The History of Java, v. 1-2Raffles, Thomas Stamford, Sir
History
The History of Java, v. 1-2
Raffles, Thomas Stamford, Sir
Java (Indonesia) -- History
_Manufactures--Handicrafts--Bricks--Thatch--Mats--Cotton--Cloths--
Dyes--Tanning--Ropes--Metals--Road and
Ship-building--Paper--Salt--Saltpetre Works--Gunpowder,
&c.--Felling and Transporting of Teak Timber--Fisheries._
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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