The History of Java, v. 1-2

by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

Machánan, is a game in which two chief pieces represent tigers, one conducted by each party, and twenty-three pieces representing cows: the tiger who destroys the most wins the game. Máling'an is played on squares with eighteen pieces, and the object is to surround your adversary's pieces.

Of games of chance there are many. That denominated telága tári is accounted the most ancient: it consists in guessing the number of beans enclosed within the hand. Three or four people commonly join in it. One of the party having dried beans in his lap, take a certain number in his hand, requiring each of the others to fix by guess upon a number; if there are three persons, upon a number from one to four, and the two numbers left fall to the share of the person who holds the beans. If the number in his hand exceeds four, every four beans are thrown aside, and the residue, until they are reduced to that number or below it, only counted.

Dadu, or dice, as well as cards, are borrowed from the Chinese, and not included among the national games. The most common species of gaming, and that which is practised by the numerous and dissolute class of báturs, or porters, in the central districts, is a kind of pitch and toss, denominated képlek. Four farthings, whitened or marked on one side, are tossed into the air; if the whole or three of them fall on the side that is marked, or on the reverse, the party who tossed them wins; if only two he loses the stake.

Bets are frequently laid on the hardness or otherwise of a particular nut, known among the Maláyus by the term búa kras and called áduh gemíri. Bets also frequently depend on the flying of kites (layáng'an).

I shall conclude this chapter by referring to some peculiarities, which, although partially explained elsewhere, and falling perhaps more correctly under other heads, may not be improperly noticed in an account of the national usages and customs.

The practice of filing and dying the teeth black, and that of lengthening the lobe of the ear to an enormous size, both of which have been already noticed, appear to have extended over the whole of the eastern peninsula of India, as far as China, and throughout the islands of the Archipelago, as far at least as Papua or New Guinea.

The practice of covering the face, body, and limbs with yellow powder on state occasions, and the use of yellow silk or satin for the envelope of letters between princes, evinces the same esteem for this colour which prevails in the other islands, as well as in Ava, Siam, and China.

The kríses worn by the Javans are only varieties of that which is found in the islands, and on what is termed the Malayan peninsula. The Javans have a tradition that it was first introduced by one of their early Hindu sovereigns, Sakú-tram (others call him Sa Pútram), who is said to have come into the world with the krís by his side. This krís is supposed to have been of the kind called pasopáti, which is consequently considered as the most honourable at the present day. In the chapter on History will be found an account of the krís deposited in the tomb of the Susúnan Gíri, and of the virtues attributed to it by the superstitions of the country. There is a tradition, that the inhabitants of all those countries in which the krís is now worn, once acknowledged the authority of the Javans, and derived that custom from them. Another tradition attributes the introduction of this weapon among the islanders to the celebrated Pánji. The practice of poisoning the blade of the krís seems to have been attributed to the Javans and their neighbours without any foundation. In order to bring out the damasking, it is usual to immerse the blade in lime juice and a solution of arsenic, which, by eating away and corroding the iron, may probably render the wound more angry and inflamed, and consequently more difficult to cure, but it has never been considered that death is the consequence. After this application of the acid and arsenic, the blade is carefully smeared with some fragrant oil, to prevent it from rusting, and this is all that is ever done to it.

It has been usual to condemn these people as blood-thirsty, prone to immediate revenge, because they invariably use the deadly krís; but however frequent the appeals to this weapon may be in some of the more wild and uncivilized of the Malayan states, experience has proved to us, that on Java it may be universally worn without danger. I have elsewhere remarked, that the custom of wearing the krís among these islanders has, in its effects upon the manners of the people, proved in many respects an effectual substitute for duelling among Europeans. In these countries, where there is very little justice to be obtained from regularly established courts, and where an individual considers himself justified in taking the law into his own hands accordingly, the Maláyu is always prepared to avenge with his krís the slightest insult on the spot; but the knowledge that such an immediate appeal is always at hand, prevents the necessity of its often being resorted to, an habitual politeness ensues, and it has often been said, that if the Maláyus are savages, they are by far the most polite savages that we know of. If this effect is produced on the wilder and less civilized Maláyu, and has equal force with the more adventurous and warm-hearted Búgis, it may be easily conceived the Javans have not escaped it. The krís, among them, has for a long period been more exclusively a personal ornament, than a rapier was in Europe fifty years ago, being among the higher classes even seldomer resorted to, as a weapon of defence or offence, than the latter.

The condition of absolute slavery, as understood by Europeans, seems to have been unknown to the ancient constitution of society in these islands, and throughout all the fragments of their history, of their laws, usages, and customs, no trace is to be found of its ever having existed among the Javans[119].