Part 14

The kris is distinctively the Malay weapon, and is a key to much of Malay custom and lore; and if the Japanese sword was “the soul of the Samurai,” as much may be said for the kris of the Javanese warrior. The cutler or forger of kris-blades ranked first of all artisans. There are more than one hundred varieties of the kris known, the distinctive Javanese types of kris differing from those of the Malay Peninsula and the other islands, and forty varieties of kris being used in Java and its immediate dependencies. The kris used in Bali differs from that of Madura or Lombok, and that of Solo from that used in West or Sundanese Java. These differences imply many curiously fine distinctions of long-standing importance in etiquette and tradition; yet the kris is a comparatively modern weapon—modern as such things go in Asia. No kris is carved on Boro Boedor or Brambanam walls, and its use cannot be traced further back than the thirteenth century, despite the legends of mythical Panji, who, it is claimed, devised the deadly crooked blade and brought it with him from India. When it was introduced from the peninsula it was instantly adopted, and all people wearing the kris were counted by that badge as subjects of Java. The kris is worn by all Javanese above the peasant class and over fourteen years of age, and is a badge of rank and station which the wearer never puts aside in his waking hours. Great princes wear two and even four krises at a time, and women of rank are allowed to display it as a badge. It is always thrust through the back of the girdle or belt, a little to the left, and at an angle, that the right hand may easily grasp the hilt; and its presence there, ready for instant use, has proved a great restraint to the manners of a spirited, hot-blooded people, and lent their intercourse that same exaggerated formality, mutual deference, and high decorum that equally distinguished the old two-sworded men of Japan. The kris is the warrior’s last refuge, as the Javanese will run amuck, like other Malays, when anger, shame, or grief has carried him past all bounds, and, stabbing at every one in the way, friend or enemy alike, is ready then to take his own life.

The Javanese are still the best metal-workers in the archipelago, and long displayed wonderful skill in tempering steel, in welding steel and iron together, and in giving the wavy blade fine veinings and damascenings. Those beautiful veinings, grained and knotted in wood, and other curious patternings of the blade, were obtained by soaking the blades, welded of many strips of hard and soft metal, in lime-juice and arsenic until the surface iron was eaten out. A wound from such a weapon is, of course, as deadly as if the kris were dipped in poison for that purpose solely; and from this arises the common belief that all kris-blades are soaked in toxic preparations. With the more general use of firearms, and the arming of the troops with European rifles, the kris remains chiefly a personal adornment, an article of luxury, and a badge of rank.

Solo has always been considered a later Toledo for its blades, and in the search for a really good, typical Solo kris I certainly looked over enough weapons to arm the sultan’s guard. The most of them were disappointingly plain as to sheath and hilt, the boat-shaped wooden hilts having only enough carving on the under part to give the hand a firm grasp. We could not find a single Madura kris, with the curious totemic carvings on the handle; and all the finely ornamental krises, with gold, silver, or ivory handles inlaid with jewels, have long since gone to museums and private collections. One may now and then chance upon finely veined blades with mangosteen handles in plain, unpromising wood, and brass Sundanese sheaths; but after seeing the treasures of krises in the Batavia museum, one is little satisfied with such utilities, mere every-day serviceable weapons. Increasing tourist travel will soon encourage the manufacture of ornamental krises, and in numbers to meet the certain fixed demand, so that later tourists will have better souvenirs than can be had now.

There is one whole street of sarong-shops in Solo, each little shop or open booth glowing with cloths of brilliant colors, and each shop standing in feudal dignity behind a tiny moat, with a mite of a foot-bridge quite its own. Solo sarongs presented many designs quite new to us, and the sarong-painters there employ a rich, dull, dark red and a soft, deep green in the long diamonds and pointed panels of solid color, relieved with borders of intricate groundwork, that tempt one to buy by the dozen. There were many sarongs, painted with four and five colors in fine, elaborate designs, that rose to ten and twenty United States gold dollars in value; but one’s natural instincts protested against paying such prices for a couple of yards of cotton cloth, mere figured calico, forsooth, despite its artistic and individual merits. Our landlady at the Sleier had inducted us into much of the sarong’s mysteries, qualities, and details of desirability, and we had the museum’s rare specimens in mind; but we were distracted in choice, and the thing I desired, just any little scrap as an example of the _prang rusa_, or deer-fight, pattern, which only the imperial ones may wear, was not to be had anywhere in Solo. We looked in upon many groups of little women tracing out fine, feathery, first-outline designs in brown dye with their tiny funnel arrangements that are the paint-brushes of their craft; and we found one great cement-floored fabrik of sarongs, a regular factory or wholesale establishment, with many Chinese and native workmen. There whole sections of the sarong pattern were stamped at a stroke by lean Chinese, who used the same kind of tin stamping-blocks as are used in stamping embroidery patterns in Western lands. We knew there was such a factory for block-printed sarongs on Tenabang Hill in Batavia, but it was a shock, a disillusionment, to come upon such an establishment of virtually ready-made, “hand-me-down” sarongs in Solo.

There is a large Chinese population in Solo; and one has sufficient evidence of the wealth and prosperity of these Paranaks as one sees them driving past in handsome victorias, wearing immaculate duck suits, patent-leather shoes, and silk hose, with only the ignoble pigtail, trailing away from the derby hat and disappearing shamefully inside the collar, to betray them. These rich Paranaks sit rigid and imperturbable, with folded arms, the very model of good form, smoking long black cheroots, and viewing all people afoot with undisguised scorn. One need not possess a Californian’s bitter anti-Chinese sentiments to have this spectacle irritate him, and to almost wish to see the plutocrats pitched out of their “milords” and the Javanese Jehu drive over them. One easily understands the hatred that Dutch and natives alike entertain for these small traders, middlemen, and usurers, who have driven out all competitors, and fatten on the necessities of the people. Although these island-born Chinese have adopted so many European fashions in dress and luxurious living, they are still Celestials, never cutting the queue nor renouncing the tinseled household altars.

Solo’s Chinatown, or Tjina kampong, is a little China complete, barring its amazing cleanliness and order without odors other than those of the cook-shops, where sesame-oil sizzles and smells quite as at home in “big China.” There were three great weddings in progress on one “lucky day” in Solo, and each house-front was trimmed with flags, lanterns, garlands, and tinsel flowers; orchestras tinkled and thumped, and great feasts were spread in honor of the brides’ coming to the new homes. Every one was bidden to enter and partake; and we were hospitably urged to enter at each gorgeous door, and rice-wine, champagne, painted cakes, and all the fruits of two zones were generously pressed upon us. The thumps of an approaching band drew us from one sarong-shop, and we saw a procession advancing, with banners and huge lanterns borne aloft. One felt sure the remarkable train must have issued from the palace gates until the faces were in range, and there followed the gorgeous red Chinese wedding-chair, and all the bride’s jewels and gowns and gilded slippers, carried about on cushions like sovereign regalia. Men in uniform bore palanquins full of varnished pig, and mountains of the pies and cakes and nameless things of Chinese high-holiday appetites, that roused the gaping envy of the street crowds. Urchins cheered and danced and ran with the band much as they do elsewhere; and the strangers, captivated with the sights, drove beside the gaudy procession until sated with the Oriental splendors and Celestial opulence of a Solo marriage feast.

The street life of Solo could well entertain one for many days. Native life is but the least affected by foreign ways, and the local color is all one could wish. There are drives of great beauty about the town, with far views of those two lovely symmetrical peaks, Merapi and Merbaboe, on one side, and of the massive Mount Lawu on the other. The temple ruins at Suku, at the foot of Mount Lawu, twenty-six miles southeast of Solo, are the most puzzling to archæologists, least known and visited of all such remains in Java. They are of severe form and massive construction, without traces of any carved ornament, and the solid pylons, truncated pyramids, and great obelisks, standing on successive platforms or terraces, bear such surprising resemblance to the monuments of ancient Egypt and Central America that speculation is offered a wide range and free field. The images found there are ruder than any other island sculptures, and everything points to these strange temples having been the shrines of an earlier, simpler faith than any now observed or of which there is any record. These Suku temples were discovered in 1814 by Major Johnson, the British officer residing at the native court of Solo. They were then unknown to the natives; there were no inscriptions found, nothing in native records or traditions to lead to any solution of their mysteries; and no further attempts have been made toward discovering the origin of these vast constructions since Sir Stamford Raffles’s day.

When M. Désiré de Charnay came to Java, in 1878, to study the temple ruins whose puzzling resemblance to Central American structures had puzzled archæologists, all of government assistance was lent him. He had driven only eight leagues from Solo toward Mount Lawu, when his carriage broke down; he spent the night at a village, and returned the next morning to Solo, “sufficiently humiliated with” his “failure,” he wrote. He did not repeat the attempt, as there was a great fête occurring at the emperor’s palace which occupied his remaining days. He says that every one at Solo consoled him for his failure to reach the Suku temples by saying that the visible ruins there were only the attempted restorations of an epoch of decadence, and dated only from the fourteenth century. M. de Charnay quotes all that Sir Stamford Raffles and Fergusson urge as to the striking and extraordinary resemblance of these particular temples to those of Mexico and Yucatan; and as ethnologists admit that the Malays occupied the archipelagos from Easter Island to Madagascar, he thinks it easy to believe that they or a parent race extended their migrations to the American continent, and that if this architectural resemblance be an accident, it is the only one of its kind in the universe.[6]

The three-domed summit of the mountain is visited now by Siva worshipers, who make offerings and burn incense to the destroying god who manifests himself there, and the region is one to tempt a scientist across the seas to exploit it, and should soon invite the attention of the exploring parties which Mr. Morris K. Jesup has enlisted in the search for proofs of early Asiatic and American contact.

XX

DJOKJAKARTA

As the heat of Solo was but little less than that of Batavia, and we had only worse accounts and solemn warnings given of the sickening, unendurable heat of Soerabaya, where fever and cholera most often abide, it seemed wisest to give up the visit to that east end of the island, to forego that torrid shore where first the Arabs landed and conquered the Hindu rulers of Majapahit, to be succeeded in their turn by the Portuguese, and then the Dutch. The ruins of Majapahit, and the tombs of its princes, and the graves of the Arab priests who were the first rulers of the conquered empire are attractions in Soerabaya’s neighborhood; but the great object was the Mount Bromo of the Tengger plateau, where the exhausted residents may take refuge from the steaming plain and breathe again. Tosari, the great sanatorium, on one of the sharp spurs of the Tengger, is over five thousand feet in air, and commands one of the most famous views in Java, with the plains, the sea, and groups of islands in one direction, and the great Bromo, smoking splendidly, in another. The great crater of the Bromo, with several smoking cones rising from a level of rippling, wind-swept “sandy sea,” is three miles in diameter, and is claimed, despite Kilauea, as the largest crater in the world, as it is certainly the largest in Java. A colony of Siva worshipers, who fled to the Tengger that they might pursue their religion unmolested by Arab rulers, live there in long communal houses, tend the sacred fire once brought from India, and sacrifice regularly to Brama, the “God of Fire,” at his smoking temple. In this modern day living sacrifices are not offered, save of fowl; and priests and people content themselves with offerings of fruit and foods, and make other great ceremonies of burning lumps of fragrant benzoin, the “Java frankincense,” at the crater’s edge.

The most serious sacrifices in the Bromo’s neighborhood are of those unfortunate natives who are seized by tigers as they work in clearings or walk mountain paths alone. The briefest stay at Tosari equips a visitor with tiger stories fit for tropical regions; and my envy was roused when some Tosari tourists told of having seen a child who had been seized and slightly mangled by a tiger, but a day before, on a road near the village, over which they themselves had passed.

The short railway ride back from Solo to Djokja, past the familiar ground of Brambanam, was a morning’s delight. We could see from the train that the railway did run close past the temple courts; and with the brief glimpse of the ruined pyramids, we viewed our exploit of walking to Loro Jonggran’s fane at midday, and clambering over the temples through the long afternoon, with great complacency—a feat that nothing could induce us to repeat, however.

[Illustration: THE BRAMBANAM BABY.]

It is all historic and sacred soil in the region around Djokja, and we returned with the greater interest for our real visit to the city, where one touches the age of fable in even the geographic names of the place and its environs, since the modern Dutch rendering of Djokjakarta, and the older Yugya-Karta of Sir Stamford Raffles, are only variants of the native Ayogya-Karta, the Ayudya mentioned in the Javanese Parvas, or Ramayan, as the capital established by Rama. The exploits of Na-yud-ya, the earliest ruler of Djokja, are described in the same sacred Parvas, and this was the center of the early Hindu empire, whose princes were great builders and for ten centuries were busy erecting temples, palaces, and towers in the region around this their city of Mataram.

Na-yud-ya’s descendants resisted the Arab invaders to the last, and the Hindu princes of Middle Java retained their independence long after Islam’s susunhan had declared himself supreme over the eastern empire of Majapahit[7] and the western empire of Pajajaran.[8] These Hindu or native princes, as they were considered, resisted susunhan and Dutch alike, and the Java war of the last century against the two usurpers was a long and bitter struggle, lasting from 1745 to 1758. The susunhan’s brother, the second prince, who had joined the native or Hindu princes, was won back to family allegiance by Dutch intrigue and influence; and the susunhan, dividing his eastern or Majapahit empire with his troublesome brother, made the latter a ruler, under the title of Sultan of Djokjakarta. The Dutch had been given the site of Samarang for their aid in such wars, and soon after the division of the eastern empire, the susunhan made that remarkable will of 1749, deeding his empire to the Dutch East India Company after his decease. The region between Djokja and Solo remained a seat of war for the rest of the century, the old princes, different heirs, claimants, and factions, always resorting to arms, and the Dutch always having an interest in the struggles. Marshal Daendels had his campaigns against and his sieges of Djokja, and the British had to besiege and bombard it before it admitted Sepoy occupation. After the restoration of Java to the Dutch there was a thirteen years’ war with this eastern empire,—the Mataram or Majapahit war,—and then, by treaty, the Dutch gained final control of the whole island and became absolute masters of Java; susunhan and sultan accepted annuities; each paid a revenue in products of the soil, and admitted Dutch residents to “make recommendations.” The Sultan of Djokja is only another of the puppet rulers. He maintains the outward show and trappings of his ancestors’ estate, and, with fine irony, is termed one of the “independent princes.”

The city of Djokja, fifth in size of the cities of the island, and reputed as more Javanese than Solo, less influenced by Chinese and European example, is in the center of the residency, and but twelve miles from the shores of the Indian Ocean. It is approached by railway from either side over a plain planted chiefly with indigo and tapioca, whose low, uninteresting plants in myriad rows, and the frequent roofs and tall chimneys of fabriks, speak of abundant prosperity for all classes. The broad streets of the provincial capital are beautifully shaded, and the residency, a great, low, white building with a classical portico, is set in a luxuriant garden, where Madagascar palms and splendid trees make halos and shadow for the grim stone images, the pensive Buddhas and fine bas-reliefs, brought from neighboring ruins. The government offices adjoin, and on any court day one may see the crowds of litigants and witnesses sitting around on their heels beneath a shadowing waringen-tree that would be fit bench for Druids’ justice. The majority of the cases tried before the assistant resident, who there balances the scales, are of petty thieving; for notwithstanding the severity of the penalties for such offenses, the inherent bias of the Malay mind is toward acquiring something for nothing—transmuting _tuum_ into _meum_. The death sentence is pronounced upon the burglar caught with a weapon on his person, and twenty years in chains is prescribed for the unarmed burglar; for in this eternal summer, where people must live and sleep with open doors and windows, or at most with flimsy lattices, some protection must be assured to those who own portable properties and valuables. But with the great advances made in the security of property, the innate propensities of the race are not to be eradicated by even three centuries of stern Dutch justice; and there is the same mass-meeting of witnesses and lookers-on squatting under the big waringen-tree at Djokja, when the scales are to be balanced by the blind lady, as before every petty court-room on the island. An ingenious little firefly lamp, taken from a Djokja burglar, was given me as a souvenir of one such a court day. It was a veritable fairy’s dark lantern—a half of a nutshell, with a flat cover sliding on a pivot and concealing at will the light of two fireflies struggling in a dab of pitch. The burglar carried a reserve supply of fireflies in a bit of hollow bamboo stoppered at the ends, and added a fresh illuminator whenever the dark lantern’s living glow diminished.

The Djokja passer is a large and important daily gathering, but corrugated-iron and tiled sheds in formal rows have pretty nearly robbed it of all a passer’s picturesqueness. Model municipal government, Dutch system and order, are too pronounced to please one whose eye has seen what a few palm-thatched booths and umbrellas, and a few tons of scattered fruits and peppers, can produce in that picnic encampment by Boro Boedor’s groves or in the open common at Tissak Malaya.

We had been promised great finds in the way of old silver and krises in a street of Chinese pawnshops opening from one corner of the passer; but the promises were not realized. The betel-boxes, buckles, and clasps in charge of these wily “uncles” of Djokja were plain and commonplace, and not a jeweled nor a fancy kris of any kind was to be seen, after all the repute of Djokja’s riches in these lines of native metal-work. Hundreds of sarongs, each with a dangling ribbon of a ticket, were stowed away on the shelves of these pawnshops, proofs of the improvidence and small necessities of these easy-going, chance-inviting people; and while we were haggling over a veined kris-blade with the most obdurate Chinese that ever kept a pawn-shop, a timid little woman stole in and offered her sarong to the arrogant, blustering old rascal. He scowled and scolded and stormed at the frightened little creature, shook out and snapped the finely patterned battek as if it were a dust-cloth, and still muttering as if making threats of blood and vengeance, made out a ticket, and threw it at her with a few silver cents. We wanted nothing more from that shop, save the head of the “uncle” on a trencher or impaled on a kris’s point.

With a shameless eye to revenue only, the government has long continued to sell pawnbrokers’ licenses at auction to the highest bidder, after a brief relapse from the year 1869 to 1880, when the experiment was tried of selling licenses to any one at a moderate rate. The great income from such licenses fell away so amazingly that the auctions were resumed, and the improvident natives handed over again to the merciless Chinese pawnbrokers, who charge interest even up to ninety per cent., and usually retain everything that crosses their counters. M. Emile Metzger, in a communication to the “Scottish Geographic Magazine” (vol. iv., 1888), gives fifty thousand florins a year as the annual revenue during the eleven years when the other system prevailed, which soon increased to as much as one million, sixty-five thousand florins a year when licenses were again auctioned to the highest bidder.