vilan van de loo (Koppenburg collection, leiden)
Born in 1862 at Soekamangli, a large coffee plantation in the district of Weliri, the young girl was educated at a boarding school in Batavia (Jakarta), until the family fortunes declined and she had to return home to help her mother. Jans’ mother, Alber-tina van Spreeuwenburg, looked after the health of all the people living in and around the plantation; as the local people said: “The nonja besar (lady) knew everything about medicinal herbs.”
In his memoirs, Fred Kloppenburg, Albertina’s grandson, writes of his grandmother: “Outside the cultivated gardens … everything grew wild, but grandma seemed to recognize everything. During these walks, grandma would often talk with the Javanese village elders. She would ask them how the population was doing, were there any health problems, what were they doing about it. Often she would give advice to these people, showing them what herbs (weeds to us) were beneficial and how to prepare the medication.”
It was in this environment, at her mother’s side, that the young Jans became familiar with the local plants and their healing powers; even after her own marriage to Herman Kloppenburg in 1883, she pursued her interest in herbs. She became the president of a local healthcare society in Semarang, and received patients, and, when necessary, visited them at home. Her name and her reputation as a healer spread rapidly, so it was perhaps not surprising that she decided to publish her findings.
The Pictorial Atlas, as its name suggests, pictorially and textually describes the principal common plants that Mrs Kloppenburg used in her recipes. Indigenous Plants and their Healing Powers taught people how to prepare the herbs, and make the remedies. It was first published by Masman and Stroink in 1907, and was reprinted for several decades, with the last edition appearing in the late 1980s in Bahasa Indonesia.
Serat centhini was copied and revised so often no one knows which edition is the original. Some versions are dated 1742 in the Javanese calendar, which equates with 1814 in a Western calendar, but experts say much of the material dates from centuries earlier. Although the work covered every imaginable subject, much of Serat Centhini is concerned with sexual problems and includes copious advice on a variety of ailments as well as a number of remedies. Much of its style is fairly earthy and at times it resembles a series of fairy tales.
Yet, despite its basic approach, Serat centhini gives one of the best accounts of medical treatment in ancient Java. In nearly every instance, the remedies are taken from nature and many are easy to administer. Spots on the skin could be cleared up with a preparation of what was termed pucung paste which was made from the fruit of the kluwak tree (pangium edule) mixed with urip (euphorbia tirucalli; milk bush or finger tree) and widuri (calotropis gigantea; mudar plant) which had to be boiled up with the fruit. It was applied to spots while warm and was not to be removed for at least one day. The instructions suggest finishing the cure by grinding elung ubi jalar (the young leaves of sweet potato or Ipomoea batatas) with powdered lime and rubbing this mixture onto the affected area.
In addition to the recipes and formulae, Serat centhini includes a great many stories and folk tales that illustrate the use of jamu in daily life. One such tale relates to a newly married couple. The husband, who presented himself to his bride on their wedding night, was told that his sexual equipment was not up to the mark and that something must be done to rectify the matter. Feeling thoroughly dejected, the young bridegroom set off in search of an answer. He roamed far and wide until he came upon a magic mushroom one day. It appeared this mushroom did the trick, because his wife, as the story went, was overjoyed to find her husband suddenly so well-endowed.
Similar advice is found in other manuscripts or primbon in the Palace library at Solo. These manuscripts span many subjects and comprise some 5,000 texts written on 700,000 pieces of paper, which are bound into over 2,100 volumes, some dating from as far back as the 1720s. They include historical documents, political correspondence and court diaries, prophecies, poetry, moral tracts, erotic lore, Islamic theology and law, Sufi lyrics, scripts for shadow puppet plays, court customs and manuals of magical and divinatory practices, not to mention the four sections devoted to ‘pharmacy, prescriptions and recipes’. The latter provide detailed guidance on the curing of specific ailments. Other manuscripts contain a prince’s advice on sexuality and marriage to one of his children on the night before his wedding. Jamu inevitably plays an important part in these discussions. Indeed, as part of their marriage trousseau, brides were kitted out with a magnificently decorated, square- or pyramid-shaped box comprising stacks of small drawers full of medicinal herbs.
A relief at borobudur depicts someone taking jamu from a bowl.
It would be wrong to assume these old manuscripts were only known to the rich and well educated. The contents were usually written in verse and were sung or intoned as part of regular public performances. Those who lacked formal education became attentive listeners as they heard the pieces often, thereby absorbing the endless flow of cultural information the verses contained. In this way, Javanese philosophy and knowledge were spread to all levels of society.
As well as the more disciplined approach to herbal medicine promoted by the various kraton, many other healing traditions exist in other parts of the archipelago. A wide range of healing practices can be found in Bali, Sumatra, Kalimantan and Madura, which are also renowned for the use of magic and aphrodisiacs. Java, however, is in a class of it own, due to the all-embracing nature of the cures, their success, and their links to the palaces; jamu from the areas around a kraton was, and still is, considered to be the best in terms of status, prestige and—ultimately—efficacy. In much the same way that today’s designer goods carry a mark of quality and are deemed superior to mass-produced goods, so it was with jamu.
Developments in the 20th Century
Indonesia’s medical profession only realized the true value of its natural apothecary in around 1940. In June of that year, a meeting took place in Surakarta that was to revolutionize the future of traditional medicine: the Second Congress of the Indonesian Physcians Association. To coincide with this event, the Mothers’ Association of Yogyakarta decided to mount a special Expo entitled ‘Traditional Indonesian Remedies’. It is uncertain who influenced whom, but before the Congress ended, a motion was passed recommending an in-depth study of traditional medicine and its applications. This was the first step towards improving the status of jamu and transforming it to complementary medicine status.
LOOKING BACK TO THE COLONIAL DAYS
In 1968, Tong Tong magazine printed an article by a Dutch woman who was brought up in Indonesia. The extract below is reprinted by kind permission of Tong Tong in the Hague.
“The article in Tong Tong No. 13 from the Indische (Indonesian Newspaper) of 1910 reminded me of the traditional recipes my mother made from leaves, barks, seeds and roots. When I was a small child the doctor never came to our house because we couldn’t expect him to come out for every little illness.
“That’s why my mother made her own medicines. She made a compress of daon inggoe (devil’s dirt leaves) and vinegar for treating severe fever. For sprains the proven remedy was Beras Kencur and for mumps she used a pilis (compress) of maize and garlic. She had various cough syrup recipes and if one didn’t cure it then my mother tried another. I still remember many healed us completely.
“We usually walked barefoot and often came home with badly blistered and scratched feet. In such instances a sirih (betel) leaf was mixed with some coconut oil, flattened to a pancake shape and applied to the sore spot. The foot was bandaged and when this was removed a few days later, the cuts never festered. Some years later, our dentist made an oral rinse using extract of sirih leaves. The same decoction was used for ulcerating cuts instead of a soda bath. The result was amazing.
“However, my mother was not a gentle healer. If we were cut by splintered glass, a nail or a sharp piece of bamboo she took the bottle of vinegar and said, ‘Close your eyes.’ We closed our eyes but instantly opened our mouths to shout when she poured it onto the open wounds! When the bleeding stopped she would put sirih leaves on the cuts.