The Jongs and The Galleys: Traditional Ships of The Past Malay Maritime Civilization

The Malay civilization in the past, located in the Malay Archipelago, was a maritime civilization, being strategically situated midway between the trade sea routes of the western and eastern trading nations. Centres of population and polities were found in the major city ports of the region. This strategic location was augmented further by the seasonal variation of the monsoonal winds that blow from the west to the east during summer months (May-August) and from the east to the west during the winter months (September-December), which helped to bring ships both from the west and the east. A lull in the wind between the two seasons forced the ships, especially the bigger classes, to stay put at the harbour which gave traders ample opportunities to trade their goods. Naturally ships played important roles in such maritime trading scenarios and the Malays from earlier times had been using various ship types to fulfil those maritime activities. In this article, Malay maritime activities and description of various ships classes used by the Malays will be discussed, namely the big ocean-going ships, the medium size ships that plied the seas and straits within the Malay Archipelago, and the smaller boats that were used along the sea beaches and rivers throughout the region. However, in this article focus of the discussion will be only on the two big ocean-going ships, the Jongs and the Galleys.

interactions and manifestations, reflecting its wisdom and creative energy as it adjusted, accommodated, and surmounted its multifaceted eco-systems.
A society's eco-systems may consist of the followings 1. Physical eco-system: topology (riverine, coastal, insular, hinterland, highland, desert, grassland, etc.), fauna, flora, climate, weather, etc.The dominant physical eco-system of the Malays is naturally a maritime ecology with its peninsular, coastal and insular environments.2. Social eco-system: family, community, society, nation, global humanity.
Aesthetic and creative eco-systems: in the expression of beauty and creativity manifested in the forms of arts, literary, music, recreation, dancing, drama, culinary, haute couture, etc.in the realms of the visual, audio, movements and taste.6.
Transcendental eco-systems: in the expression of belief, faith, religious rituals, ideology, etc.For the majority of the Malays the transcendental eco-system is the religion of Islam with the belief in one God Allah, the syari'ah as the code of conduct in life, and the eschatological belief in the afterlife resurrection for the final retribution of all worldly deeds.
The creative wisdom and energy of the Malays collectively and accumulatively in accommodating, adjusting and surmounting all these eco-systems, resulted in the formation and development of all the facets of its civilization and they were passed down from generation to generation.The most striking traits of the past Malay civilization were undoubtedly its maritime tradition and the sea-going spirit of its people.This sea-going spirit and skill of the Malays was amply demonstrated by the first circumnavigation made by the legendary Malay navigator Panglima Awang Enrique in 1521 (with Ferdinand Magellan who was killed in Lapu-Lapu thus failed to circumnavigate himself) (Skelton, 1969).
The modern days Malay sea-faring spirit was demonstrated gallantly by the circumnavigation of the ship "SY Jugra" from February  In this paper a brief outline of the emergence of one facet of the Malay maritime civilization namely the Malay traditional ships will be discussed.

The Past Malay Society and Its Centres of Polities in Southeast Asia
The region with its centres of population and polities in Southeast Asia were originally populated by the Malay-Polynesian language family group, which is now collectively known as the Malays, although with hundreds of ethnic and sub-family groups.The region now consists of Kampuchea (former name Campa), South Thailand, Peninsula Malaysia, the islands of Sumatera, Java, Madura, Bali, Borneo, Celebes, Moluccas, Philippines and several eastern smaller islands.When the Europeans arrived in this region they called it the Malay Archipelago due to the extensive usage of the Malay language as its lingua franca and perhaps also due to the similarities of the physical and cultural traits of the people (Marsden, 1812: i).
Figure 3: The Malay Archipelago with the centres of Polities (Reid, 2001: 90) The region at one time in the past with the adoption of Islam was also known as the land of the Jawi people or the Tanah Jawi, and the society as a whole was known as the Jawi Nation or the Bangsa Jawi and the language they used was the Jawi language or the Bahasa Jawi and the orthographical system used was the Jawi script or tulisan Jawi, and the books and texts on Islamic knowledge was known as the Jawi Book or Kitab Jawi (Musa, 2006: xix).However, the most common name for this region now, at least in Malaysia, is the Malay World or Alam Melayu, as for instance the institution in the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia specializing in the study of the Malay civilization is known as the Institut Alam dan Tamadun Melayu or ATMA.
The location of the Malay world was at the convergence of the trade routes between the western trading nations of Europe, Middle East, Africa, India, and the eastern trading nations of Thailand, China, Japan and Korea.(Reid, 2001: 11) The strategic location of the Malay world in the international trading route was supplemented further by the physical phenomenon of the weather, namely the monsoon winds.The monsoon winds blow from the west to the east during summer months of May to August, and blow from the east to the west during the winter months of September to December, and a lull of the wind between the two seasons.Thus, during the summer months ships from the west viz.Europe, North Africa, Middle East, Sri Lanka and India will sail to Malacca, while during the winter months ships from the east viz.Ayutthaya Thailand, Campa, China, Japan and Korea sailed to Malacca.A lull in the wind between the two seasons forced the ships to stay put in the harbours giving ample time for the traders to do their businesses."Five centuries ago, Malacca hosted 2,000 ships each day, as busy as the modernday Singapore.Cargoes of mace (kulit buah pala), nutmeg (buah pala), cloves (bunga cengkih), sandalwood (kayu cendana), tea, porcelains and silks passed through Malacca on their way to Europe.From the islands of the Archipelago to the south came camphor, birds' nests, pepper (lada hitam), musk (kesturi), gold and ivory (gading).And from the West, mostly carried by traders from South Asia and the Middle East, came cotton, weapons, incense (setanggi), opium (candu), dyes, silver and medicinal drugs.
It was a place where Gujratis, Tamils and Bengalis from India lived and traded in secure harmony with Malays, Chinese and Arabs, a city of 100,000 people where 84 languages could be heard in the Markets.The Malay sultans who ruled Malacca ensured that the strait was free of pirates.Goods could be stored safely in hundreds of well-guarded godowns, the city's law were administered fairly to both Malaccans and foreigners."(Elegant, 1999: 45) In the beginning the local Malay maritime traders were most probably engaged only in regional trades in the Malay World dealing with collection, transportation and distribution of goods such as rice, camphor, birds' nests, pepper (lada hitam), musk (kesturi), gold and ivory (gading), tin ore, resin (damar) etc.However, with the expansion and growth of trade in volumes and varieties, they then ventured to foreign lands in the west and the east, after acquiring or building big ocean-going ships such as Junks, Galleys, Phinisi, Pinas, etc.
Manguin referred to the Chinese sources first published by Pelliot (1925) to trace the presence of Malay big ocean-going trading ships at the ports in China: "Chinese sources of the 1 st millennium A.D. provide us with other excellent descriptions of what Chinese authors of the time called the Kunlun bo (i.e."South-East Asian ships") that visited Chinese harbours and took Buddhist pilgrims on board en route to Srivijaya (in Sumatra) and on to India.The earliest such source dates from the 3rd century A.D.: "The people of foreign parts call ships bo.The large ones are more than fifty meters in length and stand out of the water four to five meters (...).They carry from six to seven hundred persons, with 10,000 bushels of cargo [c.600 tons deadweight].The people beyond the barriers, according to the size of their ships, sometimes rig [as many as] four sails, which they carry in row from bow to stern.(...) The four sails do not face directly forward but are set obliquely and so arranged that they can all be fixed in the same direction, to receive the wind and to spill it.The pressure [of the wind] swells [the sails] from behind and is thrown from one to the other, so that they all profit from its force.If it is violent, they diminish or augment [the surface of the sails] according to conditions.This oblique [rig], which permits the sails to receive from one another the breath of the wind, obviates the anxiety attendant upon having high masts.Therefore [these ships] sail without avoiding strong winds and dashing waves, by the aide of which they can make great speed."A second such text, from the eighth century, was written by a Chinese monk, in a commentary to the Buddhist Canon: "The bo are sea-going ships.They lie six or seven feet deep in the water.They are fast and can transport more than 1,000 men, apart from cargo.They are also called Kunlun bo.Many of those who form the crews and technicians of these ships are Kunlun [Southeast Asian] people.With the fibrous bark of the coconut tree, they make cords which bind the parts of the ship together (…).Nails and clamps are not used, for fear that the heating of the iron would give rise to fires.[The ships] are constructed by assembling [several] thicknesses of side-planks, for the boards are thin and they fear they would break.Their length is over sixty meters (...).Sails are hoisted to make use of the winds, and [these ships] cannot be propelled by the strength of men [alone]."To sum up, on the basis of these two graphic descriptions, the constructional features of these Southeast Asian ships may be listed as follows: 1.They were large ships, even by modern sailing standards, 2. No iron was ever used in fastening their components together, 3.They had several layers of planks (a feature common in later South China Sea ships), 4. They were rigged with multiple masts and sails, a sure indication of sophisticated high-seas sailing skills (and again a feature of later ships of the region), 5.They most probably had no outriggers, for such a conspicuous device would no doubt have struck the minds of Chinese witnesses, unfamiliar with this kind of exotic gear; moreover, it is difficult to conceive the fitting of outriggers on such large vessels."(Manguin, 1993: 261-263) As a result of the rapid and very lucrative maritime trading activities, it was a historical fact that the traditional centres of settlements and polities in the region were mostly city-port kingdoms such as Jambi (Melayu), Palembang (Srivijaya), Aceh, Malacca, Pattani, Johor-Riau, Sunda Kelapa, Demak, Tuban, Gerisik, Semarang, Banjarmasin, Mekassar, Campa, Brunei, Manila, Ternate, etc. which gave rise to the development of the Malay traditional civilization as a maritime civilization.
The courtiers and the ruling class such as the Chief Minister (Bendahara), Chief Security Officer (Temenggong), Admiral (Laksamana), Courtiers (Bentara), and even the rulers (Raja and Sultan) and royal households became the chief financiers of the trading activities, and some of them were owners of the trading ships.For instance, in the Hikayat Hang Tuah it is mentioned that the Bendahara (Prime Minister) and the Laksamana (Admiral) were the main financiers of such maritime trades: "Then the Prime Minister and the Admiral took out several "catties"1 of their gold and silver and gave them to their young men, and the Admiral said."My dear men, get ready by purchasing suitable goods to be traded in the Kalinga Kingdom."(Sebermula maka Bendahara dan Laksamana pun mengeluarkan segala emas dan perak beberapa kati.Maka diberikannya kepada orang-orang mudanya harta sekaliannya.Maka Laksamana pun berkata "Hai tuan-tuan sekalian, berlengkaplah dan belilah segala dagangan yang patut dibawa ke Benua Keling.)"(Hikayat Hang Tuah: 340) In order to engage in the maritime trading activities, the people of the region started building or acquiring various types of ships to fulfil specific trading needs and functions.Some of those ships also double up as warships equipped with armour and weapons, and some even were used for piracy and brigandary.The Big Ocean-Going Ships As mentioned above there were several types of big ocean-going ships used by Malay mariners to cross the oceans voyaging to distant ports in the east or in the west as well as to the various ports in the Malay world.They were the Jongs, Galleys, Phinisi/Pinisi, Pinas, and Bedar.In this article, only the two ancient ship types are discussed, namely the Jongs and the Galleys, since both them have already disappeared in the Malay world and lost in the fold of history.

i)
The Jong The name "Jong" for the big ocean-going ship according to Manguin (1993), was a local Malay or Javanese word and not borrowed from the Chinese word "Junk".According to him: "The earliest mention I could find of the word Jong appears in an Old-Javanese inscription of the 11th century A.D. (Brandes 1889).This practically excludes the alleged Chinese origin for the Malay word and that for its post-14th century offsprings in European languages such as junk, junco, jonque.Pelliot already had rejected the Chinese word "chuan" as a possible etymon for jong ("tch'ouan est exclu comme imprecis, et phonetiquement peu satlsfaisant", Pelliot (1933: 446-447).What we have here is most probably a word of Malay or Javanese origin."(Manguin: 1993: 266) This fact can be further strengthened by the existence of the place name as "Jong" throughout the region, for example in Kelantan there is a place known as "Lubuk Jong" in the District of Pasir Mas, and in Perak there is "Cangkat Jong" near Teluk Intan, and in Kedah, Pulau Jong and Teluk Jong near the Island of Langkawi.
In the Malay Concordance Project (MCP) (http://mcp.anu.edu.au/cgi-bin/tapis.pl,assessed on October 6, 2023) there are 160 places where the word Jong/Jung were cited in the various texts of the Malay traditional literature Based on the numerous citations in the traditional Malay texts and in the Chinese record, it is clear that the jongs as big ocean-going ships were used by the Malay mariners from early times as far back as the 3 rd C.E., hailing from various centres of Malay kingdoms such as Jambi (Melayu) and Srivijaya in Sumatera and also some kingdoms in Jawa.Shaffer (1996) a history professor at Tufts University, in her book Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500 (1996), mentioned that the then Malay mariners were skilful sailors, voyaging through the open seas for thousands of miles without the help of written charts and compasses.They took guidance from the condition of the winds, the position of the stars, the colour of the sea water and even the shapes of the waves, in order to find direction and location.They knew, for instance, the location of an island 30 miles away basing on the birds' flying formation as well as the presence of water vegetation and the shapes of the waves.The Chinese sailors knew about the Malay mariners as early as the 3 rd C.E.
"The Chinese also knew these islanders as builders and as the crews of ocean going vessels engaged in long distance overseas trade.The Chinese in fact appear to have learned much from these sailors.The Malays independently invented a sail, made from woven mats reinforced with bamboo, at least several hundred years B.C.E and by the time of the Han Dynasty (206 C.E. to 221 C.E.) the Chinese were using such sails."Shaffer (1996) Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500.
The Malacca-born Portuguese chronicler/cartographer Godinho de Eredia wrote in 1618 (Eredia's Description of Malacca, Meridional India and Cathay, (tr. Mills, MBRAS reprint 1997) describing the Malay jongs thus "…In the course of their voyages across oceans… they used juncos (jongs) and somas; tall boats like freight-bearing carracks with two rudders and masts with sails made of woven palm-leaves matting, traversed by bamboos at definite interval, so that they could fold and gather up with dispatch when wind-storms came on…" (Mills, 1997: 36).
The sketch of a Malay Lancara or Lancang ship and Jong by de Eredia (1618: 36): ii) The Galleys (or Ghali in Malay) Galleys are ships that combined the sails and paddles using both the wind and human rowing powers for propulsion.It originated from the ancient Mediterranean and Aegean civilizations of the Phoenician, Greeks, Ancient Egyptian and Romans as well as the Persians.Galleys were in use from the 3 rd Century B.C. to the 16 th C.E. when new and more advanced and efficient classes of ships such as carracks, galleons, etc. were built that surpassed and outgunned the galleys.The galley ship was characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft and low clearance between sea and railing.Almost all types of galleys had sails that could be used in favourable winds, but human rowing strength was always the primary method of propulsion.This allowed galleys freedom to move independent of winds and currents, and with great precision especially in warfare and trade missions.A new type of galleys was used in the early Middle Ages inherited from the ships used by Byzantine and Muslim fleets.These were the mainstay of all Christian powers until the 14th century, including the great maritime republics of Genoa and Venice, the Papacy, the Hospitallers, Aragon and Castile.The overall term used for these types of vessels was gallee sottili (slender galleys).The later Ottoman navy used similar designs, but they were generally faster under sail, and smaller, but slower under oars.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley,assessed on October 6, 2023).
Partly through the influence of the Muslim Ottoman navy which began to use the galleys to do battle with the Christian Mediterranean forces as well as to dominate the trade routes in the Indian Ocean, galley ships began to be adopted by the Muslim kingdoms in the Malay world especially Aceh, Malacca, Banten etc. 2 Azyumardi (2006: 169) mentioned that: "The closest link between a Malay-Indonesian kingdom and the Ottomans was established by the sultanate of Aceh.An informal alliance had existed from at least last year of the 1530's.Mendes Pinto, a Portuguese traveller, narrated that the return of Achinese armada (from a battle in the Batak areas) in 1539 was under the command of a Turk named Hamid Khan a nephew of the Pasha of Cairo.These incidents were evidence of substantial Turkish military assistance for Aceh." Below are some models of a galley war ship, typical of the last great era of the war galleys in the 16th Century C.E.The flagship of the Malacca armada in the 15 th Century as mentioned in the HHT was the Mendam Berahi, (the Suppressed Passion), a galley class ship built by the Malacca craftsmen which was first commissioned to sail to Majapahit bringing the envoys of Malaccan Sultan to seek the hand of the Majapahit princess in marriage to the Sultan.The Hikayat Hang Tuah described the construction of the ship initiated by the Bendahara and the Laksamana Hang Tuah: "The Bendahara and Tun Tuah conferred together to build a galley as a royal argosy.The ship's length should be eighty gaz 3 (about 240 feet or three times the length of the tennis court) and it's width should be six spans (36 feet).The Bendahara then engaged craftsmen….the deck's wall were to be made of planks with the bottom parts bordered by finishing boards covered by velvet of golden, red and green colour.Its roof should be made of transparent glass of yellow and red colour with hanging strips in cloud and lightening patterns, within it were to be royal seats in golden colour with design of running clouds.In between the main mast to the stern the designing was to be done by the Bendahara, and in between the main mast to the bow were to be done by Tun Tuah… The construction of the galley was completed in splendour.The Bendahara said, "What is the best name for this galley?"Tun Tuah replied, "In my humble opinion, Dato, the best name for the galley would be Mendam Berahi."(Hikayat Hang Tuah, 1966: 95). Figure 14

Conclusion and Implication
Malay traditional ships using sails and paddles were used before the advent of the modern motorized ships and boats.There were three classes of Malay traditional ships and boats, namely the big ocean-going ships voyaging to distant lands, the medium-size ships used to traverse the straits and seas of the Malay World, and the small-size boats used at the ports, along beaches and rivers.In this article, only the traditional Jongs and the Galleys were discussed.However, these two big ocean-going ship types had already disappeared in history due to their diminishing functions, while the phinsi, pinas and bedar are still in use, though in limited numbers and many with motorized engines added to them.The medium-sized boats are still in use in significant numbers with many of them are equipped with motorized engines too.The small size boat using paddles and poles are still in use especially along the beaches and rivers throughout the Malay world.
At the same time, the discussion had also shown the great accomplishment of the Malays in the past as maritime traders.They were great maritime traders not only around their home waters, but also in faraway places, including China, India, Arabia, and even Madagascar.It is also amazing to discover that their navigational and trading activities did not only bring about monetary gains, but has also had anthropological, social, and cultural impacts on the places and peoples they interacted with.In fact, they had managed to change the demographic scenario of the world, with people of Malay stock now occupying approximately 60 per cent of the circumference of the earth.All of this was achieved without force or violence.

Corresponding Author
ROZITA CHE RODI (PhD) Department of Malay Language, Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang Selangor, Malaysia, specializing in Semantics: Cultural Semantics, Lexical Semantics, Semantic Field and Malay Thought and Civilization.ita_cherodi@upm.edu.my

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Nautical Chart by the National Hydrography Centre of the Royal Malaysian Navy in Commemorating the Circumnavigation of the SY Jugra (National Hydrography Centre of the Royal Malaysian Navy)

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: The Land Silk Route between Europe and China, and the Sea Route between Europe, Middle East, Africa, India and China where Malacca was on the Route Convergence

Figure 5 :
Figure 5: Main Trading Ports in the Indian Ocean and in the Malay World(Reid, 2001: 11)

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: The Monsoon Wind Blows from the West to the East during Summer Months (May-August) and from the East to the West during Winter Months (September-December) There were three class types of traditional Malay ships 1.The big ocean-going ships i

Figure 7 :
Figure 7: Model of A Malay Jong Built in Various Sizes (Museum Bahari Jakarta)

Figure 12 :
Figure 12: A model of a Maltese Galley Design Typical of the 16th Century, the Last Great Era of the War Galleys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley,assessed on October 6, 2023) : Illustration of Laksamana Hang Tuah and the Malaccan Galley Mendam Berahi by Salim Dawam in the daily newspaper Metro 6.9.2015 based on the description in the Hikayat Hang Tuah.

Figure 15 :
Figure 15: A Galley of the Banten Kingdom in 1598M with two decks and a straight sharp ram(Manguin, 2012: 160) 4, 19954,   to 9 November, 1996, in , in644 days covering 27,940 nautical miles, captained by His Royal Highness the Sultan of Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, then Crown Prince of Selangor, who was a descendent of the legendary Bugis sea-faring warriors.His Royal Highness was commissioned as Honorary Commander of the Reserve Unit of the Royal Malaysian Navy on August 27, 1998, in recognition of his gallant achievement.