

go together," the husband of sixteen taking home his bride of thirteen. Marriage contracts are almost identical in their steps with Hindu usage. A bachelor is well nigh unknown. If the bridegroom cannot attend the marriage ceremony he sends his "kris" as proxy! Dissolutions of marriage are frequent and easily obtained, the wife paying a fine and the husband giving alimony:

but children cost little to rear and are valuable for their services. They therefore do not suffer from this cause.

Slavery, up to Raffles' time, had been promoted by the Dutch, and he estimated that there were 30,000 slaves in the island. No Javan was, however, ever reduced to slavery, this class being entirely recruited from the neighbouring islands. It is probable that the connection formed with the indigenous Javans by the conquering colonists saved the whole native-born population from liability to slavery after the settlement of the country. It seems, however, that the condition of slaves in Java was never intolerable. It is possible that the system of forced labour - which is, and apparently always has been, such a marked feature in the economics of Java - may have been a survival of the servile labour of the indigenous Javanese, but it is more likely that in this, as in so many other customs, the Indian principle was introduced and "begari" became an important element in the social Javan life. No Javan thinks of disputing the claim of his chief to dispose of a large portion of his labour just as he pleases, and the labour is given just as much as a matter of course to the Government, when it is required. As may be expected, this system

works in many cases terribly unequally and oppressively, but its effects will be considered more conveniently when the land tenures are discussed.

The labour of women in the country districts is as much valued as that of the men. The men plough, harrow and weed: the women transplant, reap and carry. In the fields agriculturists are entirely relieved from one portion of labour which falls so heavily on our cultivators in India. No water has to be raised. Abundance of irrigation is obtained from the hundreds of channels which run all over the country, and no machinery of any kind is required to bring water to each man's field. Curiously enough, up to Raffles' time the Javans themselves used no mill for expressing the juice from the sugarcane, but left this process to the Chinese, obtaining their sugar entirely from the tari tree. All this has been changed, and there is now, under the culture system (of which more hereafter), an enormous area under cane.

In the matter of education the Dutch adopted, and still to this day adopt, a very decided policy. They deliberately keep the Javans ignorant of all Western literature. There are schools in the villages, generally presided over

by one of the priests, but instruction in Dutch or in any other language except the Javan vernacular is rigorously excluded. Primary education alone is attended to, and no higher education of any kind permitted. Neither is the use of Dutch in conversation with natives encouraged: and should a Javan acquainted with the Dutch colloquial address an official in that language he finds himself at once checked and rebuked by being answered in the vernacular. The Hollanders at any rate are determined that they will create for themselves no difficulties of the sort that they see surrounding the English in India. They argue that the Javans would generally make no good use of their education, and the spectacle of the "Congress" certainly leads them to think that this opinion is well justified. This is only one of the points in which the Dutch system is diametrically opposite to the liberal and self-sacrificing policy of the British, and it is this contrast in the administration which makes the study of the government by Holland of its great Oriental dependency and a consideration of the results so intensely interesting and instructive to the Anglo-Indian.

The Javan language is no doubt the language of the aborigines, or rather of the race which

occupied the island when it was colonised by the Hindus, largely mingled with words of Sanscrit origin. Valentyne says that in the high or court Javan language at least three out of four words come direct from the Sanskrit: and this is exactly what we should have expected, the Hindus as conquerors insisting on imposing their tongue upon the conquered race, just as the Norman haughtily disdained to accept Saxon from those whom he had subdued. The consequence is that there still run side by side two Javan vernaculars - the polite language in which Hindu words abound, and the language of the commons in which they are far less frequent. Both languages, however, are written in the same character, which is a corrupt form of the Pali: and this indicates that the aborigines possessed no written characters until the Hindus introduced theirs into the island. Nor have any such characters been found on any inscriptions. The language of the common people owes little or nothing to the Arabic, in spite of the intercourse with the Malays. It has four very distinct dialects, the Sunda in the west and south-west, the Javan in the north and cast, and the dialects of Madura and Bali. In this vulgar tongue nouns have no gender, number, or case, and adjectives are indeclinable. In addressing one of the upper

classes a Javan is obliged to use the court language, and similarly children in addressing their parents will, as far as possible, use the same language in token of respect. The people, therefore, have really to be acquainted with both vernaculars. The classic language "Kawi," in which nearly all mythological poems are written, consists almost entirely of Sanskrit, and this in a far less corrupted form than the Pali. In Bali, which is the last stronghold of Hinduism, the Kawi is still the language of religion and of law, the knowledge of it being mainly confined to the Brahmans. The Kawi was undoubtedly the channel through which the Sanskrit element penetrated the vernacular dialects of Java, and even now the educated and half-educated will endeavour to introduce Kawi words into their writings, just as the police diary writer in India interlards his jargon with Persian and Arabic words. Devanagri is also found in some few manuscripts, and there are inscriptions in this character on some of the temples. All old writings of importance, such as the mythological works mentioned above, are in verse, and we find the origin of the Hindu deities, the wars of the Pandus, &c., all localised. In the Ramayana, however, the story is for the main part laid in India, and is

only so far localised that, after the death, of Ravana, Hanuman is made to migrate to Java. The custom of burying dates in sentences by giving certain values to words and letters obtains as in Persia and India.

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Some notes on Java: Section 3