A kind of umbrella hat worn by the common people, and universal in the Súnda districts denominated chápeng, is also manufactured in this manner, principally from bámbu, dyed of various colours, which being shaped in the form and of the size of a large wash-hand basin worn reversed, is rendered impervious to the wet by one or more coverings of varnish.
A great part of the manufacturing ingenuity of every people must be displayed in collecting the materials, or arranging the fabrics of those articles of clothing, required for protection, decency, or ornament. Whether these materials are derived from the fleece, the fur, or the feathers of the larger animals, from the covering of an insect, the bark of a tree, or the down of a shrub, they have to undergo several laborious and expensive processes before they are fit for use; and in conducting these processes, or forming machinery for rendering them more expeditious, complete, and easy, the superior manufacturing skill of one nation over another is chiefly evinced. The sheep on Java, as in all tropical climates, loses its fleece before it can be used with advantage. The silk-worm has never succeeded, although no reason can be given why it should not, and therefore the chief material of Javan clothing is cotton.
Cotton, in its rough state, is called kápas, and when cleaned kápok. The process of separating the seeds is performed by means of a gilíng'an, which is a roller, consisting of two wooden cylinders revolving in opposite directions, between which the fibre is made to pass. This operation is very tedious, two days being necessary for one person to clean a káti, equivalent to a pound and a quarter English. After the separation of the seed, it is géblek, or beaten with a rattan, and píndi or picked. The finer sort is then bowed after the Indian manner; this operation is called wusóni. The cotton thus prepared is afterwards pulled out and drawn round a stick, when it is called púsuh. To perform the process upon a single káti will employ one person about two days. The cotton is now ready for spinning ('ngánti), and requires ten additional days' labour of one person, to convert the small quantity above mentioned into yarn, when the result is found to be three tukal, or hanks, of the ordinary kind.
Previous to the operation of weaving, the yarn is boiled, and afterwards dressed and combed with rice-water. When dry, it is wound round a sort of reel, termed 'íngan, and prepared for weaving. These are the last operations it undergoes till it is put into the hands of the weaver, and requires, in ordinary circumstances, three days for its completion. Four days are required even by an expert weaver, and five or six by an ordinary one, to manufacture a sárong, or piece of cloth, a fathom and a half long and five spans broad (equal to three square handkerchiefs of the ordinary size worn on the head). The cloths thus prepared, while uncoloured, are distinguished by the term láwon.
The spinning-wheel is termed jántra, and the spindle kísi. The loom, with all its apparatus, is called ábah ábah tenún, the shuttle trópong, the woof máni, and the warp pákan. Both machines resemble those described on the continent of India, but are neater and much better made: the loom especially is more perfect: the weaver, instead of sitting in holes dug in the ground, invariably sits on a raised flooring, generally in front of the house, her legs being stretched out horizontally under the loom. The price of the spinning-wheel varies from less than half a rupee to a rupee, and that of the loom from a rupee to a Spanish dollar. The operations of spinning and weaving are confined exclusively to the women, who from the highest to the lowest rank, prepare the cloths of their husbands and their families.
Coloured cottons (járit) are distinguished into lúri or lúri gíng'gang, those in which the yarn is dyed previously to weaving; and bátik, those which are dyed subsequently. The process of weaving the former is similar to that of the gingham, which it resembles, and need not therefore be detailed; but the latter, being peculiar to Java, may deserve a more particular description.
The cloths termed bátik are distinguished into bátik látur púti, bátik látur írang, or bátik látur bang, as the ground may be either white, black, or red. The white cloth is first steeped in rice water, in order to prevent the colour with which the patterns are intended to be drawn, from running, and when they are dried and smoothed (calendered), commences the process of the bátik, which gives its name. This is performed with hot wax in a liquid state, contained in a small and light vessel, either of copper or silver, called chánt-ing,[50] holding about an ounce, and having a small tube of about two inches long, through which the liquid wax runs out in a small stream. This tube, with the vessel to which it is attached, being fixed on a stick about five inches long, is held in the hand, and answers the purpose of a pencil, the different patterns being traced out on both sides of the cloth with the running wax. When the outline of the pattern is thus finished, such parts of the cloth as are intended to be preserved white, or to receive any other colour than the general field or ground, are carefully covered in like manner with the liquid wax, and then the piece is immersed in whatever coloured dye may be intended for the ground of the pattern. To render the colour deeper, cloths are occasionally twice dipped. The parts covered with wax resist the operation of the dye, and when the wax is removed, by being steeped in hot water till it melts, are found to remain in their original condition. If the pattern is only intended to consist of one colour besides white, the operation is here completed; if another colour is to be added, the whole of the first ground, which is not intended to receive an additional shade, is covered with wax, and a similar process is repeated.
In order to render the dye fixed and permanent for the scarlet or blood-red colour, the cloth is previously steeped in oil, and after five days washed in hot water, and prepared in the usual way for the bátik. In the ordinary course, the process of the bátik occupies about ten days for common patterns, and from fifteen to seventeen for the finer and more variegated.
A very coarse kind of cloth, which serves for curtains or hangings, is variously clouded, and covered sometimes with rude figures, by the art of colouring the yarn, so as to produce this effect when woven. For this purpose, the strands of the yarn being distributed in lengths equal to the intended size of the cloth, are folded into a bundle, and the parts intended to remain white are so tightly twisted round and round, that the dye cannot penetrate or affect them. From this party-coloured yarn the designed pattern appears on weaving. The cloths so dyed are called gebér.
The sashes of silk, called chíndi, are dyed in this manner, as well as an imitation of them in cotton, called jóng'grong.