ITINERANT GOLDSMITHS OF INDIA AND SUMATRA.
In the production of beautiful specimens of mechanical art, much more depends upon the natural taste and ingenuity of the workman than upon the completeness and perfection of his tools. To those who are not much acquainted with the mechanical arts, this may sound somewhat like a self-evident proposition; yet it is far, very far indeed, from being considered such by European mechanics in general, and by our own in particular. So commonly is the blame of clumsy workmanship laid upon the badness or the want of tools, that an anecdote is related of a man, who, upon being spoken to by a friend for having committed numerous grammatical errors in a letter which he had just written, cursed his pen, and asked his friend how he could be so excessively unreasonable as to expect him or any man to write good English with such a wretched implement!
To such a degree of excellence has the manufacture of mechanical tools and instruments arrived in these countries, that a British mechanic would be utterly astonished could he but behold the process of manufacturing various articles in the East; such for example as the shawls of Persia and Cashmere, the carvings in wood and ivory of China, the extraction of metal from the ore in the same country, by which malleable iron is produced fit for immediate use, and of the finest quality, by a single process; and, not to tire by enumeration, the productions of the itinerant goldsmiths of India and the island of Sumatra. These last excel in filagree work, for which they are celebrated, far exceeding even the Chinese in its extraordinary delicacy; yet their tools are ruder than those of the Indian goldsmith of the continent.
When a Sumatran goldsmith is engaged to manufacture some piece of gold or silver work, he first asks for any little piece of thin iron—a bit of an iron hoop will answer his purpose—and with this he makes an instrument for drawing his wire. The head of an old hammer stuck in a block of wood serves for an anvil; and for a pair of compasses he is contented with two old nails tied together at the heads. If he has a crucible, good; if not, a piece of a broken rice-pot or a china tea-cup answers his purpose. His furnace is an old broken quallee or iron pot, and his bellows a joint of bamboo, through which he blows with his mouth. If the work be heavy, and the quantity of metal to be melted considerable, three or four sit round the furnace, each with his bamboo, and blow together. It is only at Padang, where the manufacture is carried on extensively, that the Chinese bellows has been introduced. The art of wire-drawing not having been considerably improved upon since the time of Tubalcain, the Sumatran method differs little from the European.
When drawn sufficiently fine, the wire is flattened by beating it upon the anvil, and when flattened, it is twisted by rubbing it upon a block of wood with a flat stick. Having twisted it, the goldsmith again flattens it upon the anvil, and it is then a flat wire with serrated or indented edges, suitable for forming leaves or portions of flowers; these he makes by turning down the end of the wire with a rude pincers, and then cutting it off; this process is repeated until he has a sufficient number prepared for his work. The pattern he has drawn on a piece of paper or card, to the size and shape of which the intended piece of workmanship must correspond. If the work is to be formed upon a plate of gold, he cuts the plate to the shape of his pattern, and proceeds to dispose the various bits of foliage, assorted according to size, and adjusts wire of various thickness for the stems, tendrils, &c., fastening them temporarily together, and upon the plate, with the sago berry, called boca sago, which they reduce to a pulp by grinding upon a rough stone; and a young cocoa nut, about the size of a walnut, forms the ointment-box for this gelatinous preparation. When the work has been all placed in order, the operator prepares his solder, which consists of gold filings and borax mingled with water; this he strews upon the plate and applies to the several points of contact of the finer portions of his work; and then, exposing the whole to the action of the fire, in a few moments the soldering is completed. But if it is open work, he lays out the foliage and other parts upon a card or thin bit of soft wood, and attaches them together, as before described, with the pulp of the sago berry, applies the solder to the points of junction, and puts his work into the fire as before; the card or wood burns away, the solder unites the parts, and the work is completed; but if the piece be very large, the soldering is done at several times. When the work is finished as to the manufacturing part, it is cleansed and brightened by boiling it in water with common salt and alum, or lime juice; and when the goldsmith wishes to give it a fine purple colour, he boils it in water with sulphur. The beautiful little balls with which the Sumatran filagree work is sometimes ornamented, are very simply made. The maker merely drills a small hole in a piece of charcoal, into which he puts some grains of gold dust, and upon exposing it to the fire, it runs into a perfect ball.
At finishing plain work, however, it must be confessed that the Sumatran and Indian goldsmiths fall short of the European; but if the latter excel in this, which may be considered the lowest department of the art, they are, despite their improvements and the superiority of their instruments, vastly inferior in the elegance and delicacy of the finer parts.
The Sonah Wallah (which signifies in Hindoostanee “the gold fellow”), or itinerant goldsmith of India, is far better supplied with tools and implements of his trade than the Sumatran; and being thus a step higher in the grade of civilisation, he exhibits evidences of his advance in refinement by being such a confounded rogue, that it is almost impossible for even his European employer to detect him, or prevent him from pilfering some portion of the metal consigned to his ingenuity. The Sonah Wallah may be hired for half a rupee (a little over a shilling) a-day, and, like the tinkers in these countries, he brings his implements with him. These consist of a small forge, to the edge of which are attached several iron rings, which may be turned up over the charcoal to receive his crucibles; a tin tube to blow through, a pair of slight iron tongs, a pair of small pliers, a hammer, a couple of earthen saucers, and a rude anvil consisting of a piece of flint secured in a rough iron frame. The gold usually presented to him for working is the gold mohur, a coin worth about 32s. sterling; this coin he places in a crucible with a little borax, to make it fuse the more readily; and having fixed the crucible in one of the rings, and lighted the charcoal under and around it, he blows with his tin tube until the metal is melted, when he practises a trick of his trade by throwing in a small quantity of nitro-muriatic acid, which causes a sudden expansion or slight explosion, by which a portion of the metal is thrown out of the crucible into the fire, from the extinguished embers of which the rogue separates it at a convenient opportunity; and lest his employer should try to detect him by weighing the material both before and after working, he uses a copper rod for stirring the contents of the crucible, a portion of which rod melts and mingles with the gold, and so compensates for the deficiency in weight, or at least so nearly as invariably to escape detection, although it is more than probable that an instance seldom or never occurs in which they do not defraud their employers of a portion of the gold put into their hands. The fact is, that their admirable skill so completely compensates for their knavery, that few would think of questioning too closely, for, rude and simple as are their tools, they far exceed European workmen in the production of delicate and intricately formed trinkets; their small, taper, and flexible fingers more than supplying the place of the numerous varieties of implements which the mechanic of Birmingham or Sheffield finds indispensably necessary. Indian chains of gold and silver have been ever celebrated for the beauty and complication of their structure; and although the Sonah Wallah may be considered to excel particularly in this branch of his art, yet he still must be admitted to surpass, or at least equal, the European even in the manufacture of finger rings, bracelets, and armlets.
Much of the superior ingenuity of the Indian goldsmith may be attributable to the division of the people into castes or sections, by which fundamental law the same profession is carried on by the same people or family through countless generations; the Shastra, or code of Hindoo laws, forbidding the mixture of the castes, or interference with any business or profession not carried on by their progenitors.
There are four integral divisions of the people. The first caste, the Brahmins, are said by the Hindoo scriptures to have issued, at the creation, from Brahma’s mouth; and being thus the most excellent and dignified, are set apart for the priesthood and legislative departments of the state. The second, the Cshatryas, are said to have issued from Brahma’s arms, and to them is committed the executive—these consequently form the armies. The third caste, the Vaisyas, are said to have proceeded from Brahma’s thighs; they are the merchants, and consequently amongst them are to be found some of the wealthiest men of Hindostan. The fourth caste, called Soodras, being said to have issued from the feet of Brahma, are considered the most ignoble and degraded, and to them are left all mechanical arts and servile employments, as being beneath the dignity of the superior castes. Amongst the Soodras, consequently, are the goldsmiths; and as the different professions form a sort of minor castes amongst the greater ones, the same business is transferred from father to son; and all the powers of the mind being directed undistractedly to the single object, pre-eminence in that line is naturally to be expected.
N.