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The Island of Java: Sejarah Tanah Jawa
Sebagai naskah asli yang diterbitkan tahun 1811, The Island of Java ini adalah karya populer pertama dalam Bahasa Inggris yang menjabarkan sebuah pulau yang dikenal selama berabad-abad sebagai pulau paling penting di Negara Kepulauan Indonesia. Buku ini terbit lebih awal beberapa tahun sebelum karya-karya tentang Jawa lainnya, seperti The Conquest of Java (1815) oleh Major William Thorn dan History of Java (1817) oleh Thomas Stamford Raffles.
Buku yang merupakan salah satu warisan terhebat tentang Jawa ini menggambarkan secara jelas, sebagai hasil pengamatan nyata pada abad ke-18 dan ke-19, merentang mulai dari ekologi, sejarah, dan kebudayaan Jawa. Termasuk pula di dalamnya metode pemerintahan dan perpajakan serta hukum Kompeni di atas Jawa. Juga tentang benteng-benteng yang dibangun di Batavia, tentang para raja Jawa dan perseteruan mereka, tentang masyarakat Cina yang hidup di Jawa, tentang Ronggeng, sampai tentang Pohon Beracun yang melahirkan racun bernama Upas.
Anda akan diajak bertualang menyusuri daratan Jawa dan sebagian pulau lain pada dua abad penting dalam pertumbuhan dan perkembangan Jawa. Membaca buku ini serupa menonton film klasik tentang sejarah, kebudayaan, dan alam Jawa yang begitu mempesona!
Buku yang merupakan salah satu warisan terhebat tentang Jawa ini menggambarkan secara jelas, sebagai hasil pengamatan nyata pada abad ke-18 dan ke-19, merentang mulai dari ekologi, sejarah, dan kebudayaan Jawa. Termasuk pula di dalamnya metode pemerintahan dan perpajakan serta hukum Kompeni di atas Jawa. Juga tentang benteng-benteng yang dibangun di Batavia, tentang para raja Jawa dan perseteruan mereka, tentang masyarakat Cina yang hidup di Jawa, tentang Ronggeng, sampai tentang Pohon Beracun yang melahirkan racun bernama Upas.
Anda akan diajak bertualang menyusuri daratan Jawa dan sebagian pulau lain pada dua abad penting dalam pertumbuhan dan perkembangan Jawa. Membaca buku ini serupa menonton film klasik tentang sejarah, kebudayaan, dan alam Jawa yang begitu mempesona!
445 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1811
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 24, 2017
This book is boring as hell. I can say I struggle to finish it.
Not many insight about the life and culture of 19th century javanese, this book is more about military this and that (barrack, fortress, siege, etc)
Best information in it is about the deadly Upas tree aka antiaris toxicaria and the legend around it
Not many insight about the life and culture of 19th century javanese, this book is more about military this and that (barrack, fortress, siege, etc)
Best information in it is about the deadly Upas tree aka antiaris toxicaria and the legend around it
November 29, 2024
This account of the island of Java by John Joseph Stockdale includes some very interesting parts, along with loads of details that may give a picture of Java 200 years past, but weren’t very noteworthy, to me anyway.
What snippets I did get are at the bottom.
As I’ve lived in Java for 5 months now I would attest that some of Stockdale’s observations are quite relevant at present!
1. The Javanese are said to be of an indolent disposition, and to require much pains to excite them to labour. This is, in general, true of all the nations who inhabit the torrid zone, and who live under despotic governments, by which they are arbitrarily deprived of their property.
2. The climate, it is alleged, influences their disposition, and compels them to a life of indolence. But does not the fallacy of this assertion appear in the Chinese who reside here? These inhabit the same island, open their variegated shops next to the dwelling of the Javanese, and till with laborious industry the neglected soil around the wretched habitation of the native.In diligence, perseverance, and manual labour, they surpass many of the industrious classes of the cominunity in Europe; but they are comparatively unshackled, and are free masters of what they can earn by trade, or procure by agriculture….
3. The Javancse are, in general, well shaped, of a light brown colour, with black eyes and hair; their eyes are more sunk in the head than is generally observed in the nations south of the line; they have flattish noses and large mouths, are mostly thin, yet muscular; a few corpulent men among them make no exception to this general description. The women, when young, have much softer features than the men; but when they grow old, imagination cannot well conceive more hideous hags.
4. The female Europeans at Batavia seldom expose themselves to the heat of the sun, make frequent use of the cold bath, and live morc temperately than the men, which may be the reasons of their suffering less from the insalubrity of the climate.
5. The most favourite diversions of the Javanese emperors are combats between wild beasts. When a tiger and a buffalo are to fight for the amusement of the court, they are brought upon the field of combat in large cages. The field is surrounded by a body of Javanese, four deep, with levelled pikes, in order that, if the animals endeavour to break through, they may be killed immediately; this, however, is not so easily effected, but many of these poor wretches are torn in pieces, or dreadfully wounded, by the enraged animals.
6. Girls are commonly marriageable at twelve or thirteen years of age, and sometimes younger.It seldom happens, if they are but tolerably handsome, have any money or expectations, or are related to people in power, that they are une married after that age. As they marry while they are yet children, it may easily be conceived, that they do not possess those requisites which enable a woman to manage a family with propriety. Many of them can neither read nor write, nor possess any ideas of religion, of morality, nor of social intercourse married so young, they seldom bear many children, and are old women at thirty years of age. Women of fifty, in Europe, look younger and fresher than those of thirty at Batavia….. the skin of their face and hands is of the most deadly pale white. Beauties must not be sought amongst them; the handsomest would scarcely be thought middling in Europe….. They are commonly of a listless and lazy temper; which is chiefly to be ascribed to their education, and the number of slaves of both sexes they always have to wait upon them. They rise about half past seven or eight o'clock in the morning; spend the forenoon in playing and toying with their female slaves, who are never absent, and in laughing and talking with them, while a few moments afterwards they will have the poor creatures whipped unmercifully, for the merest trifle….. They chew pinang, or betel, with which custom all the Indian women are infatuated; they likewise masticate the Java tobacco, which makes their spittle of a crimson colour; and when they have done it long they get a black border along their lips, their teeth become black, and their mouths very disagreable, though it is pretended that this custom purifies the mouth, and is a preservative against the tooth-ache.
7. As the Indian women are not deficient in understanding, they would become very useful members of society, endearing wives, and good mothers, if they were but kept from familiarity with the slaves in their infancy, and educated under the immediate eye of their parents, who should be assiduous to inculcate in their tender minds the principles of true morality and polished manners. But, alas! the parents are far from taking such a burdensome task upon themselves.As soon as the child is born they abandon it to the care of a female slave, who generally suckles and rears it till it attains the age of nine or ten years. These nurses are often but one remove above a brute, in point of intellect; and the little innocents imbibe with their milk all the prejudices and superstitious notions which disgrace the minds of their attendants, and which are never eradicated during the remainder of their lives.
8. In common with most of the women in India, they cherish a most excessive jealousy of their husbands, and of their female slaves. If they discover the smallest familiarity between them, they set no bounds to their thirst of revenge against these poor bondswomen, who in most cases have not dared to resist the will of their masters, from fear of ill treatment.They torture them in various ways; they have them whipped with rods, and beaten with rattans, till they sink down nearly exhausted : among other methods of tormenting them, they make the poor girls sit before them in such a posture that they can pinch them with their toes in a certain sensible part, which is the peculiar object of their vengeance, with such cruel ingenuity that they faint away by excess of pain.
9. Most of the people who live here, and even many of the rich, who, it might be supposed, had attained the summit of their wishes, have something in their countenances expressive of discontent and dejection, and which seems a certain sign, that all is not right within. The climate may, undoubtedly, contribute much to this appearance; the animal spirits do not flow in that free circulation, nor do the powers of the mind possess that strength and elasticity animate the exertions of the soul, in more temperate This is not all; for, after a short residence in this debilitating atmosphere, a state of languor, and love of inactivity, soon overcome all the active powers of the mind, and, occasioning a total neglect of exercise, ruin the constitation, and induce an absolute repugnance to every kind of occupation. The only resource for those who are in this state of listlessness, approaching to torpidity, is, to seek for relief in society, and to endeavour to kill the heavy hours in the most frivolous manner: smoking tobacco, uninteresting and useless conversation, drinking and card-playing, form the sum of their amuse-ments; and having, in this manner, spent the day and part of the night, they rise the next morning, utterly at a loss how to pass the mary tedious hours of the day they enter upon; and devoid of all inclination for reading, either for amusement or instruction, they are compelled to go the same dull round, and are only solicitous to make choice of such ways of killing time, as least interfere with their beloved state of motionless repose.
10. The Javanese are polygamists; they marry as many wives as they can maintain, and take their female slaves for concubines. This, however, of course, does not occur with the common people, who must be content with one wife, because they cannot afford to keep more. The women are proportionally more comely than the men, and are very fond of white men. They are jealous in the extreme, and know how to make an European, with whom they have had a love-affair, and who proves inconstant, dearly repent bis incontinence and his fickleness, by administering certain drugs, which disqualify him for the repetition of either. People of the utmost credibility at Batavia have related too many examples of this refinement of female revenge, to render the circumstance doubtful.
11. ….. once witnessed a most extraordinary occurrence of this kind, namely, that a Javanese who had been condemned to be torn in pieces by tigers, and for that purpose had been thrown down from the top into a large cage, in which several tigers were confined, fortunately fell exactly upon the largest and fiercest of them, across whose back he sat astride, without the animal doing him any harm, and even, on the contrary, appeared intimidated; while the others also, awed by the unusual posture and appearance which he made, dared not attempt to destroy him; he could not, however, avoid the punishment of death, to which he had been condemned, for the emperor commanded him to be shot dead in the cage.
12. …All these causes of disease and death combine, in a greater or less degree, their baneful influence to render Batavia one of the most unwholesome spots upon the face of the globe.
13. It is not strange that the inhabitants of such a country should be familiar with disease and death.Preventive medicines are taken almost as regularly as food, and every person expects the returns of sickness as we do the seasons of the year.
What snippets I did get are at the bottom.
As I’ve lived in Java for 5 months now I would attest that some of Stockdale’s observations are quite relevant at present!
1. The Javanese are said to be of an indolent disposition, and to require much pains to excite them to labour. This is, in general, true of all the nations who inhabit the torrid zone, and who live under despotic governments, by which they are arbitrarily deprived of their property.
2. The climate, it is alleged, influences their disposition, and compels them to a life of indolence. But does not the fallacy of this assertion appear in the Chinese who reside here? These inhabit the same island, open their variegated shops next to the dwelling of the Javanese, and till with laborious industry the neglected soil around the wretched habitation of the native.In diligence, perseverance, and manual labour, they surpass many of the industrious classes of the cominunity in Europe; but they are comparatively unshackled, and are free masters of what they can earn by trade, or procure by agriculture….
3. The Javancse are, in general, well shaped, of a light brown colour, with black eyes and hair; their eyes are more sunk in the head than is generally observed in the nations south of the line; they have flattish noses and large mouths, are mostly thin, yet muscular; a few corpulent men among them make no exception to this general description. The women, when young, have much softer features than the men; but when they grow old, imagination cannot well conceive more hideous hags.
4. The female Europeans at Batavia seldom expose themselves to the heat of the sun, make frequent use of the cold bath, and live morc temperately than the men, which may be the reasons of their suffering less from the insalubrity of the climate.
5. The most favourite diversions of the Javanese emperors are combats between wild beasts. When a tiger and a buffalo are to fight for the amusement of the court, they are brought upon the field of combat in large cages. The field is surrounded by a body of Javanese, four deep, with levelled pikes, in order that, if the animals endeavour to break through, they may be killed immediately; this, however, is not so easily effected, but many of these poor wretches are torn in pieces, or dreadfully wounded, by the enraged animals.
6. Girls are commonly marriageable at twelve or thirteen years of age, and sometimes younger.It seldom happens, if they are but tolerably handsome, have any money or expectations, or are related to people in power, that they are une married after that age. As they marry while they are yet children, it may easily be conceived, that they do not possess those requisites which enable a woman to manage a family with propriety. Many of them can neither read nor write, nor possess any ideas of religion, of morality, nor of social intercourse married so young, they seldom bear many children, and are old women at thirty years of age. Women of fifty, in Europe, look younger and fresher than those of thirty at Batavia….. the skin of their face and hands is of the most deadly pale white. Beauties must not be sought amongst them; the handsomest would scarcely be thought middling in Europe….. They are commonly of a listless and lazy temper; which is chiefly to be ascribed to their education, and the number of slaves of both sexes they always have to wait upon them. They rise about half past seven or eight o'clock in the morning; spend the forenoon in playing and toying with their female slaves, who are never absent, and in laughing and talking with them, while a few moments afterwards they will have the poor creatures whipped unmercifully, for the merest trifle….. They chew pinang, or betel, with which custom all the Indian women are infatuated; they likewise masticate the Java tobacco, which makes their spittle of a crimson colour; and when they have done it long they get a black border along their lips, their teeth become black, and their mouths very disagreable, though it is pretended that this custom purifies the mouth, and is a preservative against the tooth-ache.
7. As the Indian women are not deficient in understanding, they would become very useful members of society, endearing wives, and good mothers, if they were but kept from familiarity with the slaves in their infancy, and educated under the immediate eye of their parents, who should be assiduous to inculcate in their tender minds the principles of true morality and polished manners. But, alas! the parents are far from taking such a burdensome task upon themselves.As soon as the child is born they abandon it to the care of a female slave, who generally suckles and rears it till it attains the age of nine or ten years. These nurses are often but one remove above a brute, in point of intellect; and the little innocents imbibe with their milk all the prejudices and superstitious notions which disgrace the minds of their attendants, and which are never eradicated during the remainder of their lives.
8. In common with most of the women in India, they cherish a most excessive jealousy of their husbands, and of their female slaves. If they discover the smallest familiarity between them, they set no bounds to their thirst of revenge against these poor bondswomen, who in most cases have not dared to resist the will of their masters, from fear of ill treatment.They torture them in various ways; they have them whipped with rods, and beaten with rattans, till they sink down nearly exhausted : among other methods of tormenting them, they make the poor girls sit before them in such a posture that they can pinch them with their toes in a certain sensible part, which is the peculiar object of their vengeance, with such cruel ingenuity that they faint away by excess of pain.
9. Most of the people who live here, and even many of the rich, who, it might be supposed, had attained the summit of their wishes, have something in their countenances expressive of discontent and dejection, and which seems a certain sign, that all is not right within. The climate may, undoubtedly, contribute much to this appearance; the animal spirits do not flow in that free circulation, nor do the powers of the mind possess that strength and elasticity animate the exertions of the soul, in more temperate This is not all; for, after a short residence in this debilitating atmosphere, a state of languor, and love of inactivity, soon overcome all the active powers of the mind, and, occasioning a total neglect of exercise, ruin the constitation, and induce an absolute repugnance to every kind of occupation. The only resource for those who are in this state of listlessness, approaching to torpidity, is, to seek for relief in society, and to endeavour to kill the heavy hours in the most frivolous manner: smoking tobacco, uninteresting and useless conversation, drinking and card-playing, form the sum of their amuse-ments; and having, in this manner, spent the day and part of the night, they rise the next morning, utterly at a loss how to pass the mary tedious hours of the day they enter upon; and devoid of all inclination for reading, either for amusement or instruction, they are compelled to go the same dull round, and are only solicitous to make choice of such ways of killing time, as least interfere with their beloved state of motionless repose.
10. The Javanese are polygamists; they marry as many wives as they can maintain, and take their female slaves for concubines. This, however, of course, does not occur with the common people, who must be content with one wife, because they cannot afford to keep more. The women are proportionally more comely than the men, and are very fond of white men. They are jealous in the extreme, and know how to make an European, with whom they have had a love-affair, and who proves inconstant, dearly repent bis incontinence and his fickleness, by administering certain drugs, which disqualify him for the repetition of either. People of the utmost credibility at Batavia have related too many examples of this refinement of female revenge, to render the circumstance doubtful.
11. ….. once witnessed a most extraordinary occurrence of this kind, namely, that a Javanese who had been condemned to be torn in pieces by tigers, and for that purpose had been thrown down from the top into a large cage, in which several tigers were confined, fortunately fell exactly upon the largest and fiercest of them, across whose back he sat astride, without the animal doing him any harm, and even, on the contrary, appeared intimidated; while the others also, awed by the unusual posture and appearance which he made, dared not attempt to destroy him; he could not, however, avoid the punishment of death, to which he had been condemned, for the emperor commanded him to be shot dead in the cage.
12. …All these causes of disease and death combine, in a greater or less degree, their baneful influence to render Batavia one of the most unwholesome spots upon the face of the globe.
13. It is not strange that the inhabitants of such a country should be familiar with disease and death.Preventive medicines are taken almost as regularly as food, and every person expects the returns of sickness as we do the seasons of the year.
July 6, 2017
buku yang menggambarkan sejarah NUSANTRA versi BACKPACKER Sangat klasik dn unik. buku ini mengambarkan betapa mahalnya harga yang di beli bangsa eropa untuk NUSANTARA. tidak hanya materil dan moril serta mental juang, bahkan nyawapun menjadi syarat yang harus di bayar untuk menduduki tanah jawa. Buku ini juga menghadirkan data yang cukup akurat mengenai para korban dari bangs eropa selama puluhan tahun mencoba berlayar ke INDONESIA dan menjajah indonesia, data yang korban cukup yang dramatis dan memprihatinkan.
buku yang cukup detil
buku yang cukup detil
July 27, 2018
Despite of the detail content, it was suffering reading this translated book. Actually I loved the substance of the book, but the translation is bad. Clumsy word picking and abundant typo error. But, positive side of such bad work is revealing me with the fact that there are two type of translators. The first one is those who translates by loving the book, understands the context of the book's substance, and presents it with heart. The second one is those who works on it merely for money and industrial purposes.
September 4, 2008
A great source of insight into life in Indonesia during the 16th Century. A little dry at times perhaps but well worth the reading.
March 1, 2018
Banyak hal yang saya dapatkan dari buku ini. Terjemahannya juga bagus.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews