DOI article:
Steensberg, Axel: Observations on tools of husbandry in western Java
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49001#0091
TOOLS IN JAVA
85
former days such small plots were presum-
ably tilled with a wooden spade or digging
stick.
Professor S. Sartono of the Institute of
Technology at Bandung mentioned that he
had seen people using a digging stick high up
in the mountains of eastern Java. He did not
remember the exact place, and thought it
was not the only tool used in tilling at this
particular place. Ian Glover observed dig-
ging sticks mounted with wedge-shaped iron
tips in the now Indonesian island of Timor,
so they may well have been in use in Java in
former times.
This is demonstrated by an eye-witness
who stayed there before the Second World
War. In 1939 the late Professor R. G. Col-
lingwood wrote to a friend in England that
he had seen the digging stick in use among
tribes who had no ploughs or mattocks.
(Collingwood 1957). It was shaped like an
oar, and used like a spade. A capable
operator could turn with it a furrow re-
sembling a ploughed furrow. As for lyn-
chets, Collingwood said he had never
Fig. 3. A modern hand-hoe with steel blade
drawn in Bogor.
Moderne Handhacke mit Stahlblatt, gezeichnet in
Bogor.
dreamed of the like. He described the pad-
dy-fields for sa.wa.h~ agriculture exactly as
they are to-day on sloping hillsides above
Bangalore, confined by revetments build of
mud. Later on he noted that they also used
ploughs pulled by buffaloes, though this
could have been in other areas.
The oar-shaped spade was similar to those
paddle-spades, the use of which Grith
Lerche and I have recorded from Papua New
Guinea (Lerche and Steensberg 1973, 87-
104). In the Western Highlands a great many
paddle-spades have been found in the
swamps. A specimen almost 3 metres long
was excavated at Kuk near Mount Hagen in
1975, and later dated by the Copenhagen
Radio-Carbon Laboratory to about 1480
A.D. (Steensberg 1980, 96-98). Spades of
similar shape, but normally shorter, have
been found in different parts of the ancient
world from Norway and Denmark over the
Ural and Altai mountains to New Guinea
and New Zealand (Steensberg 1973, 19-23;
Best 1925). The working method is fully
described in Tools and Tillage 1973 (Lerche
and Steensberg).
Hand-hoe and Plough
The hand-hoe has a steel-blade often slightly
curved. It is called pacul in Sundanese, cang-
kul in Indonese, and its wooden handle
tangkai or doran respectively in the same
languages. The specimen in fig. 3 was drawn
in Bogor. Its straight blade is 26 cm long and
18 cm broad; its handle is about 90 cm long.
The user moves forward step by step on the
field, and tilts the loosened lumps of soil
towards himself in such a way as to make
them look as if they had been turned by a
plough.
In mountain areas many of the cultivators
do not possess draught animals, and they
have to use the hand-hoe. Some do not even
possess their own land, but work for a prop-
rietor for a share, or mutually share the land
they till. The hoe is actually more effective
than the plough because the hoe-cultivator
has a more intimate control over his tool
than the ploughman over his plough, but of
85
former days such small plots were presum-
ably tilled with a wooden spade or digging
stick.
Professor S. Sartono of the Institute of
Technology at Bandung mentioned that he
had seen people using a digging stick high up
in the mountains of eastern Java. He did not
remember the exact place, and thought it
was not the only tool used in tilling at this
particular place. Ian Glover observed dig-
ging sticks mounted with wedge-shaped iron
tips in the now Indonesian island of Timor,
so they may well have been in use in Java in
former times.
This is demonstrated by an eye-witness
who stayed there before the Second World
War. In 1939 the late Professor R. G. Col-
lingwood wrote to a friend in England that
he had seen the digging stick in use among
tribes who had no ploughs or mattocks.
(Collingwood 1957). It was shaped like an
oar, and used like a spade. A capable
operator could turn with it a furrow re-
sembling a ploughed furrow. As for lyn-
chets, Collingwood said he had never
Fig. 3. A modern hand-hoe with steel blade
drawn in Bogor.
Moderne Handhacke mit Stahlblatt, gezeichnet in
Bogor.
dreamed of the like. He described the pad-
dy-fields for sa.wa.h~ agriculture exactly as
they are to-day on sloping hillsides above
Bangalore, confined by revetments build of
mud. Later on he noted that they also used
ploughs pulled by buffaloes, though this
could have been in other areas.
The oar-shaped spade was similar to those
paddle-spades, the use of which Grith
Lerche and I have recorded from Papua New
Guinea (Lerche and Steensberg 1973, 87-
104). In the Western Highlands a great many
paddle-spades have been found in the
swamps. A specimen almost 3 metres long
was excavated at Kuk near Mount Hagen in
1975, and later dated by the Copenhagen
Radio-Carbon Laboratory to about 1480
A.D. (Steensberg 1980, 96-98). Spades of
similar shape, but normally shorter, have
been found in different parts of the ancient
world from Norway and Denmark over the
Ural and Altai mountains to New Guinea
and New Zealand (Steensberg 1973, 19-23;
Best 1925). The working method is fully
described in Tools and Tillage 1973 (Lerche
and Steensberg).
Hand-hoe and Plough
The hand-hoe has a steel-blade often slightly
curved. It is called pacul in Sundanese, cang-
kul in Indonese, and its wooden handle
tangkai or doran respectively in the same
languages. The specimen in fig. 3 was drawn
in Bogor. Its straight blade is 26 cm long and
18 cm broad; its handle is about 90 cm long.
The user moves forward step by step on the
field, and tilts the loosened lumps of soil
towards himself in such a way as to make
them look as if they had been turned by a
plough.
In mountain areas many of the cultivators
do not possess draught animals, and they
have to use the hand-hoe. Some do not even
possess their own land, but work for a prop-
rietor for a share, or mutually share the land
they till. The hoe is actually more effective
than the plough because the hoe-cultivator
has a more intimate control over his tool
than the ploughman over his plough, but of