Sifting through pieces of Indonesian maritime history

Text and photos by Bambang Budi Utomo

JAKARTA (JP): My forefathers were people of the sea. Conquering the wide open seas was their passion...

This song was popular years ago with school children and villagers. But today it is barely heard, despite the fact that our forefathers were renowned seaman and that the year 1996 has been declared the Year of the Sky and the Sea by President Soeharto.

Somehow the song's declining popularity reflects the reality of our national maritime industry, which is a far cry from its past glory.

In medieval times, the Hindu kingdom Sriwijaya in South Sumatra controlled the seas. And no discussion on national maritime affairs or ship-building technology would be complete if Sriwijaya was neglected. Many archeological finds of ancient ships indicate that the wrecks were boats built during the Sriwijaya period from the 7th century through to the 13th century.

"This is a piece of a very old ship," said a villager from Samirejo hamlet, showing a wooden piece of an ancient prau.

The village is in a swampy area some 25 kilometers from Palembang. Two kilometers to the north of the village is the Musi river.

The piece of wood was part of a discovery of wooden planks from an ancient boat.

A French expert of ancient boats, Pierre-Yves Manguin, is convinced that the wooden planks belonged to a prehistoric ship.

"When we found them, the holes in the boat still had palm fiber string," said a villager.

The pieces suggested that the boat was made by a sewn plank and lashed-lug technique, an ancient prau-building technique, said Manguin who has found many old shipwrecks in Southeast Asia. This technique is still used in prau-building in Southeast Asia.

Technique

When the people of Southeast Asia began building praus is unclear. Historical and archeological information is hopelessly lacking in this respect.

A sketch of a prehistoric prau carved on a cave wall, provides some information. The stone carving suggests that the boat was very simple.

It is likely that this prau-building technique strongly resembles the techniques which ethnic people have used to build praus.

The technique requires a large tree trunk which is hollowed out with a stone pickax. Another technique is to gradually burn out a tree trunk. The boat's walls must be neither too thick or too thin to prevent cracking and leaks, in case the boat hits a reef or is beached on a rocky coastline.

After the hull of the boat has been carved, the boat is fitted with outriggers to port and starboard. These type of boat is known as perahu lesung or sampan.

SE Asian tradition

In prehistoric times outrigger boats played an important role in inter-island trade and trade between Indonesia and Southeast Asia. The Southeast Asian connection brought an exchange of knowledge at all levels, including skills for building temples, cities, and, no doubt, boats.

Boat-building observers say that progress was made in the local boat-building industry because of the Southeast Asian connection.

Shipwrecks beneath the archipelagic seas have provided much information on the ancient boat-building industry.

Local boat-building developed along the same lines as Southeast Asian and Chinese traditions.

Praus made in the Southeast Asian tradition have special features: a V-formed body line along both decks with bow and keel covered. The bow and stern are usually symmetrical, showing no waterline on the body. Two rudders are fitted to the port and starboard of the bow.

Iron nails are not used in building praus. Cleverly, the wooden planks of the boats are tied to one another with palm fiber strings.

Wooden laths protrude in the boats. Four holes are bored in the thickest part of the wooden protrusions. Palm fiber ropes are strung through the holes and tied onto other wooden laths. The thickened part is then reinforced with wooden or bamboo bolts.

Examples of Southeast Asian praus were discovered in the Samirejo village of Mariana district in the Musi Banyuasin I regency in August 1987. The remnants of the praus consisted of nine wooden laths and a rudder. Two laths belonged to one prau while the other eight pieces belonged to another.

The praus were made in Southeast Asian sewn-plank and lashed- lug techniques, endowed with wooden and bamboo pegs. The longest wooden plank measured 9.95 meters while the shortest was 4.02 meters long. The planks were 23 centimeters wide and 3.5 centimeters deep. The planks had elongated square protrusions containing 1 centimeter holes. The planks had been tied to each other and the prau's keels. The wooden laths were tied by palm fiber ropes (Arenga pinnata). The knots were reinforced by wooden or bamboo pegs.

The praus discovered in Samirejo village are estimated to have been 20 meters to 22 meters long. A lab analysis of the carbon (C 14) of the wooden laths revealed, 1350 + 50 BP, that the boats were built between 610 and 775 A.D.

Portuguese writer Antonio Galvao wrote in 1544 that East Indonesia (the Moluccas [Maluku] and its surroundings) had its foot in the door of the prau industry. According to Galvao, the Moluccans built their boats in egg shapes, slanting both ends upwards. This enabled the praus to sail forward and backward.

The praus were waterproofed by having their joints polished with baru, a type of resin. The planks were wedged in expertly, giving the impression that the boats were forged from one piece of wood. A horned dragon at the stern completed the boats.

Traditional Chinese praus have different features. They have a round base instead of a keel, and their hulls are constructed of wooden squares connected to one another by iron nails. The boats have single rudders.

Most ancient praus discovered in the archipelago's waters were of Southeast Asian designs. Many of them were recognized as phinisi, Buginese schooners.

The phinisi, however, were not made with traditional sewn- plank and lashed-lug techniques. Bugis boat-builders nowadays apply advanced techniques, but still keep to some of the Southeast Asian boat-building traditions.

Sriwijaya fleet

The kingdom of Sriwijaya spanned the Southeast Asian waters right through to Madagascar, off southern Africa.

The Sriwijaya kingdom's fleet was large for its time. An inscription at Kedukan Bukit in Palembang dating 682 A.D., mentions that Dapunta Hyang, the first king of Sriwijaya, traveled with 20,000 men in praus and 200 crates of commodities from Minanga. Assuming that the boats were the same size as the phinisi, which can carry 500 men, Dapunta Hyang's men must have taken 40 boats. A very large fleet, indeed!

A Buddhist priest from China, I-tsing, documented the developments of the Sriwijaya kingdom in the 7th century. He said the trips to China were made by ships of the Sriwijaya kingdom.

In 1225, a Chinese report mentioned the Suwarnabhumi kingdom. It described a town of people who sailed in straw-roofed rafts. It said they were good at war on land and at sea. When a war involving a foreign kingdom approached they assembled and chose a commander and a leader. Warriors provided their own weapons. There was no race that equaled their valor and courage at war. The sea people living on Sumatra's east coast could well be direct descendants from this mighty warrior race.

A study on ancient maritime affairs has revealed that the names of many places along the coast of Campa and Annam (now Vietnam) are Malay in origin. This supports the view that the boats traveling to China were navigated by Malays. A study by Wolters, an expert on the Sriwijaya period at Cornell University, concludes that shippers in Persian trade in the pre-Sriwijayan period were also Malays.

The skill of Malay seamen was renowned even outside their local boundaries. Portuguese seamen compiled their knowledge in an ocean guide called roteiros. There are still traces of Malay seamanship in communities in Riau whose people are direct Malay descendants.

Riau is also home to an ethnic race known as Orang Laut (people of the sea) who are sustained by the sea.

Their art nearly always reflects life at sea. It can be found in poetry, in which the Malayan lilt is unmistakable. Popular Malay songs, including Perahu Cina ke Indragiri (A boat from China to Indragiri), Anaklah Riau jadi Nakhoda (A child from Riau becomes a skipper), are examples of art on life at sea.

The Orang Laut in Riau are the only race of people in the archipelago whose maritime culture surpasses any other race. They live near river mouths and along the mangrove coastline of east Sumatra, in Riau-Lingga, and west of the Malayan Peninsula right through to southern Thailand. They live in boats, making them a sea people in the true sense of the word.

Indonesians originate from a seafaring race who used to roam the archipelagic waters, hopping from one region to another. The government declared Sept. 23 Maritime Day because of the nation's seafaring background which should not be mistaken for a revival of the political expansionist strategy exercised in the Sriwijayan kingdom.

Ships no longer transport troops to beleaguer other countries. They play an important role in inter-island transportation and communication throughout the archipelago.

With Maritime Day barely a month behind us and Maritime Year 1996 with two months remaining, we hope that Indonesia can rebuild a fleet of unconquerable dimensions.