Java, Facts and Fancies

by Augusta de Wit

But the women are hardly ever seen without a rosebud or tuberose-blossom twined into their hair, and the men not unfrequently have one stuck behind the ear, or between the folds of their head-kerchief. As for the children; their bare brown little bodies are hung with tandjong wreaths. The plucked-out petals of all manner of fragrant flowers are used to scent the water which the women pour over their long black hair, after washing it with a decoction of charred leaves and stalks; and, together with ambergris, and a sweet smelling root, called "akhar wanggi," dried flowers are strewn between the folds of their holiday-attire. Like all Orientals, the Javanese are excessively fond of perfumes, which, no doubt, partially explains their profuse use of strongly-scented flowers. But that, apart from the merely sensual enjoyment of the smell, they prize flowers for the pleasure afforded to the eye by their tints and shapes, is proved by the frequency with which floral designs occur on their clothes and ornaments. The full globes of the lotos-buds, the disc of the unfolded flower with leaves radiating, its curiously-configurated pistil, are recognized again and again on the scabbards and handles of the men's poniards and on the girdle-clasps and the large silver kabaya-brooches of the women. The fine cloth for sarongs is decorated with fanciful delineations of the flowers that blow in every field and meadow, their calixes and curly tendrils sprouting amidst figures of widemouthed dragons, fanged and clawed. Moreover, for their hidden virtues, and the sacred meanings of which they are the symbol, flowers are by the natives associated with all the principal acts and circumstances of their lives—with joy and sorrow and ceremony, and the service of the gods. When the village folk, donning their holiday-attire, go forth to the festive planting of the rice, or the gathering, stalk by stalk, of the ripe ears, they wear wreaths of flowers twined in their hair. At the feast of his circumcision, the boy is crowned with them. They are the chief ornament of lovers on their marriage day—gleaming in the elaborate head dress of the bride, and dangling down as a long fringe from the groom's golden diadem; wreathing the scabbard of his poniard; and girdling his naked waist, all yellow with boreh powder. They are brought in solemn offering to the dead, when, on the third, the seventh, the fortieth, the hundredth, and the thousandth day, the kinsmen visit the grave of the departed one, to pray for the welfare of his soul, and in return implore his protection, and that of all the ancestors up to Adam and Eve, the parents of mankind. And lastly, flowers are thought the most acceptable offering to the gods, the ancient gods whom no violence of Buddhist or Mohammedan invader has succeeded in ousting from that safe sanctuary, the people's heart, which they share now, in mutual good-will and tolerance, with the Toewan Allah, "besides whom there is no God." Under some huge waringin tree, at the gate of a town or village, an altar is erected to the tutelary genius the "Danhjang Dessa," who has his abode in the thick-leaved branches. And the pious people, whenever they have any important business to transact, come to it, and bring a tribute of frankincense and flowers, to propitiate the god, and implore his protection and assistance, that the matter they have taken in hand may prosper. On the way from Batavia to Meester Cornelis, there stands such a tree by the road-side, an immense old waringin, in itself a forest. And the rude altar in its shade, fenced off from the public road by a wooden railing, from sunrise to sunset is fragrant with floral offerings.

The Market at Malang.

There are several flower-markets in Batavia. But I have taken a particular fancy to the one held at Tanah Abang. Its site is a somewhat singularly chosen one for the purpose, near the entrance to the cemetery, and in the shadow of the huge old gateway, the superscription on which dedicates the place to the repose of the dead, and their pious memory. In its deep, dark arch, as in a black frame, is set a vista of dazzling whiteness, plastered tombstones, pillars, and obelisks huddled into irregular groups, with here and there a figure hewn in fair white marble soaring on outstretched wings, and everywhere a scintillation as of molten metal—the colourless, intolerable glare, to which the fierce sunlight fires the corrugated zinc of the roofs protecting the monuments.

But on the other side of the gateway there are restful shadows and coolness. Some ancient gravestones pave the ground, as if it were the floor of an old village church—bluish-grey slabs emblazoned with crests and coats-of-arms in worn away bas-relief. Heraldic shapes are still faintly discernible on some; and long Latin epitaphs, engraved in the curving characters of the seventeenth century, may be spelt out, recording names which echo down the long corridors of time in the history of the colony; and, oddly latinized, the style and title bestowed on the deceased by the Lords Seventeen, rulers of the Honourable East India Company—the Company of Far Lands, as in the olden time it was called.

Hither, before the sun is fairly risen, come a score of native flower-sellers, shivering in the morning air, who spread squares of matting on the soil, and, squatting down, proceed to arrange the contents of their heaped-up baskets. The bluish-grey gravestones, with the coats of arms and long inscriptions, are covered with heaps of flowers: creamy Melati as delicate and sharply-defined in outline as if they had been carved out of ivory; pink and red Roses with transparent leaves, that cling to the touch; Tjempakah-telor, great smooth globes of pearly whiteness; the long calixes of the Cambodja-blossom, in which tints of yellow and pink and purple are mixed as in an evening sky; the tall sceptre of the Tuberose, flower-crowned; and "pachar china," which seems to be made out of grains of pure gold.

Some who know the tastes of the "orang blandah" have brought flowering plants to market, mostly Malmaison Roses and tiny Japanese Lilies, just dug up, the earth still clinging to their delicate roots; or they sit binding wax-white Gardenias, violet Scabiosa, and leaves as downy and grey as the wings of moths, into stiff clumsy wreaths; for they have learnt that the white folks choose flowers of these dull tints to lay upon the tombs of their dead. And there is one old man, brown, shrunken, and wrinkled, as if he had been made out of the parched earth of the cemetery, who sells handfuls of plucked-out petals, stirring up now and then, with his long finger, the soft, fragrant heap in his basket—thousands of brilliantly-coloured leaflets.

About seven o'clock, the customers, almost exclusively women, arrive, fresh from their bath in the neighbouring river. They form picturesque groups on the sunny road, those slender figures in their bright-hued garments, pink, and red, and green, their round brown faces and black hair, still wet and shining, framed in the yellow aureole of the payong[A] which they hold spread out behind their head. And the quiet spot in the shadow of the cemetery gate is alive with their high-pitched twittering voices, as they go about from one flower-seller to another, bargaining for Jessamines, Orange-blossoms, and tiny pink Roses, which, with deft fingers, they twist into the glossy coil of their "kondeh."

Javanese women are most pardonably proud of their hair. It is somewhat coarse, but very long and thick and of a brilliant black, with bluish gleams in it; and it prettily frames their broad forehead with regular, well-defined curves and points. They take great care of it, too, favourably contrasting, in this respect, with European women of the lower classes, though some of their methods, it must be owned, are repugnant to European notions of decency. As they bathe, and sleep, and eat in public, so, in public, they cleanse each other's hair. A woman will squat down in some shady spot by the roadside, and, shaking loose her coiled-up hair, submit to the manipulations of a friend, who parts the strands with her spread-out fingers, and removes ... superfluities, with quick monkey-like gestures. What would you have? "The country's manner, the country's honour," as the Dutch proverb hath it. This particular way of cleansing the hair is a national institution among the Javanese. And, as such, it is celebrated in the legends of the race, and in the tales of the olden time, which are still repeated, of an evening, among friends.