PAPERS 0 MALA SUBJECTS. . [Publishcd by dircction of til/ Got .. "rIl1f1cnt (·f Iht Fedc1'aic,l M,tlay Slates.]

n.. J . WILKTNSO , 1;>.11f .S. Ci!"il SCl"I'icc,

a pl/f )'ctl Ed if 01'.

MALAY INDUSTRIES.

PART 1.

ARTS AN D CR 1<TS.

uv

n .. o. WINSTEDT, P.M.S. Ciril Sm·ice.

KUA l.A 'LU MPUR : .

PIUNTED ny .r. ~USSEL], A'l' THE F .lIf. S. GOVF.RNME NT r RE S.

] 909 .

500.8/09.

CONTENTS.

CA ItPENTRY ...

BOA1'-BUILDIN G

MA'P AND BASK~'T MAKING

P OTTERY

METAT.- W ·ORK (J) TIN, BRON7.E, COPP~'R, RRAAS

(II) IRON

(ITI) GOT,D, SIJ.VElt AND NmT.I.o .. .

Sl'JNNINO, D YEING AN D ~VEAVIN G

CORD-MAKING

EMB1WIDEll.V

ApPENDICES .• .

1:

8

1

23

27

45

59

71

72

76

79

1\{ALA Y INDUSTRIES.

CAl~PENTRY.

I REMEMBER how orne years ago, before I had tried to cultivate an eye for such minute detail a an iron

nail, a planed surface or other ethnological distinctions, I was visiting the borne of a Malay chief of the old school and ventured to praise the substantial character of his timber house. "Yes," he replied, " built of course by a Chinese carpenter. VVe Malays try all t rades aml arc perfect at none. Each of us is herdsman, fi herman, hunter, boat-builder, carpenter a' chance invites ; and tho foreign special! ·t comes along and beats u ... " I went away musing on the almost pathetic fatc of cllildren of the pastoral age surviving down to a century when the forces of industrialism have invaded their land. The old chief's instances may be supplemented out of t.he experience and reading of the most casual student of Malay life. Only in quite recent years and with the endeavour to prohibit the planting of dry h ill rice can the pastoral be 'aid to have left behind the nomadic age. House-building, the alpha of Malay car­pentry, is still of so primitive a kind that migration is easy. Does a peasant plant padi on the hills or in a swamp he moves from his riverside clearing and builds a fresh hut on the spot for the season. It will be of the simplest type. Posts and cross-beams are of round untrimmed timbers, natural knots or forks being picked to form crutches, and the whole frame is lashed with rattan. For flooring there arc rounc1 bamboo joints and

PA PERS ON MALAY UB.o/EctS.

lLCl'OSS and a,bove them are laid bamboos openeel and flattened l Ly notching the joints and by being put to elry in the sun under the pressure of weights ; 01' in more substantial dwellings nibong trunks 2 split into four are employed. }1"'or wall~ and roof, broael palm-leaves are uried and stitcheel with sp]jt rattan one above the other like feathers 0 11 a Lircl's wiug 01' thatching:; is ma<le Ly ::;tl'ipping the lea ves of the nipah palm from the mill-rib, elouLling' thom over a stick <I rather more than a, ym'll long and sewing them iuto that position with nLtta,n,5 the prepared cd(~p being sewn on to roof or wall so as to o crlap on · another close togeth'er if the hut is to be permanent, some inches apart if it is to be merely tempol'ary. 01' walling may be con 'tl'ucteu of bamboo treatcd like tbe floorin'g laths and then threa<led in and out, one strip vcrtical one transvorse interlaced G as for fencing; or it may be made of' sheets of bark 7 such as tLl'O twi::;ted into rice-bin and howcbh; or of pandan 'leaves trimmed and stitched into' the smooth ribbeel matting 8 that forms a covering for nati ye boats. rJ.1ypes of the most primitive house-ladder, as it is found also in Dyak houses, survive in notched 'nibon[! trunks that lead up to jungle huts (and to high goat shelters) "the wonderfnllight scaling ladders to which the Portuguese 'allmle in their wars ·with Adwen" Marsden sUl'mises; and up-country in ladders made of a eouple of crossed tl t,icks fastened between t wo paranel up rights . ~tl'jps of thatching will be left unfastened along their ]owe[' edges to f01'111 at once the winelow U anel its shutter: and ::; tl'iptl will be stitehed on to tL light fl'ame-'wol'k or

I Pill ,.po7" 2 Billi'>nbe,ng. :I Atc!p. 4 1!HngkCl'wan. • Bih"u an or l'otUIl. u SaHC//;, 7 K"lit l.ill'al), ~ Sa1/l il', single; 7.-C/j(/llfJ miJl1 [J/;'lu/jl 17 , dutlllio. u T~"[J7a.1J tJitJel~.

INDUSTRiES: CARPENTRY. 3

bamboo or on to a few long laths to form a ri.cl ety - door. rl'he 7.;a?npong hous ha mol' care expendecl on

it, but in type it is identical with house in orchard or rice-fi eld. And till th last ecade or 0, the prince's .palace was only a copy or it on a largo scale. If a ·.peasant moves, it i he [mu his sons and neighbol1l's t bat r ect the new house. If a prince dislil ed dwelling in i~ place haunteu by the ghosts f defunct ance 'tors, it was e(pmlly a implo matt'1' to have a new palace aud vmag lJuilt · OUle lIliles uown-stl'uam anLl to convey thither wives and children, followers and shop-keeper ', Malay Chinese and Klings, the young dcligh eel at the change, the old shedding tears at leaving familial' llannts. frhe men of one hamlut ,vould build the central hall, the men of l1ll0ther the kitchen , the men of yet anoth er the front hall of audience: a court official 01' some J-avanese or Bugis adventurel' would do the carving. Every man brought bis a(ll!;e and chopper. High functionaries were the roremen, working on a pIau sketched in outline by their royal master over betel-nut at a special a sembly of chief ' <md follower. Tho carpentry was r ude, but criticism was keen ~nd the high functionayies had a, parlous time. " You' cl scam p it, would you, Bendahara?" said 11ltan Mansur Shah, when he uiscovered one of the cross-beams of his nOlY­palace to be a little small and dark in colour. Sultan of. Perak, famous fOJ ' his strength of mind , 0 plagued his Bend; har<1 at. the building of a new palace with exact­ing i.nstructions that the UIlha]JPY man tendered his rcsigllation, which w~s accepted, and in his stoau was appointed a " mall or presence and understanding and of the royal house," a consummation royalty possibly had held in view from tho beginning of its tantrnm.·, The '

PAPERS ON M,lLA Y SUBJECTS.

pastoral age, with its lack of competition and absence of trained technical ski11, did not make for progress in handicraft, but the ethnologist may be glad, because it was conservative and pre 'erved faithfully usages nearer the beginning. The palace erected down the Perak river by M((,r'h'l~m K ahcw that saw the expulsion of a lino of commoners from the office of Bendnhara was in its main features a good example of that style of house which as has been suggested would seem peculiar even no v to Kedab, P erak and the north of the Peninsula, a . type showing considerable advance in craftsmanship but found alike in hllmble huts and with more elaboration in the houses of chiefs. l 'he walls are of very snperior wickcr-work 1 pla,itecl of the outer covoring of leaf-stalks of t he bhla ll~ palm, aecora,ti OlJ being attaineu by varying th pattern j II the plaiting in a dozen 01' so different ways, called for example/ "cross," "diamond," "the bat 's elbow," " the sand-piper's footprint"; by arrang­ing vcrtical strips so as to show the outside .of the leaf­stalk, and transverse to show the inside or the contrary way, thus securing a pattern in two harmonious shades of brown; by colouringa the different strips white, black, yellow, blue, red. rrho panels of wicker-work windows and doors in this kind of house have wooden strips 'I nailed outside to confine and frame them. :Pegs are u 'ed in l)]ace of rattan lashing. In the far north in Patal1i and Kelantan, and again in Negri Sembilan, we get t he house of plank and square timbers hewn and planed with ad~e ; it is decorated often with chaste foliated carving, coarse as one would expect from the rough tools but on that account all the more effective.

I Ti'pas timw yw lt, li;pw; bil fO l il. ~ Selin/pat ; kiU((l'lli; ~il. [. 7cClua nf/ i /(11)((1. /redidi. a Dilrt ufop / K aJ/lu i .

iN DUSTRiES : CARPENTRY. 5

The same craft that goes to building the house is (Lppliecl to the production of hunting and fishing traps, tho loom and sllch agricultural implements as the hand pestle and mortar for crushing rice, like that existing among the Dyaks, and the lever pestle worked by pressure of the foot ; and to the manufacture of that rough furniture which has been seen elsewhere to correspond with the kinds of house. It is not a craft ad~tptecl to ol'llmnentation in little, and carving', for example, is found at its best in the house. Ton eannot decorate cherry-stones if your tools are an adze anu a chopper. The parrot-shapeu haft to the Malay chopper cven is of very simplc design and c. ' cution, coming uuder that class which Pitt -Rivers cliagnozed in his classification of savage wea}>ons. " In many case ' wo find Fijian clnbs have been converted into the forms of animals' heads and in aU such cases we see by grouping a sufficient number of forms together that Lhut:le which are in the shape of animals' heads have not b en designed for the purpose of representing the animals' heads but their forms have simply been evolved Inring the numerou ' variations which the weapon has undergone iu the process of development, and whon the idea of an animal's head suggest.ed itself, it has merely been neces­t:lary to ' add an eye ot' t~ line for the mouth in order to give them the resemblance in question." " fl'he l1Clves of Malay axes 01' hatchets," Mr. Skeat ]'cmal'l s, of tho north "woro frequently carved to represent a human face, in some Ctt es even the teeth Leing visible. This face was said to repl'esent t hat of a demon and recalls some P.olynesian types of ornament."

Vve meet with nothing in the nature of cabinet work till we como to the making and ol'namentation of

6 PAPERS ON MALAY SUBJEC1'S,

dagger sheaths, a craft "\ hich may have o'ot its note from Sava, considering that Java has given its name to all almo t univ rsa1 type of haft. Th cmftsman is nearly alwa s a comt retainer, perhaps some pOOl' dependont of tlw ?'rlj((, cbss. ]'01' this work, the choicest materials are employed : for hilt l and ba 'e,2 ivory, fish­tooth, scttin-woou., ebony, horn; for cross-pioce,!! yellow 'utin-wood '.l chosen for it , veining and tUl'l1ing a r ich brown with age, which, however , is not so I)steemed by Malays a ' the royal yellow of tlJO h esh cut wood ; fuJ' stem," stl/rT or '(JfI'O'YWI. 'l'l1e1'e arc superstitious objec­tions to ivory ami horn. but they ~Lre pressed only by the 'poor who cannot afford lu ·uries. 'l'he parts al'e sawn and rasp l1 with tools that Lave no pal'ticular significance and wh ose names are the substantives of their func­t ions : Ii the dri1l 7 is wOl'ked with a bow. The glue 8 used for joinery is the curd of buffalo-milk; it is squeezed, formed into hard cakes and dried, and when required for use moistened with milk and mixed witl~ quicklime. 'l'he completed sheath is polished with skate skins or rough leaves and varnished with (1, mixture of camphor and vegetable gutta that gives it the gloss of .E 1'ench polish. E ven in recent years fashion has dictatcu. changes in the shape of hilt an 1 sheath and as the wearing of veapolls liaS become merely ornamental their lllountings lJavo become prettier ~Ll1d less strong and servlcoa1le ; the hilt small, the stem narrow, the cross-piece thin and dainty with ends cut at a swagger angle. Perhap the hilt had its origin in a crooked knot of wood hich practical rough fighting specimens still resem-11e. But we can hardly hope to <..liscovel' the idea that

I [jilt, ~ ]Jll llil'! , a Slimp i/'. " Kf.llltmill !J (uJUl'l'!1ya exutica) , ~ 13(/ /4119 , fj aait; PCI'VcilOil; elmr buCtUCI i Jam, Perl,;a t,

INDUSTRIES: CA RPENTRY , 7

Jeel to 'its evolution into the " fevered Javanese" (if t4at nickname rightly define the intention of the shape) crouching huddled with cross-a,rms and a faceless hooded projection I that has been supposed to be derived from the python. In Patani we 'find in its stead a hilt called "the kingfisher " 2 that if it has developed from the .Ta1r;a cllhna,m (though the only resemblance in normal specimens lies ill a suggestion of the crossod arms of the .Tavanese type) bears smalllikenes to it now for the casnal observer: and it may be due to compar::tti~ely recent imi­tatiOll t hat some specimens have shorter "beaks" which wonld seem to show th e progres of traIl. ition from the hood-like projection into a long nose ; for a nose it is rather than beak and the row 6f carved teeth below it, the eyes and foliated cheeks with embryo tusks (tho whole ofton picked ant with gold) make it far more like an anthropomouphic figure 3 than a kingfisher. 1'he cross­piece of the P atani sheath bears a strong likeness to the J avanese type, which describes almost a semicircle and is characteri zed by long up-sweeping cnr ed ends. This Javanese shnpe is not affected e1. ewhere in the Penin­sula,; th fl ordinary cross-piece and stem being somewhat like a hatchet head in appearance or if. the ends of th e cross-piece are trimmed and curved , it is not a bold sweeping curve and the piece resembles the section or an 0 'ange aftor which Malays name it. Other dag­gers, the long keri:; and the "pepper-crusher" have every­w here foliated carving to their hilts, 'and the "pepp r­crusher" sometimes has a parrot-head elaborated from that of the chopper-hilt. Bugis s vords and occasionally

1 Changut, 2 Ult£ pilkakc.' . :1 '.I'ho1'o is :1, rudely em'vod Pabang botr-l pestle in the 'fuiping Mmellm with 1111 (1ll thl'opomol'l'hic huncUe (of, very di fforent type) .