Bulletin of the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology (1997): 21.
1&2: 35–66
The exceptional janggolan: engineless sailing ships still trading from Madura,
Indonesia
Nick Burningham
Western Australian Maritime Museum, Cliff Street, Fremantle WA 6160
and Jeffrey Mellefont
Australian National Maritime Museum, GPO 5131, Sydney NSW 2001
Figure 1. A janggolan under sail.
Introduction
Data for this paper have been collected by the authors
on visits to Madura and East Java in October 1992 and
March–April 1994, data are also drawn from numerous
previous visits to Indonesia made by both authors during
the last two decades. Comparative data from Vietnam
and Southern China was collected by Burningham in
1992 and 1994.
The vast archipelagic nation of Indonesia has been
one of the last strongholds of traditional sail-propelled
ships and boats—both cargo-carrying and fishing vessels.
When this research was carried out, in 1994, large cargo-
carrying perahu which rely entirely on sail for propulsion
were fairly scarce and probably declining in numbers,
although perahu with auxilliary engines (known as perahu
layar-motor or PLM) are still operating in large numbers.
There remain perhaps two or three hundred engineless
lambo sloops and ketches of western-influenced design
operating throughout the archipelago from bases mainly
35
in the region of Buton (lat. 5˚ 00’S, long. 122˚ 50’E) and
Kayuadi (lat. 6˚ 55’S, long. 120˚ 50’E). A considerably
more exotic type of sailing perahu, the janggolan from
Madura, continues to operate in Madura Strait and the
Java Sea (Fig. 1). More than 150 janggolan are still in use
and recently they have been built in significant numbers.
Moreover, the newly built janggolan are of larger size—up
to about 200 m3 capacity—than those previously built. It
is the janggolan, and related types of perahu, that are the
subject of this paper.
All the janggolan are built in one of two locations: either
in the Kecamatan of Sreseh, which is in the Kabupaten of
Sampang and on the south coast of Madura, or nearby
on the off-lying island of Mandangin (which appears as
Pulau Kambing on most charts). Nearly all janggolan are
owned by people from those same places. Sreseh is an
isolated district with very few servicable roads, but an
extensive network of wide tidal creeks, intersecting canals
and ditches, and salt pans which become fish farms in the
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
Figure 2. Map of Madura and Madura Strait. Inset map of Java.
wet season. Water-borne transport is more important than
land transport for much of the population. Sreseh seems
to be an unusually autonomous area: this must be due
partly to its isolation and the difficulty of communication
by any means other than shallow-drafted watercraft,
piloted with local knowledge.
Janggolan are cargo-carrying vessels. In recent years
they have been operated almost exclusively in two trades:
carrying locally produced salt across Madura Strait to Java
and a relatively long-distance trade carrying timber from
Kalimantan, Sumatera and other islands to the the main
cities of West Java. Occasionally salt carriers are diverted
to other low value commodity freight in Madura Strait,
mainly tiles, bricks and sand in the last decade.
Structure and form of the janggolan and related types
of perahu
Janggolan, lis alis and kroman are double-ended vessels
which have extensions of their keel curved upwards at
both ends to form projecting spurs; and they have narrow,
wedge-shaped, raking transoms at both ends of the hull.
The transoms are positioned inboard of the keel ends
and they are nearly always decorated with polychrome
carving of traditional design.
The janggolan are the large cargo-carrying perahu of
the Sreseh district. Local fishing vessels and small open
craft of the area are generally vessels of a different style
and structure: in the main, they can be categorised on the
basis of their structure as belonging to the lete or pakesan
type which has its origins further east on Madura or its off-
lying islands (Horridge, 1981: 38–41; Burningham, 1989:
210, 211, fig. 7). However, to the west of Sreseh, in the
neighbouring Kabupaten of Bangkalan, the predominant
type of small craft, used for fishing and short haul carriage
of market produce, are a smaller versions of the janggolan
called lis alis, or kroman if they are of an intermediate
size (Figs 3 and 4). The distinction between these three
types is not universally agreed, either on Madura or in
the literature. The Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indie
(Stibbe & Spat, 1923: 422–446) provided the following
definitions (our translation):
36
Alis alis. A completely plank-built fishing vessel, the
same shape as the janggolan trading perahu, but smaller.
Characteristic is the projecting keel timber at each end. The
planking, fore and aft, runs out to a flat upright [transom],
which is tastefully decorated with carving. Used in East Java
all along the coasts of Madura Strait.
Djenggolan (djanggolan). An East Javanese trading perahu of
about the same shape as the Alis alis, but bigger and with
fixed deck. It is distinguished by the bifid stem and stern,
and by two rows of small black blocks on the whitewashed
hull like the heads of shipnails. Djenggolan means literally
‘transport’ or ‘carrier-vessel’. Djenggolan are also used in
East Java and Madura in the nener fishery to seek the fishing
grounds and carry the nener.
[Nener are the lava of the bandeng (Chanos chanos) fish
which are collected for stocking fish farms.]
Kroman. A small padoewang used on Madura and the islands
to the east thereof.
Padoewang or paduwang were large double-outrigger
canoes with hulls of outwardly similar structure and style
to lis alis and janggolan, but the name kroman has not been
applied to outrigger vessels elsewhere. Paduwang were
built until the 1930s, and perhaps later, with sewn-plank
construction: the thick layer of dammar resin covering
the sewing can be seen in all illustrations of paduwang
from the 1830s (Reith [Paris] 1992: plate 104) until the
second half of this century (Frere-Cook, 1966: 272). There
is no evidence to show that non-outrigger vessels of the
janggolan-lis alis type were ever constructed with sewn
planks. Van Kampen (1907, plate 9) shows a vessel with
no outriggers, employed in the nener fishery, and calls
it a ‘kroman’: it is a good example of the type which we
classify as the kroman in this paper.
The meaning of ‘djenggolan’ given above (Stibbe &
Spat, 1923) might be too simple. Jang means ‘plank’ or
‘strake’ of a boat in Madurese and olan may be cognate
with ulang meaning ‘repeat’: thus a janggolan is a vessel
with (many) more strakes than a lis alis.
The definitions quoted above were probably written
decades before the publication date (1923). They are taken
from the entry under the heading ‘Vaartuigen’ which was
contributed by ‘ G.F. d B.K.’—presumably G.F. de Bruin
Kops who had written on the same subject in 1854 (Bruijn
Kops, 1854) and could scarcely have been providing
up-to-date information seventy years later. Indeed Van
Kampen (1909) cites an earlier undated version of the
Encyclopedie (Coops & Rouffaer, n.d.) as the source of a
brief description of lis alis, kroman and janggolan which
contains sentences identical to some of those translated
above. Van Kampen (1909: 39) also gives pegon as an
alternative name for janggolan. The name was still used
recently for large kroman engaged in carrying market
produce and passengers to Surabaya from Kwanyar and
Bangkalan, in western Madura, and by some janggolan
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
sailors from Pulau Mandangin.
Transoms are a feature of several boat types from the
region. Among the variety of small craft used on the lower
reaches of the Solo river which meets the sea opposite
the western end of Madura is a small and simple form of
lis alis, and there are other boat types from the area that
also have heavy projecting stems surmounted by small
transoms (Fig. 5).1 In the 19th century these vessels had
larger transoms and looked rather more like lis alis. In
common with lis alis they also had numerous beams with
their ends projecting through the planking (Paris, 1841:
plate 89, Reith, 1992: plate 98).
On the coast, to the north of the Solo flood plain,
in the Kabupaten of Lamongan, one finds the last large,
sea-going, sailing perahu built on the mainland of Java
by Javanese-speaking people. The majority of these are
fairly ordinary-looking double-ended craft, but some of
the older examples are built-up from a large and shallow
hull, like that of the smaller local mayang fishing craft
(Burningham & Stenross, 1994: 108). These vessels have
a small transom inboard from the projecting ends of
the stem and sternpost. In some cases the transoms are
more-or-less entirely decorative or vestigial—the hulls are
really double-ended but they still have transoms sticking
out either side of the bow and stern. The same kind of
non-functioning transom and projecting stem could be
seen on the bow of the now-extinct Madurese perahu kacik
(Horridge, 1986: fig. 2) which was also a cargo carrying
vessel.
Transoms are found elsewhere in Indonesia, as was
pointed out by Gibson-Hill (1950: 124–5) in his discussion
of the janggolan and its antecedents. Paris illustrated a
canoe from Malacca Strait with similar transoms (1841:
plate78) and a larger vessel from Aceh with tall narrow
transoms much like those of the largest janggolan. (1841:
plate 76) Among the relatively primitive watercraft of the
Melanesian peoples of Eastern Indonesia and Papua New
Guinea, the construction of flat transoms, standing above
the sharp projecting ends of dugout canoes, is not an
uncommon design (Haddon, 1937). The large outrigger
vessels depicted in the bas-relief friezes at Borobudur
are difficult to interpret but they apear to have both a
tall structural transom and a kopeng decorative transom
projecting either side of the structural transom.
The use of transom bows and stern, and a perceived
similarity to the junks of southern China, have led
Horridge (1987: 79) to infer that the original kroman and
lis alis were built by Chinese boatbuilders employed by
the Dutch at Surabaya. He states that lis alis ‘are entirely
different from the traditional Indonesian designs.’ We do
not find any substantial evidence to support Horridge’s
inference. There is nothing specifically Chinese in the
structure of lis alis or the larger vessels (although the large
janggolan and some other Madurese craft are caulked with
shaved bamboo—a material also used in southern China
and Vietnam). They are certainly unusual looking craft,
but as described above, there are other vessels built with
37
Figure 3. Lis alis built at Sukolilo.
small transoms on the north coast of Java, adjacent to the
western end of Madura where the lis alis are built. The
transoms are little more than vestigial in some kroman or
lis alis (Horridge, 1981: plate F).
In one respect, lis alis are structurally related to a large
‘family’ of Javanese perahu that has been classified and
later defined as the mayang (Van Kampen, 1909; Horridge,
1981; Burningham, 1989; Burningham & Stenross, 1994).
Lis alis, like mayang, are traditionally built with only four
broad strakes on each side of the hull. Most builders
of mayang denominate four strakes in the structure of
their vessels.2 Large modern mayang frequently have a
greater number of strakes, but the builders retain the
four strake terminolgy, and they build the mayang with a
characteristic double-chined midsection in which the two
lower (nominal) strakes form a broad bottom with very
little deadrise. The midsection of the lis alis is different
from that of the mayang: the seams of the four strakes
of the lis alis form slight chines, but the midsection is
essentially rounded and has perceptible deadrise either
side of a broad keel-plank (Fig. 6). Although lis alis are
built with four strakes, none of the builders interviewed by
the authors, at the West Madura village of Sukolilo Barat,
had names for all four strakes: they call the garboard taker,
a name encountered nowhere else and a rare exception
to the almost pan-Indo-Malay usage of pengapet and its
cognates; the sheer strake is called cementeng, which is a
name widely used by builders of mayang. However, Kurt
Stenross in 1988 (pers. comm.) collected the following
complete set of strake names from the neighbouring
village of Kwanyar: serang, awak, cementing dapang, cementing
atas.
Structure and construction
Recently-built lis alis, surveyed at Sukolilo Barat, were very
carefully constructed from high-grade Javanese teak. A
vessel of 7.400 x 1.800 x 0.540 m was built with 30 mm
planking, edge-dowelled together with dowels at 120
mm between centres, and every third dowel locked with
transverse pins (Fig.7). Such a vessel is not fitted with
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
Figure 4. A Kroman.
frames except for a frame or floor which, in conjunction
with a thwart, forms the mast step. The plank seams of
the hull are luted with Melaleuca leucadendra bark (locally
called gelam) during assembly, but they are not caulked.
When the vessels get old and need caulking, then some
frames are usually fitted so that the caulking does not
force apart the planks. In the absence of frames, a
number of thwarts serve to give the hull rigidity. Most of
these thwarts are let through the hull planking, often at
the seams. They are incorporated in the structure of the
hull while it is being planked up—they are not inserted
later. This is done so that they can be fastened into the
planking by the dowels which edge dowel the planking
together (Fig. 7). More conventional means of securing
the beam ends are not available because there are no
frames, and therefore no stringers or beam shelf to which
the beams can be secured in this tradition of construction.
In the past, some janggolan and kroman had all the deck
beams let through the planking, but not all these beams
could be let through at seams because their height was
determined by the need to be more-or-less horizontally
aligned so that the deck could be laid flat. Some of these
beams would have been let through the planking after
the planks had been fitted and would probably be skew
dowelled to the planking.
Until about 25 years ago, some large Madurese cargo-
carrying vessels were built entirely without frames and with
structural rigidity provided by multiple thwarts or beams
in vertically-aligned tiers. Some, or all, of these thwart-
beams projected through the hull planking, as they do
on a lis alis, and their black-painted ends formed the rows
of black blocks mentioned in the Stibbe and Spat (1923)
description quoted above. Black-painted projecting beam
ends can be seen on the modern lis alis in Figure 3.
Large Madurese vessels called golekan, which were often
used as live cattle-carriers, are known to have been built
in this way and entirely without frames in the past (Blake,
1929: 55). Golekan were from the coastal communities
of north-western Madura where lis alis are found. Their
design affinity with the lis alis/janggolan tradition extends
38
Figure 5. A Solo River perahu comping.
to their rig and some stylistic elements.
Janggolan were certainly built with a large number of
projecting beams in their construction, but we have not
found direct evidence that they were ever built entirely
without frames. It might, however, be significant that
janggolan builders have no specific names for the floors,
bilge futtocks and top futtocks that make up the frames
in a janggolan. Only the term tajuk is used to name the
frames and the timbers from which they are assembled; but
in normal usage tajuk names only the top futtocks of the
frames, some of which project to form bitts and stanchions.
The lack of distinct names for the component timbers of
frames is fairly unusual in Indonesia and suggests that the
janggolan builders have no long tradition of fitting frames
into vessels. Some top timbers (tajuk) would necessarily
have been fitted into old janggolan (and also golekan) to
serve as anchor bitts and as stanchions in the stern.
It has been assumed that the structure using thwart-
beams to give rigidity to a planked hull is an ancient design.
This assumption rests on a range of evidence. There is its
distribution in remote corners of the Indo-Malay region
(Nooteboom, 1932; Horridge, 1978: 18–23) and also the
Maldives where it is anomolous in the regional context
and strongly suggests Southeast Asian influence (Manguin,
1985) Its similarity to structures in relatively primitive built-
up dugout canoes of the Indo-Malay region (Horridge,
1978: 18–23), and its replacement by frame-structures
in recent historical times contribute to the argument.
Moreover, several bas-relief carvings at Borobudur show
that mono-hulled planked boats of the 8th century were
built with numerous protruding beams (Erp, 1923, and
more clearly in Heide, 1929: 344, 345).The likelihood that
janggolan were once built in this archaic tradition, entirely
without frames, depends on the age of the janggolan as a
type: but the antiquity of the large kroman and janggolan
design is uncertain.
A sketch made by Admiral Paris in 1831 shows a lis
alis and in the background a larger lis alis or a small flat-
sheered kroman (Reith 1992: plate 93). The earliest graphic
evidence for the existence of the largerjanggolan-kroman
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan

have only one major structural thwart-beam which pierces

the planking. This thwart (polangan) is positioned in the
bow and the fore mast is stepped through it.
Nowadays janggolan are structurally stiffened by
numerous grown frames. In a 15 m length-overall janggolan
surveyed at Tosolong, Sreseh, the frames were irregular
in size and spacing but averaged about 140 mm face x
100 mm moulding and were spaced at about 390 mm
average between centres.
Fastenings in all janggolan are steel nails, usually 12 mm
diameter steel bolts used as nails or dumps, hammered
into under-size pre-drilled holes. This use of steel nails
for fastening the planking to frames in janggolan is not
new. Gibson-Hill (1950: 123) observed that they were
generally fastened with iron nails. Most other types of
perahu have been fastened mainly with treenails, though
Figure 6. Mid-section and bow profile of a lis alis. in recent years the number of bolts used to augment the
treenail fastening has increased. The use of iron nails
might suggest the influence of Chinese boatbuilders, but
there is no evidence in photographs that nails were used
type of vessel, known to us, is a photograph which has been
early in this century. Rust streaks from nail heads usually
dated ca.1865 and is said to show Batavia (Jakarta) harbour
show fairly clearly, but they are absent from photographs
(Crean, 1979: 72).This attribution is questionable: it might
such as that in Van Kampen (1909: plate 9). However, if
well be Gresik harbour, near Surabaya; but the date seems
the vessel illustrated by Van kampen had no frames, there
plausible since the European shipping in the photograph
would then be no fastenings of the planks to the frames,
includes a flat-sheered, square-sterned, mainskysail-
either nails or treenails. In any event, early illustrations
yarder with a very lofty rig, and painted ports—this is
of janggolan and kroman do not show evidence of metal
a type of ship that was not built after about 1860 and
fastenings.
would be unlikely to have retained her skysail later than
The structure of a modern janggolan is crude and
about 1875. The kroman in the photograph appears to be
simple compared with that of most other types of perahu.
virtually identical to vessels built one hundred years later.
There are no structural stringers, clamps, or beam shelf
Given this apparently stable tradition of design it might
(though sometimes light, non-structural stringers are
be posited that the design was already well established
fitted to keep the cargo out of the bilge). The ends of
in the 1860s. The lack of evidence for its existence at an
the beams are simply nailed, with skewed bolts, on to
earlier date is certainly not conclusive.
frames and not supported in any other way. There is no
A photograph of a large kroman published in 1907
keelson and the mast steps are very rudimentary. There
(Van Kampen, 1907: plate 9) shows a vessel with beams
are no lodging knees, although massive lodging knees are
protruding through her planking in seven groups of
an important part of the structure of lete lete-type vessels
vertically aligned tiers (it is not possible to count all the
built in other parts of Madura.
protruding beams in the earlier photograph mentioned
Like all other types of perahu, janggolan are built shell
above). Only three of these groups are in the long mid-
first. The plank shell is built-up from the keel with the
body of the hull so there may have been some frames fitted
planks edge-dowelled together (Fig. 8). In the construction
to augment the thwart-beam structure. Later janggolan,
of janggolan the planks are pre-bent to approximately the
kroman and also golekan with a similar number of groups
required shape using heat from small fires to render the
of tiers of beams had some frames in their structure.
timber slightly plastic. (With some variations in detail,
Nieuwenkamp (1926: 151, 152) sketched janggolan at
the same technique is general throughout those parts
Surabaya in 1918, the multiple projecting beam ends are
of Indonesia and neighbouring Southeast Asia which
clearly depicted, as are a small number of fastenings for
lie to the north and west of Madura. However, in the
top futtocks that form stanchions: no other fastenings
regions of Indonesia lying east of Madura, traditionally,
are evident.
planks are not bent to shape, but rather they are split and
While the form and styling of the janggolan has
carved from grown timbers.) The janggolan builders have
remained virtually unaltered until today, the structure
developed an ingenious system in which several small
of the hull has now changed significantly. As recently as
fires are burned in metal buckets suspended from the
ten years ago it was possible to see many janggolan with
plank at various points along its length. The buckets are
tiers of protruding beams (see Hawkins, 1982: 72, 76–77)
moved frequently to avoid excessive charring of the timber
but today there are none left. Small kroman and lis alis
while the plank is gradually forced to the required bend
retain a structure that relies, at least in part, on numerous
(Fig. 9). The planks are dampened regularly during the
projecting thwart-beams; but janggolan built in recent years

39
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
Figure 7. Locking pins and beam ends locked to planking by
edge-dowels.
process and charred timber is often dubbed off with an
adze after the plank is fitted. Nonetheless some charring
is always evident on the internal face of the planking of
a janggolan.
The janggolan hull form is well devised to ensure that
there are no sharp bends in the planking. Some of the
lower strakes curve and twist fairly quickly in towards the
upturned ends of the keel, but the higher strakes curve
gently through the mid-body and run almost straight
towards the ends There is only moderate tapering of the
planks as they run towards the ends of the hull, hence
the tremendous sheer. The transoms that close the ends
are not fitted until the planking is completed; but they
are fitted before the framing of the upper plank shell is
complete. During the construction of the plank-shell, in
the absence of any stem or transom structure, the ends
of the upper strakes are not forced to bend in towards
the mid-line of the hull. This produces a rather unusual
hull form in which the upper water-lines, or level-lines,
have their greatest curvature through the short mid-body.
When the transoms are fitted, they are simply bolted
or dowelled to the upper face of the keel extensions,
there is no mortice. The plank hoodends are fastened
into a rabbet cut in the sides of the transoms, but it is the
transom that is fastened to the plank-shell and supported
by it, rather than the transom functioning as a structural
upright like a stem.
Kroman and lis alis differ from janggolan in the character
of their hull form, reflecting differences in structure
and construction sequence. They generally exhibit less
curvature through the mid-body and more in the ends:
in other words, they have a relatively longer mid-body
and shorter ends. Because the hull is constructed with
thwart-beams let into the planking as the plank-shell is
assembled, the hull is rigid during assembly and cannot
be distorted to achieve a fit with the transoms; therefore
more care must be taken to achieve a shape in the ends
of the hull into which the transoms will fit. In fact, small
lis alis are built with the transom in place before the two
upper strakes are fitted. The transoms of lis alis built in
recent years are more raked, in some examples the transom
40
lies more-or-less parallel to the antek (keel extensions)
and the rabbet line of the planking along the antek runs
smoothly into the rabbet on the transom (Fig. 6). The
small lis alis of the Solo river have relatively smaller and
less raked transoms that are fitted closer to the extremities
of the antek and only the ends of the uppermost strakes
land on the transoms. Kroman and lis alis have considerably
less sheer than janggolan: the four strakes of a lis alis are
tapered to give a relatively flat sheered form, and larger
kroman were built with a number of drop strakes which
taper out before reaching the ends of the hull to achieve
a form with less sheer. Some drop strakes also occur in the
planking of most janggolan, but they are fewer in number.
The plank pattern of janggolan is rather irregular, often
with significant differences between port and starboard
sides of a hull.
In the past, relatively large trading vessels that might
have been called janggolan had much less sheer. The
Ingleton collection of photographs of Indonesian vessels
taken in 1932 (Collections of the Australian National
Maritime Museum) includes a picture of a kroman-janggolan
type vessel trading to Jakarta that had quite flat sheer. On
the other hand, Nieuwenkamp who was at Surabaya in
1918, sketched a number of fine, boldly-sheered janggolan,
which were in most respects identical to the best janggolan
that could be seen there fifty years later. The janggolan
and kroman that Ingleton saw at Jakarta and Surabaya
were smaller and rather scruffier craft, reflecting the
gradual decline in perahu shipping, particularly to the
major ports, during the first three decades of this century
(Dick, 1979; 1987).
During construction of the plank shell of a janggolan,
luting material is placed in the seams between the planks.
Traditionally this material is the bark of the paperbark tree
(Melaleuca leucadendra), called gelam in Madura and much
of the Indo-Malay region. After construction the seams are
also caulked. Lis alis and Javanese mayang, which are more
carefully built, are not caulked when new and rely on the
luting in the tight seams to prevent leaks. The janggolan
are caulked with fine shavings of bamboo. This material,
locally called umpot, is used in other parts of Madura,
but not elsewhere in Indonesia. It is used in some parts
of Vietnam and Southern China—the Chinese name is
daixi. After caulking, the plank seams are paid with locally
made lime putty (dempul); the lime is made by burning
coral and the oil used in the putty is from the nut of the
camplong tree (Calophyllum inophyllum), sometimes fibre
such as old hessian sacking is added to the putty. After
caulking and paying, the whole underwater body, up to
the light water-line, is coated with pelepa—a smooth layer
of the putty without fibrous addition, which protects the
timber from teredo worm and provides a friable surface
from which barnacles, weed, and other fouling are fairly
easily removed (Fig. 10).
Formerly janggolan were built almost entirely from
teak (Tectona grandis) either sourced from Madura, the
Kangean islands to the east, or the mainland of Java. Lis
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
alis are still built from Java teak, but janggolan are now
built from a variety of timbers which are mostly from
Kalimantan. Labang (Vitex gofassus) is preferred for the
keel, and was in the past, because it is very resistant to
the depredations of teredo worms (the bottom of the
keel can never be satisfactorily coated with lime putty
to protect it). Timbers now used for planking include:
bungor (Lagerstroemia speciosa), ulin (Eusideroxylon zwageri)
and telutung (Sp.?); frames are mostly local camplong
(Calophyllum inophyllum).
Hull form
The lines of the janggolan ‘Uranya’ (Fig. 11) show a
midsection with virtually no deadrise, and a very slack turn
to the bilge, which starts close to the keel, but straightens
into very flaring topsides at about the light water-line. The
immersed hull form of a janggolan sailing light has only
about 60% of the beam of the deep-laden form. The length
to beam ratio is approximately 3: 1, as it is for most types
of cargo perahu. The high ends and the tall gabled cabin
structure give the impression that a jangolan has a fairly
deep hull, but this is not the case. The midsections of a
small, four strake lis alis from Sukolilo, and the janggolan
‘Uranya’ are compared in Figure 12. Both have a beam
to depth ratio of 3.1: 1 and the sections are very similar,
though the lis alis has a more gradual turn to the bilge
which is carried right up to the rail. With their shallow
and broad-beamed hull form, janggolan are able to take
ground and sit upright without putting too much strain
on the hull; and they are also able to sail without ballast.
A typical 15 m length-overall salt carrier such as Uranya
can sail in less than 800 mm of water when unladen.When
fully-laden with salt for the short voyage across Madura
Strait to Pasuruan, Java, janggolan are sailed with their rail
down to the water-line in the waist (Fig. 13). The planked
lower portion of the gabled roof over the hold forms a
coaming which effectively raises the freeboard and keeps
seas from slopping into the hold. Uranya is shown with
gabled roofing over the hold aft of midships, and the
forward part of the hold is open to facilitate loading and
unloading salt cargoes. In wet weather the exposed portion
of the salt cargo can be covered over with a tarpaulin. All
the salt-carrying janggolan that operate between Sreseh and
Pasuruan, Java have been modified in this way—with the
forward part of the hold open—but janggolan that normally
make longer voyages, from Sampang across a wider part
of Madura Strait to Probolinggo, or across the Java Sea
in the timber trade, still have the entire hold roofed over.
The planked lower part of the gabled roofing is essential
in contributing freeboard to a deep laden janggolan and
could be considered part of the hull proper.
The bows and stern are very high: as mentioned above,
the janggolan design features an extraordinary amount of
sheer. The tip of the bow is more than twice the height
above the keel of the rail in the waist. The peak of the high
gabled roof is at the same height as the tip of the bow.
The lines illustrated here can be regarded as typical
41
Figure 8. Building a janggolan shell-first.
of the janggolan employed in the salt trade to Java. All the
vessels in this trade are of about the same dimensions:
15 m x 5 m x 1.5 m (or about 2 m depth in the hold if
the coaming is included). They load 35–40 tonnes of
salt piled up to near the top of the coaming. There are
two non-structural bulkheads built into a salt-carrying
janggolan so that the cargo is contained to the mid-body
of the vessel. The forward bulkhead is immediately aft of
the mainmast, and the aft bulkhead is about 3.5 m from
the tip of the stern.
Formerly the janggolan employed in the timber
trade were of about the same size and form as those
now employed in the salt trade, and the few which were
built a little larger had approximately the same relative
proportions of length, breadth and depth. Timber carriers
were not fitted with bulkheads and those of similar size
to salt-carriers were able to load about 50 m3 of timber.
Janggolan of greater size were built, certainly in the 1970s
if not before then. Their lines were very similar to those
of the salt carrying janggolan.
In recent years considerably larger timber carriers
have been built with rather different lines. There is a
class of large janggolan —perhaps 80-120 m3 carying
capacity—which are only slightly longer than the salt
carriers and which gain most of their extra capacity by
having considerably greater depth in the hold relative
to their length, and therefore greater beam by virtue of
the flaring topsides. These vessels have somewhat less
sheer than the typical salt carrier. They are very tubby
and ungainly in appearance (Fig. 14). They are able to
sail without ballast, but they must make terrible leeway
when close-hauled. That they are able to make regular
passages is instructive: their hull form is very different
from the capacious round-ships of the Middle Ages, but
their basic proportions must be rather similar and they
look equally implausible.
The largest and most modern janggolan have better
proportions. The straight middle portion of their keel
tends to be about the same length as that of the other
large janggolan but the upcurved extensions of the keel
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
Figure 9. Bending planks.
(antek) are longer and rise less steeply. This produces a
longer and slightly finer hull. They are not so deep in
the hold relative to their length, and no doubt they sail
better. Large janggolan of this type, under construction
at Sreseh in March 1994, were being constructed with
heavy capping rails built onto timber ends that projected
through the cabin roof-coaming, in a style adopted
from the large perahu lete lete from the islands to the east
of Madura (Fig. 15). The transoms in their ends are
small and narrow relative to the size of the hull, and
their lines seem to be increasingly similar to those of
the better-proportioned engineless perahu pinis (the so-
called ‘Makassar schooners’) last built during the 1970s
in South Sulawesi.
Steering and handling sails on a janggolan
Steering gear
The traditional vessels of Java and Madura are mostly
steered with a single rudder that is carried on the lee
quarter of the hull and has to be shifted around the
stern to the new lee quarter whenever the vessel changes
tack (Fig. 16). Vessels from further east in Indonesia,
particularly South Sulawesi and places influenced by
its widely-dispersed nautical traditions, are steered with
double rudders, one mounted on each quarter. The typical
Javanese rudder is lashed against a heavy fore-and-aft
rail timber in the stern and depends from a central post
stepped through a thwart in the stern (Fig. 16). The South
Sulawesi rudder is lashed into a notch on the aft face of
a heavy projecting beam in the stern and depends from
a parallel beam higher in the stern (Fig. 17).
The janggolan combines features of these two systems.
There are two rudders—port and starboard rudders—but
the weather rudder is generally raised out of the water
(Fig. 18). The two rudders can be deployed simultaneously
when running before the wind, when making short tacks,
or in flukey conditions when raising and lowering the heavy
rudders in response to every change in wind be arduous.
But the two rudders employed simultaneously create
42
significant lee helm which is detrimental to performance
except when sailing before the wind. The large and high
aspect-ratio rudder blades of traditional Madurese perahu
are very important for resisting leeway, the centre of effort
of the sail plan is well aft, over the rudder, because the
hull form provides very little lateral resistance.
Madurese rudders (including those of the janggolan)
differ significantly from the South Sulawesi form. They are
located slightly further aft on the hull. They are splayed
outwards more—about 15˚ in the case of the janggolan—
and they are in effect semi-balanced rudders with part of
the blade forward of their axis of rotation.
The rudders of Javanese mayang and most types of
Madurese perahu depend from a single post stepped
through a thwart in the stern, but the two rudders of
a janggolan depend from two linked posts stepped in
the stern, which form an H-shaped structure known as
tetongkul or kultongkul. The rudders are lashed against both
the aft face of a projecting beam (dapuran meaning the
‘shoulders’, or pengkalang ‘a thwart’) and against a heavy
rail timber (pegepe). The rudders of a 15 m janggolan are
nearly 5 m in length; this is a defined design proportion,
equal to one-third the length and therefore equal to
the beam of the vessel. The rudders are fashioned from
massive baulks of hardwood. Long grained heavy timbers,
Eusideroxylon zwagerii and Intsia bijuga, are the timbers
favoured for their strength, but the rudders made from
these timbers are heavy and it takes three men (the entire
crew of a salt-carrier) to raise or lower the rudder.
The largest janggolan which are a recent development
for the West Java timber trade, now employ the more
convenient South Sulawesi double rudders because
janggolan-type rudders of adequate proportions for these
vessels would be dangerously heavy and unwieldy for
the crew to shift at sea. (The same adoption of Sulawesi
type rudders has recently been seen on other types of
Madurese perahu of more than about 100 m3 capacity.)
Janggolan that have the double thwarts for mounting South
Sulawesi type rudders built into their stern are called
spelen (Fig. 19). Spelen do not have the rudder mounting
posts stepped in the stern and therefore can have a small
deckhouse built on the stern, like South Sulawesi perahu
pinis. This gives the timber-carriers, which spend at least
eight months of the year away trading, a greater degree
of crew comfort than the traditional janggolan, in which
the accomodation is a cramped hutch at the extreme aft
end of the deckhouse gable.
Rig
The modern janggolan rig is show in the sail plan of a typical
salt carrier, Uranya, (Fig. 20).The rig attained its present
configuration in recent decades, in a development that
has drawn on a number of existing prototypes, modified
by adaptations and innovations. The janggolan can be seen
as a traditional vessel of conservative design, but the rig
demonstrates a willingness to experiment and innovate
using the available materials with creativity, ingenuity
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan

and economy. The janggolan rig is unique in a number

of respects.
There are large fore and main sails, and in most cases
a smaller mizzen sail which is set on a mizzen mast that
also serves as a boom crutch, stepped right aft. These
triangular sails can be classified as forms of boomed lateen
sail, spread between a strong upper spar or yard and a
lighter boom. These rigs have been classified as ‘two-
boomed rigs’ (Horridge, 1981: 31) but this classification
implies that either spar can serve as the boom on the
foot of the sail, whereas, in all cases the upper yard is a
much stronger and heavier spar than the boom and the
sail cannot be inverted.
The janggolan rig is most closely related to the rigs
carried by some large outrigger canoes from Madura and Figure 10. Applying the pelepa.
East Java (jukung and sekong), and to the rigs carried by the
structurally relatedlis alis, golekan, and kroman discussed
above. All these vessels, which are built only in western
these props can be called sokongan too, or they are
Madura and adjacent coasts of East Java, make use of
distinguished as catak. Outrigger canoes from the area of
rigs in which the upper end of the yard is held aloft by a
Tuban in East Java carry a very large rig and are equipped
prop and the rig is stayed by running stays, or guys, led
with a selection of five catak props of different lengths to
outboard to projecting booms—the outrigger booms of
suit different wind conditions. (They are, starting with
the canoes, and specially rigged booms (antol) on the
the tallest: pendowo, pateh, plandinan or lantenan, kangi
planked vessels. In the case of the outrigger craft the prop
toro or kakane toro and toro.)
takes the place of a mast. On the planked craft it augments
Lis alis carry a boomed lateen sail that is set from a
a short mast, and in most cases may be employed, or not,
short mast. The unstayed mast is permanently and strongly
as required. Only on the modern janggolan has the prop
stepped. No halliard is used; the yard is stropped to the
become a permanent feature of the standing rig. Until
mast head when the sail is to be set. To peak the yard,
twenty or thirty years ago janggolan carried almost the
the heel of the yard is held down by a short strop to the
same rig as golekan.
lee side of the hull forward of the mast. When changing
The outrigger jukungs of Madura carry a rig which is
tack the heel of the yard must be shifted and secured
described in detail by Horridge (1989: 82–91). The yard
by a strop on the new lee side. There are five strops on
of the boomed lateen sail is pushed up to set the sail,
each side of the hull, in the bow. The strop closest to
and held aloft, by a bamboo prop (sokong or sokongan)
the mast is used to peak the sail up high when sailing in
which steps right in the stern of the canoe. There is no
light winds. In strong winds the furthest forward strop is
conventional mast at all. The yard is stayed and held down
deployed to lower the sail’s centre of effort. The yard is
on to the prop by stays led port and starboard to the aft
also controlled and stayed by a vang. A lis alis is normally
outrigger booms, and by running stays or guys led port
tacked by turning downwind so that the sail and its spars
and starboard to fairleads on the forward outrigger booms
can be shifted around forward of the mast. In light winds
and with their lanyards made fast to the spar near its lower
a lis alis can be tacked through the wind when making
end (Fig. 21). With this rig, it is necessary to slacken off
short tacks, but the sail fouls the mast and the vang. Lis
the lee guy before the sail can be sheeted close-hauled.
alis can rig a boom (antol) to windward in order to guy
To change tack, a jukung must turn downwind and the
or vang the yard and prevent it from sagging to leeward,
sail is allowed to stream around forward of its yard; along
but frequently they sail without doing so. The antol boom
with the sail, the sheets are shifted around forward of the
provides the wide staying base that in the outrigger canoes
rig. A jukung cannot tack through the eye of the wind
is provided by the outrigger booms.
because the sail would foul the guys, aft stays, and the
The vessels that we classify as kroman have a different
prop, which are all rigged inboard of the sail. When not
rig. As noted above, the distinction between a lis alis and
sailing the prop is removed and the spars and sail are
a kroman is not universally agreed. A lis alis of slightly
stowed in the hull.
greater than average size can be styled a kroman, and
Some jukung carry a prop (sokongan) which has a
conversely a small kroman might be called a lis alis. But
timber fork or jaw (sokong or sankak) at its top, and can
the term kroman can be usefully reserved to classify vessels
be fitted with extensions of differing lengths at the base
significantly wider and deeper, relative to length, than
so that the sail can be set low when the wind is strong or
the open, four-strake, lis alis. Formerly such vessels were
peaked up high in light conditions, particularly when
employed carrying market produce and passengers from
running. Others, carry a bamboo prop which has two or
southwest and west Madura to Surabaya, and also for
more timber half-jaws lashed to it at different heights:
offshore fishing (Fig. 4). It may be that none of these is

43
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
still in use. A fine and typical vessel of the type we classify
Figure 11. Lines of Uranya.
as a kroman appears in Horridge (1981: plate F; and 1986:
fig. 17). Quite justifiably, it appears as a lis alis in the
earlier publication and a kroman in the latter. It can be
seen that the rig comprises of a pair of boomed lateen
sails set from very short masts and with the upper spars
guyed to a temporary and very longantol boom rigged
out to windward. Props are sometimes carried to support
the upper yards on these vessels, but they are not rigged
in Horridge’s photograph and the rig stands adequately
without them. A permanently rigged prop on the foresail
would foul the mainsail when changing tack. Kroman have
a bowsprit to which the heel of the foreyard is secured,
the angle at which the foreyard is peaked can be altered
44
by hauling the heel out towards the end of the bowsprit
or in towards the hull. This is more or less the rig that
was carried by janggolan until, perhaps, twenty years ago
and is described in more detail below.
Madurese golekan carry a similar rig, without a bowsprit,
if any are still sailing. Blake’s 1920s photographs show a
golekan’s main spar supported by a light prop stepped
on the lee rail well aft, and guyed to a temporary antol
boom set to windward in a fresh breeze. There is no
sokongan prop for the foresail (Blake, 1929; Hawkins,
1982: 69,75). However a prop could be employed to peak
up the foresail yard at times: Macknight (1977) shows a
large golekan with the foryard peaked up to catch a light
breeze, but that prop supporting the foresail spar would
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
have to be shifted before changing tack because golekan
change tack, like lis alis, by gybing their sails around ahead
of the mast. In light winds neither prop need be used,
especially with the wind aft of the beam: Ingleton’s 1932
photographs (ANMM coll.) show golekan sailing both with
and without sokongan.
In recent years not all golekan have have carried
sokangan props. In April 1994 an informat at Telaga Biru
who had sailed golekan in the 1950s reported sokongan as
a normal part of the rig, while young golekan sailors at
Sepulu in 1994 were surprised and dubious when told that
golekan had once used sokongan. Thus we have a picture
of both sokongan props and antol booms as optional aids
to sail setting on the Madurese planked craft with short
masts. The antol booms are usually observed run out to
windward only.
It should be noted that all the craft employing sokongan
props and guys have relatively light yards compared to
other Madurese boomed latteen craft (such as lete lete
described in Mellefont, 1991) which have taller masts
and heavily built spars designed to stand without the use
of props and guys.
The rig of the janggolan is like that of the jukung and
the Tuban sekong canoes in that the upper spars are held
aloft by permanently rigged props. On the outrigger
canoes the yard is actually pushed up with the prop,
whereas the janggolan’s yards are partially peaked up by
pivotting on their short masts and then they are propped,
but the modern janggolan’s sails are never set without the
sekongan props in place to support the rig (Fig. 22). The
sokongan has become a more-or-less permanent part of
the standing rig, and before a janggolan gets under way
both of its antol booms are run out and the guys (pirengan)
are set up for the duration of the voyage.
In this configuration, the yards are fixed or supported
at three points: at the heels which are on the fore-deck
and the bowsprit, where they cross the short mast, and
towards the after end by the sokongan and pirengan. The
heel of the mainyard is seized to a short fore and aft timber
(jagalan or sengkingan) that is bolted to the midline of
the fore-deck. The heel of the foryard is lashed in place
where it crosses the bowsprit, a third or more inboard
from its end. Both fore and main yards are stropped to
their respective mastheads by seizings rove through the
dumb-sheaves in the mastheads that would normally take
the halliard.
There is one other salient feature that distinguishes
the janggolan rig from other Indonesian boomed latteens
including the other western Madura rigs. On the other
rigs the luff of the sail is laced to the yard along all or most
of its length and seized to the upper end of the yard with
a peak earing. The sails of a modern janggolan, however,
have no lacing near the peak or the tack and they can be
hauled up and down the yard by a halliard or outhaul,
more-or-less like a traditional leg-of-mutton sail.
Sail handling
45
The way in which the boomed lateen mainsail of a
Figure 12. Lis alis and janggolan mid-section compared.
modern janggolan is handled is quite different from the
sail handling of the related Madurese craft discussed
above, and indeed from all other Indonesian perahu. The
sail cannot be shifted over the top of the short mainmast
and the main sokongan when changing tack because of
the fore sokongan stepped on the mainmast and because
the sail is set inside, or abaft, the guys (pirengan) which
stay the upper yard and are set-up permanently for the
voyage. In this respect it is like a very raked bermudan
rig, constrained by the stays and shrouds. However, it
cannot be put about as simply as a bemudan rig because
the main sokongan prop fouls the sail’s boom and leach,
preventing them from shifting freely across the centre-line.
A unique and ingenious system is employed to overcome
this problem.
When changing tack, either through the eye of the
wind, or gybing, the outhaul of the mainsail is cast off
and the head of the sail partially lowered, or hauled right
down with a downhaul if the wind is strong.
The mainsail is then sheeted in and the forward end
of the boom is unstropped from the mast (the boom is
shorter than the foot of the sail and does not extend
forward of the mast when the sail is set).
The boom, hanging on the topping lift, is run forward
until its aft end clears the main sokongan and it can be
shifted, along with the clew of the sail to the other side
of the sokongan. (Fig. 23). The boom is then run back aft,
but not to its full extent.
The halliard or outhaul for the head of the sail is
used to shift the peak of the sail around the sokongan.
This outhaul is a loop of rope, rove through a block at
the peak of the yard and led around either side of the
sokongan. The head of the sail is made fast to the outhaul
loop and can be hauled out on either side of the sokongan.
by hauling the loop in one direction or the other.
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
With the leach of the sail shifted around the sokongan,
the tack of the sail is cast off and shifted to leeward of the
mast. It can then be made fast again and the forward end
of the boom stropped to the mast again.
Finally the sheets have to be shifted across the aft deck
to the cleat on the lee gunwale and tacking the mainsail
is completed.
Meanwhile, the foresail, which sets outside the guys
(pirengan) that lead to the antol, is shifted forward and
over the top of its mast and sokongan in a manner similar
to that employed with most other lateen sails—using
the wind to lift the sail over the mast if the janggolan is
gybed—except that the yard is not shifted. It remains on
the side of the mast it was originally raised on, and for
this reason the sail is not laced to the yard in the way of
the mast.
If the janggolan is tacked through the eye of the wind,
the foresail becomes backed against the pirengan and
pushes the bow round onto the new tack. As soon as the
vessels head is through the eye of the wind the foresail is
brailed or closed by using the topping lift to haul the boom
up parallel to the yard. A man then climbs the foremast,
lifts the boom over the top of the mast and eases the sail
over the mast while the boom is lowered away on the new
lee side of the mast. The sheets must also be lifted over
the mast and yard, or carried around forward of the yard
which has its heel out on the bowsprit. The maneouver
of tacking through the eye of the wind is only carried out
in light and moderate conditions.
The sails of a janggolan are furled by casting off the
outhaul and hauling the inhaul rigged to the peak of
the sail to bring the peak down to the mast. The tack is
also cast off and the boom run forward a little. The loose
tack of the sail is then wrapped around the bunt of the
sail which is hanging in folds from the yard just abaft
the mast, while the lower, aft portion of the sail is rolled
and furled into its own foot in the usual way of furling a
boomed fore-and-aft sail. This makes for a neat stow (Fig.
24). The tack-line of the foresail is rove through the fore
yard close to its heel and led back to the foremast so that
it can be cast off and set-up without a man going out on
the bowsprit. Two lines control the forward end of the
foreboom. Where the foreboom crosses the foreyard it
passes through a metal ring (cengker) that is held close
to the foreyard by a lanyard rove through the foreyard
and led back to the foredeck. A separate line led from
the forward end of the boom through the cengker to the
foredeck hauls the boom aft when the sail is set and is cast
off allowing it to run forward when the sail is to be furled.
Other large Indonesian vessels with boomed lateen sails
set on relatively tall masts, such as perahu lete lete, have yards
which are too heavy to be regularly raised and lowered by
the crew, so their sails are brailed up and then furled up
to the yard. This involves the crew climbing aloft on the
spar which has no footropes and is peaked up steeply. The
sails of golekan are normally brailled, or partially rolled
onto the boom, and then lowered for furling. Neither of
46
these arrangement is really satisfactory in a strong wind:
it becomes almost impossible to completely brail the lete
lete sail before furling, so the work that the crew do aloft
is difficult and dangerous, while on a golekan there is
considerable risk of tearing the sail when lowering before
it is fully furled.
Because of way the mainsail of the janggolan is tacked,
and the way both fore and mainsail are furled, the luff
from the sokongan upwards, and the lower portion of the
luff around the mast cannot be laced to the yard; also the
forward part of the foot is not laced to the boom. The
lower portion of the luff is extended and held taut by a
prop or pole called a catak when sailing to windward.3
With the wind on the quarter or further astern, the
sails of a janggolan are set wing-and-wing (Fig. 13), with
the foresail poled out to windward: this configuration of
the sails is called abarong or lajer barongan. The catak are
used to pole out the booms of the sails when running
or broad reaching in light winds. There are large loops
or cringles on the booms halfway along the foot of the
foresail and mainsail which the catak can be slipped into.
The yards (pembaun) of the fore and main sails are
guyed or stayed by guys (pirengan) which attach to the
yard close to the point where the sokongan supports the
yard. They lead to the projecting antol booms, port and
starboard. On a salt carrier each yard has two pirengan on
each side (there are a greater number of pirengan rigged
on the bigger timber carriers). One standing pirengan from
each yard, on each side of the vessel, is made fast to the
antol with a lanyard, while its pair, a running pirengan, has
a thick rope lanyard rove through a large dumb-sheave
block at the end of the antol, led inboard, and made fast
to the short mainmast (Fig. 25). When tacking the crew
take up the slack in the lee guys just before going about.
The lee running pirengan of the foreyard, set up to
the extremity of the antol boom, is slacked off when close
hauled because it fouls the foresail boom and prevents it
from being sheeted in. The foreboom is also fouled by
the two main pirengan, but it can be lifted over them, with
the topping lift, to be set inside them. The standing fore
pirengan is made fast to the antol about halfway between
the rail and its outboard end. The fore boom lies against
it when close hauled and the position of this pirengan
limits the extent to which the foresail can be sheeted
in. This sets a limit on how close to the wind a janggolan
can be sailed, but like many traditional craft they could
never be sailed very close to the wind because this would
only result in excessive leeway and not help in making
ground to windward.
The antol are rigged so that they can easily be
unshipped and run inboard in a crowded harbour. The
yard and sokongan have sufficient lateral support from
the short masts to prevent the rig from toppling sideways.
Nevertheless, the pirengan are set up to projecting timber
head athwart the mainmast when the antol are unshipped.
The mainsail is never set when the pirengan are not set-up
to the antol.
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
Figure 13. A deep-laden salt carrier, sailing abarong.
When the antol are rigged, their inboard ends rest
against a fore-and-aft timber bolted to the deck, and that
timber is notched to stop the ends of the antol sliding
forward. The antol are held down in a variety of ways
(Fig. 26). Some janggolan have the antol run outboard
between two projecting timber heads on the rail and a
large steel bolt or rod inserted through holes in the timber
heads hold the antol down. On other janggolan there is
a bar to hold the antol, lashed down to the rail or deck
beams on either side of it. The bar is usually made of an
especially strong type of bamboo which has little or no
hollow space in its centre. And there are other janggolan
that have the antol lashed directly to gunwale. On many
jangolan the antol are lashed down using two or three
of the arrangements described above. The majority of
janggolan now have the rail built up where the antol are
run outboard so that the antol angle upwards and do not
often drag in the water when heeling in a strong breeze.
Although the antol are well steeved up, and sometimes
are curved upwards, one of the authors was onboard a
janggolan that did drag its antol when sharply heeled, with
predictble effect on the helm, despite sailing empty with
high freeboard.
The pirengan (guys) and a single backstay (upau)
immediately abaft the main sokongan are made from
47
galvanised fence wire: in some cases a single strand, and
sometimes two strands roughly laid-up around each other.
In the past steel cable was used. On most perahu, fence
wire is used for standing rigging, laid-up in two or three
strands, in preference to galvanised steel cable, because
it is cheaper, rusts less quickly, and is quite adequately
strong so long as it is laid-up properly. It may be that rattan
cane was once used in place of wire rigging on janggolan
(as it was, and still is on some South Sulawesi perahu) but
old men we spoke to had no recollection of this, though
they remembered the use of locally made coir rope for
running rigging, and rattan laid-up as cable for the anchor
lines. Today all running rigging and anchor lines are
polypropylene. Sail cloth is almost always flat-stranded
polypropylene cloth, like that used for making sacks but
of better quality. Cotton sail cloth was extensively used
on janggolan until the 1980s.
There is no provision for reefing sails, but the well-
supported rig can be doused in a moment with no danger
from heavy flailing spars. Most janggolan voyages are
made within the Sahul Shelf’s relatively shallow waters.
Anchoring is an important part of the voyage strategy, in
squalls when all sails are dropped, or if wind and current
are unfavourable. Janggolan always carry a pair of anchors
slung over each bow from elegantly carved cat-heads.
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
Figure 14. A big capacious janggolan.
One is usually a fisherman pattern anchor, locally made
from reinforcing rod and scraps of plate-steel. The other
anchor is always the traditional timber, single fluke,
plough or fish-hook pattern, reinforced with fence-wire
lashings (formerly rattan) and weighted with a volcanic
rock or scrap iron.
The janggolan in the salt trade are always sailed by a
crew of only three. When tacking they have to manage
the apparently complicated business of getting both
fore and mainsail around their respective masts and
also raising and lowering the heavy rudders. In fact, it
is usually managed without much fuss. No other sailing
perahu of similar size are regularly sailed with so small
a crew. It could be argued that the share of profits in
the salt-carrying trade is not enough to support a larger
crew, but many other perahu are so nearly unprofitable
as to pay almost nothing to the crew. Profit sharing and
organisation of trade are discussed below.
Development of the rig
One rather ancient looking janggolan owned at Sampang
(outside of Sreseh) was rigged with all-rope pirengan
in March 1994. She had a rig that was not peaked-up
as high as is now normal at Sreseh: the scant evidence
from photographs suggests that her rig was once more
typical. It seems that the modern janggolan rig, in which
the sokongan are permanently stepped, and the mainsail
is set inside the pirengan, has developed gradually from a
lower aspect-ratio rig like that of the golekan in which the
sails can be set with, or without the sokongan in place, at
least in moderate winds.
There are very few old photographs of janggolan under
sail, but the few that we have found all show the foresail
set without the sokongan and the mainsail set outside the
pirengan. Photographs of janggolan in harbour are more
common; they all show the rig lowered as the rig of a
golekan usually is in harbour.
A feature of the old janggolan rig was that the sails,
particularly the foresail, could be peaked up high in light
winds or when running, by moving the heel closer to the
48
mast. To accomodate the change in geometry, the yard was
sometimes held to the mast by a metal ring so it could slide
back and forth as the position of the heel was adjusted.
The heel of the foreyard slid back and forth by means of
another metal ring on the bowsprit—very much like the
bowsprit traveller ring of a traditional English cutter rig.
The modern janggolan rig seems to have developed in
a number of recent stages. First the permanent sokongan
prop was adopted for the mainsail which was set fairly
high peaked allowing an increase in area. This large and
tall mainsail required more substantial and permanent
guying to the antol booms. We have not discovered when,
or by whom, the inhaul-outhaul system that allows the
mainsail to be tacked inside the standing pirengan was
invented. Photographs in Piollet (1995) show that it had
become fairly standard by the early 1970s.
For sometime the foresail continued in the old style,
without a standing sokongan, its centre of effort able to
be adjusted by sliding the heel of the yard back and forth
on the bowsprit. An example of this rig is illustrated in
Horridge (1986: plate 15) and perhaps 50% of janggolan
were rigged in this way in 1980. In 1994 less than 10%
retain the old foresail rig.
Horridge (1987: 145–6) equates the mastless boomed
latteen sail, or ‘Madurese jukung rig’, set using a sokongan
prop, with a form of Haddon and Hornell’s (1938)
‘primitive oceanic latteen’, and he postulates that it is
the prototypical Austronesian sail, perhaps developed in
Indonesia before the arrival of the Austronesians. We do
not wish to engage in this speculation, but note that the
Madurese rig with the sokongan positioned near the aft end
of the yard is distinctive and very limited in distribution.
The earliest evidence for its existance is the sketches of
Paris who visited the region with Dumont d’Urville in the
early 1830s (Reith, 1992).
Trade carried by janggolan
Any description of the trading and operations of perahu
must be prefaced with some discussion of the limitations
of the available statistical data. Dick (1975) in his excellent
study of perahu shipping was alert to this and pointed out
that there were vast discrepancies between, for example,
the amount of copra shipped in Eastern Indonesia
destined for Surabaya and the amount recorded as having
come across the wharf there. This obviously points to
a form of smuggling, but in a large part this is neither
a reflection of rapacious dishonesty on the part of the
perahu operators, nor of large scale corruption on the
part of port officials; rather it is a tacit official response to
levies and imposts that would make marginally profitable
trades completely unviable if they were imposed on the
whole volume of the commodities carried by each perahu
in those trades.
We attempted to gain a picture of the scale and volume
of the salt trade carried by janggolan to Pasuruan, by
interviewing port officials, the principals of the company
centrally involved in the salt trade, perahu sailors, and by
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
inspecting port records at Pasuruan, in March and April
1994. A good deal of useful data were gathered; but the
real volume of salt carried from Madura to Pasuruan by
janggolan remains uncertain. This is explained below.
Because of the problems with the statistical data we relied,
to a considerable extent, on anecdotal evidence and
personal observation to provide a picture of the nature
of the trades plied by janggolan.
In 1994 janggolan were engaged in only two trades to
any significant extents. The older traditionally designed
janggolan are virtually all employed in the salt trade
between Sreseh, Madura and Pasuruan, Java. The larger
vessels which are mostly spelen with Sulawesi-type quarter
rudders are all employed in the timber trade to Java,
principally from southern Kalimantan and Sumatera
to Jakarta and Cirebon in West Java. They carry cheap
timber for the construction industry in Java; and in the
past many were engaged in carrying mangrove poles,
mainly from Belitung, which were used as supports for
concrete formwork in the building industry. Probably,
quite a large number of mangrove poles are still carried.
The large spelen are a fairly recent development: in
the past traditionally designed janggolan of about 40–60
tonnes deadweight capacity were employed in the timber
trade and a range of other trades. In the 1970s and
early 80s janggolan regularly traded to Pulau Pinang in
the Riau islands and to neighbouring Singapore with
salt. They also carried salt to both the east and the west
coast of Kalimantan. But the east coast of Kalimantan
probably represents the eastern limit of their normal
range. Janggolan do not trade to Eastern Indonesia; their
operations are restricted to the shallow seas and generally
lighter winds of the Java Sea and adjacent waters. This
does not necessarily reflect unsuitability for use in Eastern
Indonesia, probably it has more to do with the range of
western-Madurese trade networks and traditions.
The salt trade to Pasuruan.
In the past janggolan carried salt from Madura to many
destinations, but today virtually all of the salt carried by
janggolan is destined to Pasuruan. There are a number
of small salt processing companies based in the area of
Pasuruan. Pasuruan harbour, at the mouth of the Welang
river, is a reasonably convenient harbour. It can only
be entered when the tide is fairly full, and vessels lying
alongside the banks to unload take ground which must
strain their hulls, but the mud is fairly soft. The direct
course from Pasuruan to the entrance of the river at
Sreseh is 32˚ and the distance 30 nautical miles. During
the dry season or south-east monsoon when the bulk
of the salt cargoes are carried, the voyages to and from
Pasuruan are likely to be sailed on approximately a beam
reach if the south-east trades are blowing. In fact, the
janggolan nearly always sail from Pasuraun at night when
the katabatic winds off the high massif of Mount Bromo
are likely to deflect the trades more southerly and give
them an offing. By leaving Sreseh in the morning when
49
Figure 15. A big modern janggolan with better lines and a lete-
style rail.
bound to Pasuruan they can hope to take advantage of
any land breeze blowing towards the Java shore, which
will tend to bring the trade winds round to the north-
east during the afternoon. It is not usually possible for
janggolan to sail the direct rhumb-line course, particularly
at night, because it would take them over a reef called
Karang Bura and close to Sirumpa rock. The janggolan
can either go via another reef, Karang Koko, which lies
about ten nautical miles to the north-east of Pasuruan
and is marked with a light; or they can keep to the west
and take their position from the lighted buoys that mark
the entrance to the fairway through the narrows between
Surabaya and Madura.
In 1994 there were approximately one hundred
janggolan employed in the salt trade across Madura Strait.
The number is declining since no new salt carriers are
being built and some are being broken-up and rebuilt as
larger timber carrying spelen. However, there are probably
a considerable number of janggolan of the size used for
carrying salt which are laid-up or under-utilized. There is
said to be a shortage of crew and captains for salt carriers
because of the much higher earnings (share of profit)
in the timber trade.
Haji Husni, the founder of P.T Air Mas, the company
which acts as agent for all salt-carrying janggolan trading
to Pasuruan, gives a sarong, every year, to each janggolan
skipper who comes to Pasuruan in the month following
Idul Fitri (the festival at the end of the Moslem fasting
month of Ramadan). In 1991 he distributed 144 sarongs,
the following year the total was only 85, but in 1993 the
total rose again to 101. When we spoke to Haji Husni in
March 1994 the total of sarong distributed was 59 but the
month of sarong distribution was not over. This variation
in the number of sarong distributed appeared to reflect
variation in the total number of cargoes of salt delivered
to Pasuruan in those years with 1992 being a particularly
bad year for the salt trade and some recovery in ’93.
However, there are problems with this data.
The records kept at the Kantor Syahbandar (Harbour-
master’s office) in Pasuruan provided monthly totals
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
Figure 16. Javanese rudder.
of janggolan entering the harbour for the last five years
(89–93), and Haji Husni provided his record of janggolan
entering Pasuruan for 1992–93 (Fig. 28).4 Haji Husni’s
company Air Mas acts as agent for the janggolan and reports
their arrival to the Harbour-master’s office. It would appear
that Air Mas under report the arrivals by an average of
about 33%—only two out of three janggolan are reported
in. During quiet months there is less discrepency between
the Air Mas and Syahbandar figures, so the Syabandar figures
plotted in Figure 27 tend to flatten out the spikes and
troughs in the volume of the trade.
All janggolan are charged harbour dues on the basis
that they stay for only one day and that they are ferries
(perahu tambangan) of under 7 m3 gross capacity (isi kotor).
The dues are said to be levied at the rate of Rp. 50 per
cubic metre isi kotor, but this seems curiously low: a fee
of Rp. 350 paid by janggolan.rated at seven cubic metre,
would be equal to only Aus $ 0.20 in 1994. These dues
and any other charges are paid from the agent’s fee of
Rp. 15 000 charged by Air Mas. The fee is paid in equal
parts by the janggolan, the consignor of the salt, and the
50
Figure 17. Sulawesi rudders
Figure 18. Janggolan rudders.
buyer of the salt (which might be Air Mas).
The gross capacity, or isi kotor is supposed to be
calculated as registered length x beam x depth x ‘faktor’.
The factor depends on the type of the perahu and is
supposed to reflect the average capacity relative to
dimensions, like a block coefficient of capacity. In 1994
the factor for perahu lambo was given as 0.8 while bago
(or palari) had a factor of 0.7: although bago are usually
reckoned to be more capacious than lambo (Gibson-
Hill, 1950). The factor for janggolan is only 0.5, which is
presumably a concession to the very low margins of profit
and low value of their cargoes as much as their actual
capacity. TheSyahbandar records show that a proportion
of janggolan are registered as having an isi kotor capacity
of less than ten cubic metres. If they had the same relative
proportions as the larger janggolan they would have to
be less than 9 m in overall length. There are probably
no janggolan of this small size, and there are certainly
not enough to account for the entries in the Syabandar
records, so the calculation of isi kotor, or the dimensions
used for the calculation, would seem to arbitrary or
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan

notional. All the salt carrying janggolan that we have seen

are of approximately the same size—15 m length—and
ought to be approximately 60 m3 isi kotor (15 x 5 x 1.6 x
0.5 m3). In fact the isi kotor figures are wildly varied and
some janggolan are registered as other types of perahu.
The majority of sailing perahu, including the janggolan
in the timber trade, are laid-up in the wet season, but
the salt carriers are not. The salt trade is carried across
Madura Strait in every month of the year. Even with the
flattening effect of the Air Mas distortion, it can be seen in
Figure 27 that there are seasonal variations in the number
of cargoes, and therefore the volume of salt carried to
Pasuruan. The trade reaches its annual peak in the late
dry season (October–November); while the lowest average
volume occurs in the early dry season (June–July).
There is a range of influences on the supply of salt
to Pasuruan including variations in the price of salt. Salt
is only produced during the dry season. During the wet
season the salt flats become permanently flooded and are
worked as fish or prawn ponds. Salt is stock-piled and the
piles are thatched over to be sold at times when there is
no production. Periods of strong north-west winds which
bring stormy conditions and torrential rains, usually in
January–February, must interrupt the salt trade at times.
But these stormy periods are not usually of such duration
as to depress a whole month’s volume of trade because the Figure 19. Spelen rudder mountings.
janggolan can take advantage of any break in the weather
to make the short voyage across to Pasuruan: January
1990 and February 1991 were probably exceptionally
so at this time of the year they are least likely to consign
inclement.5
salt to Pasuruan. Madura is a hot and dry island: by the
Small scale salt producers sell their salt to Pasuruan
end of the dry season it is very desicated and dusty, and
when they need fairly immediate cash. Salt producers can
there are no crops other than mangoes and a few other
sell their produce locally in Sreseh, through a government
fruits. So the late dry season will be the time when there
organised cooperative, for the same price as at Pasuruan
is the greatest need for cash, and it is convenient to sell
(Rp. 15 000 per tonne, or more at times), thus avoiding
salt before the need to thatch over the stock-piles for
payment of freight charges of Rp. 5 000 per tonne for
the wet season.
shipment on the janggolan. But the producer will not be
The salt trade to Pasuruan is said to be in gradual
paid by the cooperative until the salt is sold onwards, and
decline and the records of janggolan entering Pasuruan
this can take a month or more, whereas a janggolan can be
show this. The salt is processed and iodised at Pasuruan,
loaded in one day, sailed over to Pasuruan the following
but the processed salt is not of the quality which may
day and the producer will receive payment after the salt
be used by food processing industries that comply with
is weighed on the third day if he sails on the janggolan, or
government health regulations. If it is assumed that Air
on the fifth day if he waits in Sreseh for the janggolan to
Mas has consistently under reported arrivals by about
return. If the salt is sold to the cooperative on Madura, the
33%, then the annual number of cargoes carried by
producer will have to pay for transport to the warehouse
janggolan has declined from about 2 500 in 1989 to 2084
before he or she receives payment, and will probably have
in 1992, and recovered slightly to 2 197 in 1993. Most
to pay for sacks so that the salt can be transported. On
janggolan carry between 35 and 40 tonnes of salt, so the
the other hand, salt is loaded loose into the janggolan,
average cargo is probably greater than 35 tonnes. The
and in Pasuruan it is put into sacks to be carried ashore
total weight of salt carried in a year must be in excess of
at the expense of the purchaser. The freight payment
70 000 tonnes. On average, janggolan make about twenty
is taken from the payment for the salt, so the producer
voyages per year, but at the height of the late dry season
does not have to make any outlay other than the cost of
trade, most janggolan must make a round trip about every
labour for loading the salt into the janggolan.
ten days. The most intensively utilized vessels sail even
It is likely that in the late wet season and early dry
more frequently for a few weeks.
season—April to July—many salt producers will have
A janggolan that loads 35 tonnes will earn a freight of
crops of cassava, maize and other foodstuffs; plus fish or
Rp.175 000. Running expenses are the fee of Rp.5 000
prawns from the flooded tambak, that can be sold for cash,

51
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2

Figure 20. Sail plan.

Figure 21. Jukung rig. Figure 22. A janggolan in the process of rigging up.

52
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
Figure 23. Janggolan changing tack.
paid to Air Mas, and Rp.11 500 for towing into Pasuruan,
but the majority of janggolan do not tow, they are poled
up the river entrance to the harbour by the crew. The
gross profit is divided between the owner of the perahu
and the crew. It was said at Pasuruan that the traditional
division was two shares to the owner, two to the skipper,
and one each to the two other crew members. All salt
carriers have a crew of three including the skipper. In
practice the division now is simply one share to the owner,
and one each to the three men on board. This change is
said to have been introduced because of the difficulty of
attracting crew. One share would be Rp. 42 500 (about
53
Aus. $28, or £13, in April 1994). The crew pay for their
own provisions and pay some of the equipment and
maintenance costs. The owner pays for the wooden spars,
the anchor and anchor lines, and the mainsail, while the
crew pay for the bamboo spars, the running rigging and
small cordage, the fore sail, and a mizzen if one is carried,
and they pay for the paint.
A bilge-pump is not fitted in a salt carrier. Any water
in the bilge is bailed out, but it is important that a salt
carrier does not leak much because water in the bilge,
above the level of the floors, would dissolve the cargo. The
crew probably check the seams and recaulk any suspect
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
Figure 24. Furled sails.
seams fairly frequently since janggolan are not particularly
well built and they must strain when they dry-out on the
mud, fully laden, in Pasuruan.
The timber trade
The janggolan in the timber trade to West Java are thriving
and at least a dozen large new vessels were being built
at various sites in Sreseh in March 1994. No other type
of engineless cargo perahu is similarly resurgent. Very
Figure 25. Pirengan and antol.
54
few men from maritime communities such as the Bugis,
Makassar and Mandar of mainland South Sulawesi, and
the majority of Madurese communities, are prepared to
sail on engineless perahu, even if their earnings would
be greater than on an auxiliary perahu. Young men from
these areas regard sailing on an engineless perahu as
shamefully backward. Virtually all of the large engineless
perahu, which are still sailing, have crews from small, barren
and remote islands. The men of Sreseh are an exception
to this, albeit Sreseh is an isolated area of Madura. The
crew’s earnings on janggolan in the timber trade are high
by the standards of perahu sailors, and the share of the
freight payment which they receive is unusually generous.
There are about seventy janggolan in the timber trade:
more than half of these are owned by Haji Sedik and
his sons.
A large number of auxiliary perahu from Madura and
South Sulawesi are engaged in carrying timber to Java
from Kalimantan, Sumatera and other smaller islands.
These vessels mostly compete for cargoes fixed by shipping
agents. Auxiliaries and engineless perahu of relatively
moderate capacity are preferred by the agents, and by the
consignors of timber cargoes from the numerous small
saw mills, because the out-put of timber from the mills is
not great and a cargo of even one-hundred cubic metres
can take some time to assemble. Fully motorised kapal kayu
(wooden ships) and large auxiliary sailing perahu, which
rely mainly on large and powerful engines for propulsion,
cannot operate profitably on the freight rates paid in the
timber trade (Rp. 20–25 000/m3) if they carry cargoes
of less than about four-hundred cubic metres. But such
a cargo might take considerably more than a month to
load in one of the small timber ports of Kalimantan and a
large vessel lying in harbour all that time would represent
very poor utilisation of a large capital investment. The
large perahu motor and kapal kayu have much higher
registration costs and port dues in the harbours of Java
(harbour dues are sometimes paid by the consignee of
the cargo), they are required to carry ticketed officers
and engineers who are paid salaries, and they must be
equipped with safety gear and radio communications.
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
Figure 26. Antol hold-downs.
The auxiliaries and engineless perahu are exempt from
these costs and because of their lower initial capital cost
they can better afford to wait a month for a cargo in the
timber trade. Because of their lower running costs they
operate profitably with the smaller cargoes; so they can
have a consignment of timber delivered, and the consignor
will have received payment, before a motor ship would
have completed loading. This is important for the cash
flow of the timber producers.
The janggolan operate slightly outside of this system:
their cargoes are not arranged by agents but by their
owners. Haji Sedik who started the large fleet of timber
carriers from Taman, Sreseh is now aged and takes no
part in the business, but his sons, including Haji Rufi’in,
who we talked with in March 1994, act as roving buyers
and sellers of timber (bakul). They travel by aircraft, not
on their perahu, to Kalimantan, Sumatera, Belitung and
other islands to source timber, with which they fill orders
they have obtained from merchants and builders in West
Java—mainly Jakarta and Cirebon.
Haji Rufi’in, in March 1994, said that he would buy
timber for around Rp. 95 000 per cubic metre, and could
hope to sell it in Java for Rp. 175 000 or even more. The
crew of the janggolan are not paid a share of the actual
profit; instead Haji Rufi’in and other janggolan owners
charter their own vessels from their crews at a rate of
Rp. 25 000 per cubic metre of timber carried. Harbour
dues, registration fees and running costs are paid out
of the charter fee and the remainder is divided among
the crew. According to Haji Rufi’in and Haji Sedik, the
owner does not take a share of the charter fee or profit.
The owners benefit from ownership of the janggolan
55
because they have a readily available fleet to carry their
cargoes, and because they avoid payment of harbour
dues and other costs that otherwise would fall to them
as the consignor and consignee of the cargoes. This cost
advantage is probably about the same in value as the share
of profit derived by owners of other perahu in the timber
trade. The arrangement must be acceptable since several
large new janggolan were under contruction at Sreseh
in April 1994. Haji Rufi’in said that a new janggolan of
about 100 m3 capacity (a fairly modest size in the timber
trade) would cost more than Rp. 30 000 000 (A$ 20 000
[£10 000]) to build in 1994.
The earnings of the crew are quite handsome by the
standards of perahu sailors. A janggolan-spelen loading
120 m3, which is not a particularly large cargo today,
would earn Rp. 3 000 000. Harbour dues would not be
more than about Rp. 250 000 and other costs ought
not to exceed Rp. 200 000. (The owner of similar sized
perahu lambo in the timber trade calculated that costs
were about half that in 1991. The lambo carried timber
cargoes fixed by agents and the harbour dues were paid
by the consignee.) Even if provisioning and maintenance
costs reduced the crew’s share to Rp. 2 400 000, each of
the six men in a standard crew would receive Rp. 400
000 per voyage. Janggolan expect to make seven voyages
carrying cargo to Java in the trading year of about eight
months—late April to December.
For comparison, the normal freight paid on cargoes of
timber to Java carried by most perahu other than janggolan
is Rp. 22–24 000. They usually make only four or five round
voyages in a year in spite of operating a longer trading
year (their wet-season lay-up is generally shorter). The
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
Figure 27. CV Air Man and Syahbander data.
crew on these perahu usually receive 45% of the net profit
shared amongst them. Unlike janggolan crew, they do not
have to pay for any running rigging, paint, spars or sails,
but their earnings are generally considerably less. They
have less interest in minimising running costs. Perahu
are usually painted below the ballast water-line with anti-
fouling paint, but the janggolan are not. The janggolan
crews, who would have to pay for the paint, prefer to
beach and scrape the vessels each month before loading.
Crawling under the flat bilge of a janggolan, beached in
a muddy river estuary must be a fairly unpleasant work.
The return voyages to Kalimantan, Belitung, or
wherever the timber is to be loaded, are made without
cargo or ballast. The big, clumsy spelen make considerable
leeway when sailing empty and can make virtually no
ground to windward when tacking. In order to sail from
Jakarta to Belitung, which lies slightly east of north from
Jakarta, the big janggolan and spelen first work eastwards
along the coast of Java, against the prevailing easterlies,
as far as the Karimun Jawa Islands, before broad reaching
down to Belitung. Kurt Stenross sailed on a spelen from
Jakarta to Belitung in 1985, she took five days to work
eastwards to a point within sight of the Karimun Jawa
islands before running down to Belitung in about a day.
The passage eastwards was made by sailing at night on
the katabatic land breeze off the high mountains of Java.
Much of the day, when the wind was easterly or very light,
was spent at anchor, well off shore. The janggolan/spelen
use large traditional anchors made of wood, with a large
single fluke, and weighted with a basaltic rock or a piece
of scrap iron.
Sailing the big engineless janggolan: kedging, poling
and warping in and out of harbours is certainly arduous.
The owners are prepared to install auxiliary engines, but
the crews prefer to sail without them. Space for an engine
would reduce cargo capacity. Fuel and other costs would
reduce the crew’s earnings. The Madurese sailors are noted
for their hardiness and tenacity: the perahu lete lete from
eastern Madura and the off-lying islands sail well, but they
56
are heavy and dangerous for the men who handle them.
Most of the other maritime people of Indonesia have
adopted rigs and designs that are more easily handled.
But today, most of the lete lete have auxiliary engines.
Only the janggolan sailors are steadfast in working large
and fairly cumbersome sailing craft with heavy cargoes.
Decorative arts and beliefs of the janggolan builders
It seems probable that the remarkable polychrome
carvings on the bow and stern transoms (topengan) of
janggolan and the related types sepelan, kroman and lis
alis had their origins as devices to safeguard the boat
and its enterprises. A variety of influences on belief and
aesthetics can be discerned in these decorations, from an
underlying animism through layers of Hindu-Buddhist
traditions to the now-predominant Islam, with remnants
of the European/colonial period evident as well. Their
co-existence in this lively folk art form exemplifies the
syncretism for which Indonesian culture is renowned.
Madura is acknowledged for its decorative
woodcarving. Legend tells of its supernatural origins
there (Prawirodiningrat, 1988: 10). It embellishes palaces,
grand mosques and royal graves, and adorns important
utensils such as gamelan orchestra instruments. Used more
sparingly, it enlivens furniture and modest architectural
features of many households on this austere Moslem
island. Madurese wood carving is, like most aspects of
its culture, closely related to that of neighbouring Java.
Decorative carving reached a high level during the Hindu
Majapahit period (1294-1398) centred in nearby East Java.
The subsequent rise of Islam impacted on its subjects—
depicting gods was forbidden and showing humans and
creatures actual or mythical was discouraged—but the
floral, foliate, curvilinear and geometrical decorative
forms favoured by the Islamic arts flourished.
Madura and the adjacent coasts of Java are notable
for the exuberant decorations of many types of perahu,
particularly of fishing craft. Painted motifs of flowers,
twining shoots and feathery leaves cover hulls and other
surfaces. Features such as the boom crutch (sanggan)
often exhibit polychrome carvings, some of them art
works of great finesse and vitality. In most parts of Madura
creatures do appear among the floral motifs of boats and
elsewhere, more or less overtly: mythical serpents, dragons
and birds. The decorations on janggolan, however, are
quite distinct. They never include creatures unless they
are so disguised as to be almost unrecognisable. The
topengan carvings have a systematic, architectural formality
not found in the decorations of other Madurese perahu.
This is the only class of Madurese perahu with extensive
carvings on the hull itself, and they are certainly the
most highly decorated of all Indonesian trading perahu,
Madurese or otherwise.
Specific information about the meaning of the topengan
carvings is difficult to elicit. Owners invariably referred to
them as ‘just decorations’ (hiasan saja). The artesans who
make the decorations, usually senior boatbuilders, were
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
Figure 28. Topengan and bantel.
more illuminating, but their information was sometimes
inconsistent and they could not (or would not) throw
much light on their significance. The topengan carvings
now being made are consistently less refined and detailed
than those of twenty years ago and the tradition may be
in decline. Nonetheless most elements of the topengan
decorations remain markedly consistent over this century,
although within these patterns there is variation reflecting
the taste of the carver or owner, or changing fashion.
The following discussion relates to the bow topengan of
janggolan; stern topengan, and those of kroman and lis alis,
follow similar patterns but may vary, due in part to their
smaller size.
The term topengan indicates a mask, from the Javanese
and Madurese root word topeng,6 the wooden mask carved
and painted with facial features and used in forms of drama
which have derived from Islamic and Hindu traditions,
historical tales and ancient rituals with their origins in
prehistoric culture. Topengan are most often divided into
seven horizontal zones (Fig. 28) carved with symmetrical
patterns. The zones are divided by plain bands or borders.
Some older boats had their names carved on one of these
bands; this does not occur on recently built craft.
The lowermost zone always consists of two truncated
pyramids on a black ground. A rising floral motif backed
with red fills the pyramids. Truncated pyramids are found
57
on the base of wooden columns in royal pavillions in
Java, derived from the pedestals of Hindu statuary or
monuments (Wiyosio, 1985: 58, fig. 24). A reference to
Hindu mythology’s concept of the cosmic mountain is
likely. The motif certainly recalls the important mountain
(gunungan) figure of wayang kulit (shadow puppet drama),
a peaked shape which includes a tree of life symbol.
It also suggests the contrasting wedge-shaped design
known as tumpal, frequently occurring in the borders of
Indonesian textiles, indicating fertility and protection
(Taylor & Aragon, 1991: 39). Semicircular lines between
the truncated peaks on the topengan were described as a
necklace (kalong) and were indeed beaded on some older
craft with finer carvings.
The bowsprit (cocor) emerges between two panels
depicting one or two flowers and foliage, often in a
drooping arrangement. The drooping pattern continues
on the sheer strake (geduk) which joins the topengan at
this level. This is the only strake with polychrome carving,
giving the effect of a trail board. Below the bowsprit panels
on the topengan is a zone containing another pair of flowers
and leaves on a red background, each contained in a
border curved like a vase. Some carvers called the shape
waru, which is both the term for spades (in cards) and
for a tree, Hibiscus tiliaceus, whose leaf is spade-shaped.
The zone below breaks the pattern of paired motifs with
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
an arrangement of three blooms linked by foliage, always
called sekar meluk, a flowering vine (sp.?).
These four zones always appear—drooping flowers,
spades or vases, the arrangement of three blooms and
the twin peaks at the base of the topengan, in this order.
Other narrower zones are less predictable in occurrence,
with bands of three or five blooms sometimes appearing
at different positions. One of these appears on Figure 28
above the bowsprit panel.
The narrow border zone at the top of the topengan
was sometimes called sungaren, the chignon of a married
woman. It often features the line of triangles or serrations
seen in Figure 28, echoing the lower ‘mountain’ design.
A semicircular design identified as the sun appears in
the descending triangles. The unornamented triangular
backgrounds were always called cok repung, bamboo shoots,
the term also given to the inverted black pyramidal
background of the ‘mountain’ pattern at the base of the
topengan. The significance of bamboo in these cultures can
scarcely be overstated. Other than being a material ideally
suited for sail spars because of its unique combination
of lightness, stiffness, flexibility, tensile and compressive
strength, bamboo has infinite uses in building, plumbing,
making utensils, cooking, the arts and much more.
Capable of growing more than a metre in a day, it is
unequalled as a symbol of vitality and utility.
One very commonly appearing band on topengan has
the geometrical T-shaped meander motif seen in Figure
28, first recorded on a janggolan in 1918 (Nieuwenkamp,
1926). Our informants always described this motif as
kihong, probably a cognate of Tionghoa, the Indonesian
term for Chinese. This cyclical motif, said to symbolise
reincarnation, commonly appears in bands and borders
in a number of Chinese decorative arts including
laquerware and bronzes, and has been appropriated by
many Indonesian folk art forms (inter alia see Fischer
1994: 29). The authors have not recorded it on any other
Madurese perahu types, but it appears on Javanese mayang
recorded by Wangania (1980–81: 163, 168).
Taken together, several zones or even the entire
topengan may be interpreted as an extremely stylised form
of kala or banaspati, the venerated guardian monster
head with glaring features which appears so widely in
Hindu-Javanese and Balinese architecture over entrances
and thresholds (Holt, 1967: 107), and which persists in
some Islamic structures. This depends on identifying the
paired ‘spade’ panels as eyes, and the truncated pyramid
zone as the demon’s tusks. This interpretation provides
an explanation for the recurrence of paired motifs on
the topengan; in the artistic traditions under discussion
odd numbers are considered propitious and symbolically
significant, and are generally preferred. It provides a more
direct rationale for the topengan’s etymological reference
to the anthropomorphic masks (topeng) of dance and
drama. The question of why the facial features are so well
disguised is considered below.
The carved, polychrome flowers on janggolan lack the
58
greater variety of forms found on other types of Madurese
perahu and in Madurese domestic and court woodcarving,
where identifiable species include sunflower and lotus.
On present-day janggolan they are always the same four-
petalled bloom seen face-on, with two or four radial
markings on the circular centre. White predominates,
with yellow and sometimes blue appearing. The leaves
are always of a moderately serrated form familiar in other
Madurese, Javanese and Balinese woodcarving. Leaves
can be green, blue or yellow. Colours are subtly shaded.
Despite the stylistic homogeneity of floral carvings on
janggolan, informants said that different zones represented
different flowers, although opinions often differed
about which was which. Named species were hibiscus,
rose, orange blossom and jasmin. This might imply that
different species were formerly depicted; it certainly
suggests a richer floral symbolism than is immediately
evident. Two types of hibiscus were mentioned, waru
(Hibiscus tiliaceus) and bunga sepatu (H. rosa sinensis). The
carved flowers certainly have a resemblance to the white
and yellow blooms of tiliaceus, except that these actually
have five petals, while the leaves are more like those of
H. rosa sinensis. It would be a mistake, however, to look
for complete verisimilitude in a tradition where aesthetic
requirements and the significance of colour, number,
symmetry or assymmetry are far more important.
‘Topengan’, said one now-deceased boatbuilder (Saudara
Abdullah, cited in Daud, 1992, pers. comm.) must depict
perfumed flowers so that the sailors’ lives are also fragrant
(mencari keharuman hidup). The topengan at the bows is like
a guide or leader who frees the sailors from feelings of fear
when crossing the sea and makes them brave and firm-willed.
The topengan behind is the one that pushes us forward or
motivates us, while guarding our backs.’
Other sources cautioned that because these matters are
‘deep’ or ‘mysterious’, we should expect many people
to be reluctant to discuss them (Kalim, Abd., 1992, pers.
comm.).
Each colour of Madurese wood carving is recognised as
having its own significance. Red represents bravery, and is
prominent at the bows and the leading tip of the bowsprit.
Green, the predominating colour on many Madurese
craft, is life-giving or flourishing, and is thus said to be
a prayer for prosperity. Black represents determination
or resolve; as the colour of iron it strengthens the body.
White is holy, a soul that is clean. These are considered
the primary colours. Of the colours considered secondary,
blue has a similar connotation to green, but it is described
as ‘older’, or less vital, than green. Yellow, gold and ivory
tones represent worldly wealth. (Daud, 1992, pers. comm.;
Hotip, 1994).
The bowsprit of a janggolan features a sinuous crest
towards its end which, while it is incised to suggest leaves,
is described as a cock’s comb. It equally suggests a stylised
naga, the widespread dragon-headed serpent of Indianised
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
Southeast Asia that also has origins in China. The tip of
the bowsprit is sometimes carved like the stamen of a
hibiscus. One carver identified this style as the flame of
a candle, with obvious implications for lighting the boat’s
way. On other craft it was carved as a pineapple.
Below on the antek, the horn-like extension of the
keel, is another sinuous motif that swirls down from the
black-painted area at the tip. Tantalisingly ambiguous, it
is called ular (snake) or naga by some informants but its
vine-like form complies with Islam’s supposed disapproval
of depicting living creatures. It is a variant of the stem
post decoration of virtually all Madurese planked craft,
which have a dark-painted tip rising from a spiralling
motif called ogelan (from the Dutch ogel, eye). This is the
occulus, again safely disguised.
The janggolan’s antek thus shares the ritual significance
of a stem and is conceived of as a stem rather than a keel
extension by the builders, although the term antek differs
from the normal Madurese lenke for stem. One builder
referred to the antek as the reclining stem (lenke tedung—lit.
‘sleeping’). The major boatbuilding ceremony occurs with
the joining of antek to keel, called the marriage (kekawinan)
as in the wider Madurese tradition of ceremonial keel-to-
stem joining. The words for stem, lenke or linggi, and keel,
lunas or lonas, are cognate with the Sanskrit lingam (penis)
and yoni (vagina). This union of genders is explicit in the
shape of the joints: the mortises are in the keel while the
tenons are in the stem and stern-post.
Perhaps the most overt of the creatures thoroughly
disguised by floral treatment appears where a beam
(bantel) projects outboard as a cat head at the bows. This
takes the form of a head holding a flower in its jaws. On
some examples it appears as a creature with a spiralling
trunk. Mythical creatures with elephant trunks are a
recurring motif in Indian-influenced Indonesian art, such
as the dragon headed prow ornament of a royal boat of
Banjarmasin shown by Taylor and Aragon (1991: 294).
In Figure 28 it is convincingly an eagle (garuda, also the
mythical bird-hero of the Hindu epic Ramayana) with a
gap in the foliage creating a fierce eye. One decorated
structure which has disappeared in the last decades is the
boom crutch (sanggan) at the bows, no longer required
because the rig remains standing and is no longer struck
in port, as described above.
Spirals, V-shaped or triangular patterns and suggestions
of the tree of life in the topengan are elements of the earliest
motifs of Indonesian art from its neolithic Austronesian
origins and the later bronze-age Dongson influences,
both of which voyaged out of mainland Southeast Asia
before the Christian era. So too is the domestic fowl, an
image of great symbolic significance in Southeast Asia
that is alluded to by the cock’s comb on the bowsprit.
The geometric motifs are most evident today in the
outer islands’ ‘primitive’ art. Spirals overwhelm canoe
prow boards from Tanimbar in Maluku (the Moluccas)
shown by Taylor and Aragon (1991: 232–3). A vigorous
geometrical spiral survives as the dominant element on
59
the madi or decorated sternboard of contemporary tena
or pledang, the unique whaling craft of Lamalera on the
eastern island Lembata (Barnes, 1996: 209–210). On most
Madurese stems a single spiral with a foliate treatment is
restrained by comparison, and is almost vestigial on the
antek of janggolan.
Madura is located on the trade routes and close to
some of the major port and court centres through which
important influences on Indonesian belief and aesthetics
have flowed over the last milennium. Indian literature
mentions Java as early as 600 BC and Indian traders had
arrived by the 2nd century AD. Impressed by this great
civilisation, local rulers opened their courts to Indian
scholars and teachers. The Indianisation of architecture
and the arts in the ensuing period of Hindu/Buddhist
states has contributed most of the mythical creatures
buried in janggolan decorations. The powerful significance
of the (always odd) numbers of tiers in Indonesian Hindu/
Buddhist pagoda architecture may be taken as an influence
on the seven-level organisation of janggolan topengan.
Earlier motifs were incorporated and elaborated in
the Indian era. Plain zig-zags of Austronesian and Dong
Son art became increasingly embellished in the style of
the serrations at the top of the topengan in Figure 28.
Geometrical spirals took root and burst into luxuriantly
coiling foliage, reaching a peak in the Hindu Majapahit
period when sculpture and architecture moved away from
Indian prototypes and a revitalised local art emerged.
This continued in the dense geometric and leafy designs
of doorways, walls and screens of buildings of the Islamic
Mataram period that succeeded Majapahit (Wiyoso,
1986: 62, fig. 27). The finer examples of older janggolan
decorations approach this level of sinuosity and richness,
although they never equal the spectacular density of the
most ornate Hindu and Islamic decorative woodcarvings
of Indonesia, on which every surface is embellished to
saturation.
The religious culture of seafaring merchants from
Islamic India and the Middle East was embraced quite
readily by Indonesian trading societies. Relatively
egalitarian, it stressed the virtues of commercial law,
prosperity and hard work. Madura, located on the trade
routes that brought the new religion, was an early convert
from the 15th century although folk tradition credits its
conversion to saint Sunan Giri of Gresik, a port in Java
near the western end of Madura where janggolan are built
(Abdurachman, 1988: 16). While Sreseh is a backwater
today it was proximate to some of the seminal events of
the last five centuries.
The various kingdoms or principalities of Madura
were usually subject to the more powerful states of Java,
although Madura’s military and seafaring prowess made
it an often-rebellious subject. For a period in the 17th
century Madura came under a single court located in
Sampang—very close to the present janggolan-building
district of Sreseh—after the island’s defeat in 1624 by the
Islamic state of Mataram in central Java. The Madurese
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
regent was Cakraningrat I, allied by marriage to Mataram’s
Sultan Agung. Labuan, the westernmost village of the
janggolan-building district, is said to have taken its name
(which means an anchorage or harbour) when a boat
carrying Cakraningrat I was cast ashore there during a
voyage from the Mataram court (Kalim, Abd., 1992, pers.
comm.). In Cakraningrat’s palace in Sampang was another
wife, Ratu Ibu, a revered descendant of the saint Sunan
Giri said to have converted Madura to Islam.
The Cakraningrat dynasty later moved from Sampang
to the Kamal-Bangkalan district on the west coast of
Madura, retaining a close connection with the ruling
Javanese courts. There is thus a spatial correlation between
the distribution of Madurese craft with topengan and these
early Islamic seats of Madurese power: janggolan occur in
the vicinity of Sampang, keroman and lis alis around the
western end of the island in the Bangkalan regency. It
might be noted that decorative carving and painting of
perahu generally diminish in the Madurese islands with
distance from the dynastic centres of Java.
The historical connections sketched above, between
the south-western part of the island where janggolan are
built today and the early history of Islam in Madura, are
probably a factor in the present-day religious conservatism
of this district which appears more orthodox than the
eastern regions or outlying islands. The janggolan builders
and sailors practise their faith with a pious orthodoxy
of the sort classified as santri in the anthropological
literature (Geertz, et al.). They observe most or all of the
‘pillars’ of the faith, abstaining from pork and alcohol,
fasting during Ramadan, attending and supporting the
mosque and performing the haj (pilgrimage) to Mecca
if the profits of their trade permit. On their perahu one is
more likely to find Arabic religious inscriptions around
the crew accommodations, and the vessels’ names are
more frequently religious than for example in the lete
lete-building communities further east (see Appendix 1).
This orthodoxy almost certainly has a bearing on a key
element of janggolan decorative arts: the way in which
animals and mythical creatures are so well camouflaged
by stylisation and floral treatment.
What Islamic scriptures actually prohibit are images of
the divinity. Nonetheless the representation of any living
being came to be frowned upon
…because of respect for the divine secret contained within
every creature... Aniconism somehow became an inseperable
concomitant of the sacred.’ (Burckhardt, 1976: 29).
In most Moslem cultures, however, it is usually only
mosques and mausoleums that are entirely without
representations of living creatures. Creatures appear
widely in the secular arts of Islam including, as noted
above, quite overtly in carvings on some other Madurese
vessel types. The Islam carried by traders to Indonesia had
been moderated by Indian and Persian Sufism, and was
able to accommodate a variety of existing beliefs. Thus
60
mythico-religious Hindu and animist forms and symbolism
had little difficulty persisting in Islamic Indonesian arts:
guardian demons, dragons and indeed the entire cast of
the Indian epics as presented by shadow puppets, masked
drama and dance.
The considerable effort that goes into disguising these
forms in janggolan decorations would appear then to
follow an unusually-strict interpretation of what should be
depicted in the Islamic arts. It should be noted that, in this
district, janggolan are by far the major artistic expression
in the medium of wood carving. Mosques are (as in most
Indonesian villages) plain and unembellished. The modest
houses of sailors and boatbuilders in Sreseh are for the
most part devoid of decoration—which makes the vibrant
folk-art of the topengan all the more remarkable.
Chinese influence on Indonesia and its arts is older
than Islam, with direct sea trade dating to the Han
period or earlier. There is a tradition that some of Kublai
Khan’s army which attacked the Hindu-Javanese state of
Singosari in 1292 settled in Madura (Prawirodiningrat,
1986: 9). During the six voyages (1405–1421) despatched
by the Ming-dynasty Yongle emperor Zhu Di and led
by the Moslem eunuch admiral Zheng He, the massive
Chinese fleets normally stayed several months in Surabaya
awaiting a favourable wind for the voyage to the Indian
Ocean (Mills, 1970: 9). Surabaya is separated by a few
kilometres of strait from the south-western tip of Madura.
The impressive ships and leaders of these expeditions
have left a legacy in Madurese folk tale, notably that of
the flying ship of the Chinese Sam Po Tualang (sometimes
called Dempu Abang)7 who was attacked by the Madurese
prince Pangeran Jokotole mounted on a flying horse
(Abdurachman, 1988: 10).
Surabaya is virtually within sight of the present
janggolan-building villages of Madura’s south-western coast
and close to the centre of the very limited distibution of
craft with decorated topengan. While ocean-going Chinese
junks were often depicted with transom bows painted like
masks with glaring facial features (inter alia Worcester
1971: 185, and Needham’s reproduction of the ship from
the Liu-Qiu Guo Zhi Lüe of 1757 [1986: 78]) there is no
direct evidence that the treasure ships of Zheng He were
so decorated. One can only note that the depiction of
facial features in a mask-like format (albeit highly stylised
for reasons discussed), on a flat transom bow, appears
nowhere else in Indonesia but in this vicinity.
Immigrant Chinese craftsmen resident in Madura for
centuries have, however, introduced elements of Chinese
design in a variety of crafts including architecture and
furniture (Prawirodiningrat,1986: 44; Richter, 1993:
58; Wiyoso, 1986: 43) and are the likely source for the
janggolan’s kihong motif. It can be seen on floor tiles at
the 18th-century kraton (palace) of Sumenup, Madura,
which, with the nearby grand mosque, bears distinct
Hindu, Chinese and European influences.
The Dutch, present in the East Indies for three and
a half centuries, also influenced Madurese wood carving
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
through domestic furniture and heraldry. The more florid
European ornamentation of the 19th-century and the Art
Nouveau period (thought to be a partial adaptation of
Javanese aesthetics) was absorbed into local styles (Richter,
1993: 58). The most notable effect of this influence was
a trend towards a more realistic treatment of stems,
leaves and flowers (Wiyoso, 1986: 84). This trend can be
perceived in the topengan decorations in comparison with
the denser, more exotic or imaginary foliage of modern
Balinese or earlier Javanese and Madurese woodcarving.
Modern Madurese domestic carving still tends towards
this simpler, more realistic style.
In the last century the Dutch had an administrative
presence in the nearby port town of Sampang and Dutch
merchants involved in the salt trade had substantial houses
in Ragung where janggolan load salt today, across the river
from Sreseh. Until quite recently European-style coats
of arms sometimes made an appearance on topengan,
while the Dutch flag is still present in the painted colour
scheme of the hull.
Janggolan hulls are generally white with a broad band
of light green above a red boot top—the same green
predominating on mosques, symbolising God-given life.
Distinctively, one or more strakes are left unpainted in
the area below the carved ‘trailboard’ on the sheer strake
(or, more often on the largest janggolan, given a colour
contrasting with the other painted areas). The unpainted
strakes have a tricouleur emblem at either end, creating
a border with the painted areas. The device is the Dutch
flag, hanging vertically and gathered like a curtain. An
occasional variant is the Indonesian flag, which is in effect
the Dutch flag with the blue panel removed. Intriguingly
the lower half of the curtain takes the shape of a fish or
mermaid tail. The carved figure of a mermaid (puteri
duyung) is said to have appeared formerly on Madurese
craft (Daud, 1992, pers. comm.). Boatbuilders call the
tricolour device si datan, now untranslatable except as the
local term for this symbol but which perhaps derived from
duta or dutaan, the consul or consulate. The effect of a
gathered curtain creates a window in the painted hull to
show off the quality of the timber used in its construction.
As one informant said: ‘If these planks are painted [over],
the boat looks old. This way, it looks good’.
In response to the question ‘why does this boat have
[a particular non-functional or decorative feature]?’ the
response frequently was that ‘the boat wouldn’t look
right’ otherwise. This aspect of Indonesian aesthetics has
been noted elsewhere (inter alia Taylor & Aragon 1991:
29: ‘Rather than creating a functional object and then
adding decorations, the maker included the decorations
as fundamental elements of an object—the absence of
which would impair its ability to function...The beauty of
an object was quite simply a prerequisite for its ‘soundness
from within’’.)
Thus while the persistent orderliness of the motifs
decorating topengan strongly suggests specific symbolism
or meanings to a Western observer, it would be a mistake
61
to place too much significance on the artesans’ failure to
articulate them—tempting though it may be to postulate
a declining tradition that is now poorly understood, or
a reluctance to pass on information to the uninitiated.
As one observer said of the wider Islamic decorative arts:
It is even harder to decide what this fantastic flora and fauna
meant to the artists and their patrons, for ornamental art is
a kind of threshold between what is conscious and what is
unconscious, where ancient symbols fall into a latent state
from which they awake only later when some new spiritual
doctrine coincides with their meaning (Burckhardt, 1967:
17).
In the meantime it is the devotional act of creating the
decorations that gives them their beneficial efficacy or
power (kesaktian), not a formal syntax of symbolism.
Some janggolan builders say that the knowledge of
boatbuilding and the form of these craft (including
decorative woodcarving and painting), came down to
their ancestors from Nabi Noh (the prophet Noah)
and his rather famous boat—an explanation recorded
by one of the authors in other Madurese boat-building
communities as well (Kebundadep, 1983; Pulau Raas, 1987;
Dungkek, 1991). This was never elaborated upon and the
authors are unaware of any other boatbuilding foundation
legend—surprising in a society where foundation stories
abound. Woodcarving has been mentioned; another
story gives Madurese saltmaking its ancestry in defeated
Balinese invaders who were forced to settle in the east of
the island and, having no means of livelihood, invented
the means of evaporating salt (buje) in seawater ponds
(tampak) (Prawirodiningrat, 1986: 46).
Certain ceremonies are required for building
janggolan. A favourable day to begin the work must be
selected by an astrologer. Joining the antek to the keel
requires the presence of a kiyahi (learned person—usually
a religious teacher or a religious scholar—alim ulama)
to recite prayers and read from the holy book. This is
followed by food for guests. Before the boat is ready, a tiny
grain of gold is inserted (bersusuk) in a secret place in a
hole bored by the owner with a needle, accompanied by
a recited prayer. This is said to avoid danger during the
vessel’s life. Shavings saved from a hole bored in the keel
are said to have magic properties that allow the owner to
divine if his vessel is in danger.
The launching of the finished hull is a public celebration,
with food and festivities for the many hands required to
manhandle the boat down to the water. The vessel is
decorated with flowers and pieces of fine cloth bought by
the owner, and prayers are recited. Those who help launch
the boat compete for the pieces of cloth. Another ceremony
and feast accompany the first sailing, with recitations of
verses from the Koran. During a janggolan’s sailing life it
receives a blessing or selamatan twice a year to protect the
boat and its crew. A chicken is sacrificed, its head is tied to
the bowsprit and its feet are secured on the stern.
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2
These ceremonial and ritual aspects of janggolan
building appear little-changed from those noted with
respect to unspecified types of cargo and fishing vessels in
the Sampang district earlier this century (Wongsosewojo,
1926: 262–65). Details from this account included the
method of divining a propitious day, the seven types of
rice porridge and cakes that must be procured for the
initial selametan, and the desirability that pregnant women
board the boat for its launching—ideally women who are
prima gravida and near full term.
While the ceremonies are presided over by religious
figures from the Islamic community, they certainly had
their origins in ritual and magic from pre-existing belief
systems with which Islam in Madura—as elsewhere in
Indonesia—has been able to co-exist. A nakhoda (captain)
may make his evening devotions on a prayer mat spread
in the tiny, bare crew quarters furnished with nothing
but a plaque in the Arabic script declaring: ‘In the name
of Allah the compassionate and merciful’, and then
safeguard his imminent voyage by sprinkling flower petals
and holy water at the mast and the rudders in a blessing
that derives from ancient Hindu or animist ritual. Some
sailors will admit to knowing certain signs and omens that
can foretell a ship’s fate, and certain spells to calm an
angry sea. A local version of a widespread Austronesian
legend about a magic spring of fresh water in the middle
of the sea, which saves sailors who are dying of thirst, has
the event occurring off Labuan at the western end of the
janggolan-building district.
Thus at the same time that the sailors and boatbuilders
of Sreseh exhibit an orthodox Islamic piety of the type
described as santri, they simultaneously align with the
Indonesian syncretic or abangan traditions in which pre-
Islamic beliefs are openly practised. On the one hand the
janggolan builders connect with the wider world of Islam
through networks of seaborne trade as coastal Indonesian
societies have tended to do, while on the other they are
part of the pre-Islamic world of inner Java with its sacrifices
(selametan) and mystical observances.
A boat is said to be like the child of an owner, and
like children there can be good ones and wayward ones.
The names of boats are carefully chosen to bring good
fortune, to reflect a vessel’s virtues or the hoped-for
outcomes of its trade. Names frequently reflect devoutness
or the Moslem work ethic or both, taking the form of a
prayer for success. The lyricism of many janggolan names
is striking, and while this is not uncommon among other
Indonesian maritime communities it appears particularly
pronounced among the Madurese janggolan builders.
Appendix 1 of names of janggolan trading to Pasururan in
the early 1990s provides a further insight into the culture,
piety and commercial values of this Moslem maritime
community on pulau garam ini (this island of salt, as its
inhabitants call it), Madura.
62
Acknowledgements
Research for this paper was partially funded through
an ARC grant administered by Jeremy Green, Western
Australian Maritime Museum. The owners/masters of
these janggolan gave the authors passage and hospitable
accommodation at Bu Poteh, Sreseh, and Pulau
Mandangin, Sampang: Hafi (Sumber Rejeki ); Nahrudin
(Sari Gampang); Sainuri (Harta Sempurna); Muallip
(Tanjung Priok). Haji Husni and his son Haji Hasan,
Haji Sedik and his son Haji Rufi’in were generous and
patient in explaining janggolan operations. Drs Daud Bey,
head of Cultural Section, Department of Education and
Culture, Sampang, and Abdul Kalim, head of Department
of Education and Culture, Sreseh, clarified aspects of
Madurese culture. Boatbuilders Darmo and Abdullah
of Labuan, Haji Hotip of Batu Puteh and Teluari of
Tosolong were among many who kindly assisted. Kurt
Stenross, who has considerable knowledge of janggolan,
contributed generously.
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63
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2

of the East Bantal, talbantal, bantel Beam projecting outboard at the

Si Jabal Elok The [one who is a] Beautiful Mountain bows to form a type of cathead and fairlead
Si Kramat The Sacred One for anchor line.
Si Nyonya The [one who is a] Lady Baun, Baum, Pembaun. Yard or upper spar. Cognates (bau,
Si Pertama The [one who is ] First baun, pembaun, etc.) are widely used in
Si Sari Manis Sweet-Spirited One Indonesia.
Si Sekar Baru The [one who is a] New Flower Brongol Projecting timber ends forming anchor
Si Surya Dunia The [one who is the] Light of the World bitts and securing bantal.
Sinar Baru New Ray of Light Catak Pole with half jaw fitted. Catak tukeng or
Sinar Manis Sweet Ray of Light dukeng is used to pole out the lower luff
Sultan Agung Great King when going to windward. See footnote 3.
Sumber Alam Natural Spring/Source Celakê Tiller. Cognates are used in a few locations
Sumber Rezeki Source of Livelihood/Fortune in Eastern Indonesia.
Taman Sari Fragrant Garden Cementeng Sheer strake, widely used in Java, from
Tanjung Priok Port of Jakarta B.Java menteng meaning ‘paunch’.
Tiga Bersaudara Three Brothers Cengker Ring. Formerly used to slide the heel of
Touris Tourist the fore yard along the bowsprit to alter
Uranya (????) angle of peak: the sail couild be peaked
up when running in light conditions or
Appendix 2. Vocabulary of Nautical Terms used by when gybing. Cengker are now used to
Janggolan Sailors allow the foreboom to be run forward of
Key the standing foreyard when the sail is to
be furled. The BI name gelang, meaning
(M) Mandangin only;
bracelet, is also used.
(S) Sreseh only:
Cocor Bowsprit. The term is fairly widely used
(U) one informant only. for bowsprit or jibs. Cognate with BI cocol:
BI: Bahasa Indonesia (The Indonesian Language). extend or protrude.
Cotel Short bamboo pole used to hold down
Orthography antol (Fig. 28).
Words have been recorded using standard Indonesian Dapuran Rudder mounting beam or thwart. Widely
orthography. Vowels have the same values as they do in used in Java, meaning shoulders in non-
Italian. C is always pronounced as the English ch. Two nautical usage. The alternative Madurese
term bangkalan is rarely used by janggolan
diacritical marks are used here: ê is pronounced rather
sailors; the BI equivalent pengkalang is
like ‘er’ with a soft ‘r’ and a falling tone; é is the long
sometimes used.
e, pronounced as the English ‘ay’ in ‘way’. Syllables are Dukeng, tukeng Tack of a sail. The line attached to the
given equal stress or the penultimate syllable can be tack is the tale dukeng.
given extra stress. Gading Frames or the component timbers of
Abarong, lajer abarongan Sails set wing and wing, probably an the frames. Used throughout much of
allusion to the widely protruding ‘ears’ Indonesia but in conjunction with specific
or ruff (kopengan)of the fantastical barong names for floors, first futtocks and bilge
monster. futtocks. The term tajuk is more widely
Acelen (To) run before the wind. used by janggolan builders and sailors. This
Akolang lajer (To) tack or gybe—bring the sails to the term is usually reserved for top futtocks.
other side of the vessel. Gagang Rudder stock. In normal usage this means
Angkol Roof gables (S) ‘handle’. This usage presumable reflects
Antek Projecting ends of keel. Cognate with the development of the quarter rudder,
cantek used to mean stem and stern-post which has a separate handle (tiller), from
on the mid-north coast of Madura. Antek a steering oar or paddle.
eadek is the forward end of the keel, antek Gedeg Matting of woven bamboo laths used to
ebudih is aft. line the hold and keep the salt cargo out
Antol Thwartships projecting booms which of the bilge. Cognates are widely used.
spread the guys (pirengan) that stay Jekajê Lacing of sails to spars. A rare exception
the upper spars. Also called tanggolan to susur and cognates.
or tanggolangan on Mandangin and Jiban The moden lateen rig of the janggolan.
tanggulangan at Sreseh. (M,U)
Arekkan, tale arekkan Kajuk Timber panels that form the aft end of
Halliard, loop that is used to haul sail out the cabin and divided it at its forward end
to peak of upper spar on either side of from the rest of the deckhouse.
the sokongan. Also penarek. Cognates widely Kelat Sheet. Widely used. On Mandangin the
used and probably meaning ‘rope that is foreyard heel tackle, led through the
hauled on’. cengker was called kelat tonggar; at Sreseh
Bak Cargo hatch in side of deckhouse. M. it was called seturut cengker.
(Madurese ‘yawn’?)

64
Burningham & Mellefont: The exceptional Janggolan
Kelatek, teletek The large dumb-sheave blocks at the ends
of the antol through which the running
pirengan lanyards are rove. Teletek or
tekletek is also the old name for the perahu-
type now called lete lete on Raas and the
Kangean Islands.
Ke’sala k’en Tiller (S,U)
Kop, kokop Deckhouse, or deckhouse roofing.
Cognate with ‘coop’(?), also used on the
east coast of Malaysia.
Lajer Sail. Cognates very widely used.
Lajer akung Mainsail. Cognates widely used. Agung
means big or mighty.
Lajer paddoh Foresail. Cognates are standard in Java,
but not elsewhere.
Lajer penyorong Mizzen sail. Cognate with sorong, dorong
‘to push [from behind]’. The sense of
the name is ‘sail that gives [extra] push’
or ‘auxiliary’.
Lonas, lunas Keel. Cognates widely used. Portuguese
origin has been suggested, but the wide
group of apparent cognates (una, tena,
etc.) seem to suggest earlier origins. See
‘tesar’ below.
Mangkê Anchor. The Austronesian sau and
cognates are rarely encountered. Jangker
is the most commonly used term.
Mayoran Deck beams. Major beams are called
polangan. Mayoran is a rare exception to
the use of kalang, palang and cognates.
Means ‘cross’ or ‘across’ in Javanese(?)
as does kalang.
Mintel Sailing on a reach.
Ngapel To beat to windward. Cognates very widely
used.
Ngorot, angin ngorot Running before the wind, following
wind. Cognate with turut meaning
‘follow’; cognates widely used.
Nyogok To propel the vessel by punting with
bamboo poles.
Pancer Rudder. Used in Bali, Java and Madura,
but not elsewhere.
Pangijek Forestays from foremast to bowsprit. Also
called tale jenggot meaning ‘beard rope’.
Panyojoan Beam below dapuran on which the tongkul
(rudder mounting posts) are stepped.
(M,U)
Peképé, pegépé The rail immediately aft of the dapuran,
against which the rudder bears.
Penggilling Boom or lower spar. Very widely used.
Meaning ‘roller’ or ‘rotater’ because in
many traditional rigs the sail is rolled on
to the lower spar as the standard means
of furling.
Perot perot Downhaul on mainsail, separate from
outhaul-downhaul loop (arekkan).
Pesangkê Mizzen mast which also serves as a spar
crutch. Cognate with B. Java sanggan
meaning ‘[spar] crutch or support’.
Pirengan Guys or stays which stay the upper spars
of the fore and mainsail laterally. Cognate
with tamberangan etc. meaning ‘stay’ in
general usage, or ‘guy’ on a mastless
65
lateen rig.
Polangan Major structural thwarts or beams.
Cognates, from kalang are widely used.
Curiously, polangan also occurs on
the remote island of Pura in Eastern
Indonesia but has not been recorded
elsewhere.
Rampat Line or strop which holds the rudder
against the dapuran
Ruwes, Rewes, Tale rewes Bolt ropes of sails. Cognates used
in Java and Malayasia.
Setang Bridle or euphroe attaching sheet to
boom.
Setinggi, setengge Topping lift. Used to support mainboom
when the sail is partly lowered to change
tack. Fore and main setinggi can be used
to haul the boom up parallel to the upper
spar and thus brail or scandalise the sail.
Cognate with BI tinggi meaning ‘tall’ or
‘high’.
Sokongan Prop for upper spars. Used to mean
‘prop’ in non-nautical usage. Probably
from sokong and cognates meaning ‘fork’
because the props have natural timber
forks at the top.
Songkol Loop of sennit that strops the top of the
rudder to the tongkul rudder mounting
post.
Tale Rope. Cognate with BI tali.
Tajuk Frame or component timbers of frame.
Very widely used but in normal usage taju
or tajuk names only the top futtocks of a
frame.
Tatapan Deck. Cognate tutup, see below.
Tesar Keel (U) supplied by crew of ‘Juara
Pendana’ from Sreseh. Cognate with dasar
(BI) meaning ‘base’.
Ten ten Anchor rode (rope). Also used in East
Java.
Tiang, tiangan Mast. Widely used.
Tetongkol, tongkul, kultongkul. Twin rudder mounting
posts and connecting beam.
To’penteng Thwart dovetailed into the rails at the
stern to tie the port and starboard rails
together (S,U). Cognate with penting (BI)
meaning ‘important’?
To’tutup Equivalent of to’penteng in the bow (S,U)
Tutup, tutupan Fore-deck enclosing prow and aft-deck
abaft the dapuran. Cognate tutup (BI) ‘to
close’.
Ubau, Upau Backstay from main spar to deck just aft
of main sokongan.
Umpot Bamboo shavings used for caulking.
Endnotes
1
The transoms on these East Javanese vessels
are called kopengan, meaning ‘ears’ or ‘things sticking
out either side of the head’. The Madurese name for
the transom of lis alis and janggolan is topengan which
in non-nautical usage means ‘mask’, but perhaps it is a
corruption of the Javanese name kopengan.
Bulletin Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 21.1 & 2

2
The four strakes are often counted with the
keel to produce five layers or structural elements—
odd numbers are often regarded as luckier or more
powerful.

3
As noted above, catak is the name used for
the props on the sekong or sokang canoes of Tuban,
East Java. A catak is a prop or pole which has a single
crooked piece of timber lashed to one side of it: a
sokong is a prop or pole with a forked timber at its
upper end. The sekong canoes are so-named because
they are ‘five-part canoes’ with their ends made from
forked timbers. Another type of planked boat from
eastern Madura has forked timbers forming the prow
and stern and is called a sakangan.

4
All janggolan entering Pasuruan can be
assumed to be carrying salt.

5
We have not been able to acquire the detailed
meteorlogical data that would confirm or disprove this
assumption.

6
A similar word, topang, means prop or support.
As noted in the section Structure and Form above,
the topengan is not structural; it does not support the
planks but is in fact supported by them.

7
Sam Po Tualang is none other then Zheng
He, the ‘three-jewelled eunuch’ (Ah Sam Po). Tualang
means ‘flyaway’ in Bahasa Indonesia.

66