It is here proposed to state the progress made by the Javans in a few of the common arts and handicrafts, and in one or two of the more extensive manufactures; their docility in working under European direction, and some other observations, which could not be so appropriately placed in any other part of this work. I have already had occasion to notice the limited skill and simple contrivances with which they carry on the labours of agriculture, and prepare the produce of the soil for consumption, in the various ways that their taste or their habits require. In a country like Java, where the structure of society is simple, and the wants of the people are few, where there is no accumulation of capital and little division of professions, it cannot be expected that manufacturing skill should be acquired, or manufacturing enterprize encouraged, to any great extent. The family of a Javan peasant is almost independent of any labour but that of its own members. The furniture, the clothing, and almost every article required for a family, being prepared within its own precincts, no extensive market of manufactured commodities is necessary for the supply of the island itself; and for foreign trade, the produce of their soil is more in demand than the fruits of their skill or industry. In a country where nature is bountiful, and where so much of her bounty can be collected with so little labour to pay for manufactures from abroad, there is but little encouragement to withdraw the natives from the rice field, the forest, or the coffee-garden, to the loom, the forge, or the workshop; and it is not in this respect, certainly, that a change of their habits would be beneficial. This short notice of Javan manufactures, therefore, must be very limited, both in the number of the articles that it embraces, and in the importance that Europeans may attach to them: for Java can neither send us porcelain, like China; nor silks, shawls, and cottons, like Western India. To a nation, however, so much accustomed as we are to the exertions of manufacturing skill and perfection of manufacturing machinery, it may not be uninteresting to see the simple means, by which a half-civilized people accomplish the objects which we attain by such expeditious and ingenious processes. The most experienced naval architect may be interested by the manner in which a savage scoops his canoe.
The Javans have names in their language for most of the handicrafts. The following enumeration of terms applied to trades and professions will shew the extent to which the division of labour is sometimes carried, while the foreign extraction of some of them may, perhaps, serve to point out the source whence they were derived.
I shall proceed to describe a few of the manufactures of the island, without attending much to the order in which it might be proper to arrange them. The construction of a habitation is among the first and most necessary arts of uncivilized man, as the perfection of architecture is one of the most convincing proofs and striking illustrations of a high state of refinement. I have already described the hut of the peasant, and have mentioned that it is generally constructed of wood. Such structures suit the climate of the country, and save the labour of the people; but they are not rendered necessary by an ignorance of more durable materials.
Bricks are manufactured in almost every part of the island, being generally employed in the better sort of buildings, not only by Europeans and Chinese, but by the natives of rank. The quality of the clay varies greatly in different districts. It is all obtained from the decomposition of the basaltic stones, and possesses different degrees of purity, according to the proportion and nature of the other earths which are adventitiously mixed with it. In some parts of the island it is very pure, and might be advantageously employed in the manufacture of porcelain; but the natives are unacquainted with the principles of this art: some instruction in the glazing of their pottery would be of very general benefit. They are unacquainted with the process of making glass.
Cut stones are, at present, but rarely used by the Javans, and stone-cutting is almost exclusively performed by the Chinese. But although the Javans do not, at present, possess or practice any considerable skill in this art, the extensive remains of edifices constructed in stone, and of idols carved from the same materials, afford abundant testimony that the arts of architecture, sculpture, and statuary in stone, at one period reached to a very high pitch on Java. As, however, these arts have long been lost to the Javans, the consideration of them rather falls within the department of antiquities than that which we are now upon.
In the vicinity of Grésik there are several hills composed of a soft white stone, which hardens on exposure to the air. Stones are here cut in the quarry into regular squares of various sizes, from that of a brick to the largest tomb-stone. They are principally required for the latter purpose, and in the cemeteries of Grésik and Madúra the inscriptions upon them are very neatly executed. Beyond this, the skill of the natives in stone-cutting does not at present pretend.
The covering of the native houses is generally of thatch. In the maritime districts, átap, or thatch, is made almost exclusively from the leaves of the nípa or búyu. In the preparation, the leaflets separated from the common petiol are employed. Being doubled, they are attached close to each other on a stick of three feet in length, and when thus arranged are placed on the roof, like shingles or tiles. The leaves of the gébang, on account of their fan-like form, are differently arranged: they constitute large mats, which are chiefly employed for sides of houses or for composing temporary sheds, but they are too large and brittle to form durable átap. In the interior districts, where nípa does not grow, the houses are almost uniformly thatched with a species of long grass called alang-alang (the lálang of the Malay countries). Near large forests, where bámbu abounds, the natives cover their houses with this reed. The leaflets of the cocoa-nut cannot be made into thatch, but wherever the sago and nípa grow, it is made from their leaflets.
An article of household furniture in use among all classes, and displaying in some cases considerable beauty and delicacy of execution, is matting. Mats are made from several species of pandanus, from a kind of grass called mándong, and from the leaves of various palms. A species of the latter affords the most common kinds, coarser and less durable than others, as well as bags (straw sacks) resembling coarse mats: the leaves being divided into laminæ, about one line in breadth, are woven in the same manner and on the same frames as coarse linen. These fibres, called ágel, are sometimes manufactured into twine, which possesses but little strength. The mats or bags, called károng, are much inferior to the gunny-bags of India.
The coarsest kinds of mats, employed chiefly by the lower class, are called in the central districts klóso bóngko; those prepared from grass, klóso mándong; and the others, klóso psántrem (from the place where they are made). The materials of all these are plaited by hand. The klóso psántrem are of superior quality, and in use through the central and eastern parts of the island; especially among the natives of the first class, with whom they constitute the principal furniture of the dwelling-house. A person of the highest rank aspires to no luxury, more delicate or expensive in this way, than the possession of a bed composed of mats from psántrem.