Kampung

“ Mr. E. C. Baber, who lately spent some time in our Malay settlements on his way from China, tells me (H. Y.) that the frequency with which he heard kampung applied to the 'compound,' convinced him of this etymology, which he had before doubted greatly.
It is not difficult to suppose that the word, if its use originated in our Malay factories and settlements, should have spread to the continental Presidencies, and so over India.
Our factories in the Archipelago were older than any of our settlements in India Proper. ”

“ All these peoples, with the exception of the Punans and similar nomads, live in village communities situated with few exceptions on the banks of the rivers. The populations of these villages vary from 20 or 30 persons only in the smallest, to 1500 or even more in a few of the largest; while the average village comprises about 30 families which, with a few slaves and dependants, make a community of some 200 to 300 persons. Each such community is presided over by a chief. A number of villages of one people are commonly grouped within easy reach of one another on the banks of a river. ”

“ The low, cool bungalows with their wide-spreading lawns gave place to the grass-thatched huts of the Chinese coolies, and the omnipresent eating-stalls. A hard-packed road carried us through almost endless cocoanut groves. At intervals a Malay kampong, or village, was revealed in the heart of the grove, its queer attap-thatched houses raised a man’s height from the ground, and connected with it by rickety ladders. ”

“ Each time you reach a clump of banyans, tamarind and tulip trees, you find the same tenants of its shades: village police-station, government posting-stable, and serai are always inclosed within its limits. All the villages are fortified with lofty walls of mud or brick, as are the numerous police-stations along the road, where the military constabulary, in their dark-blue tunics, yellow trowsers, and huge puggrees of bright red, rise up from sleep or hookah as you pass, and, turning out with tulwárs and rifles, perform the military salute—due in India to the white face from all native troops. ”

“ They plant a little rice, when the season comes, in the swamps behind the village. They work a little jungle produce, when the pinch of poverty drives them to it, but, like all Malays, they take life sufficiently easily. If you chance to go into the village of Ranggul, during any of the hot hours of the day, you will find most of its occupants lying about in their dark, cool houses, engaged upon such gentle mental tasks as may be afforded by whittling a stick, or hacking slowly at the already deeply scored threshold-block, with their clumsy wood-knives. ”

“ Each village possesses one or more institutions of this kind, and they are indiscriminately patronised by all well-to-do people, who recognise the institution as a sound basis on which marriage can be arranged. The Rambang houses are either in the village itself, or half way between one village and the next, the young women of one village thus entering into amicable relations with the young men of the other and vice versâ. I visited many of these in company with Shokas, and found them very interesting. ”

“ Marre, in his Kata-Kata Malayou (Paris, 1875) , gives the following expanded definition: "Village palissadé, ou, dans une ville, quartier séparé et généralement clos, occupé par des gens de même nation, Malays, Siamois, Chinois, Bouguis, &c. Ce mot signifie proprement un enclos, une enciente, et par extension quartier clos, faubourg, ou village palissadé. Le mot Kampong désigne parfois aussi une maison d'une certaine importance avec le terrain clos qui en dépend, et qui l'entoure" (p. 95) . ”

“ The lands which they inhabited were divided among the whole barangay, especially the irrigated portion, and thus each one knew his own. No one belonging to another barangay would cultivate them unless after purchase or inheritance. The lands on the tingues, or mountain-ridges, are not divided, but owned in common by the barangay. Consequently, at the time of the rice harvest, any individual of any particular barangay, although he may have come from some other village, if he commences to clear any land may sow it, and no one can compel him to abandon it. ”

“ The capital of a district is only a larger dessa, and that of a regency has the same general type, but includes several kampongs or villages. The bamboo houses in the strictly Javanese districts are always built on the ground; in the Sunda lands they are raised on piles. Some of the well-to-do, however, have stone houses. The principal article of food is rice; a considerable quantity of fish is eaten, but little meat. Family life is usually well ordered. The upper class practise polygamy, but among the common people a man has generally only one wife. ”

“ It is impossible to deal with each individual. The first question is, who is the great man of this village: who has influence, who knows the villagers, their characters and so on? Having found the man, it becomes possible to enter into relations with the village and to treat with them as a whole. In Upper Burma there was a recognized headman in each village who had duties, and powers corresponding to his duties; and in many administrative matters, especially in taxation, the village was dealt with as a whole. ”

“ Never enter a village dirty; stop and bathe at the spring before going up. Only dogs enter the houses without bathing.
The Village (Plate XXXVIII) .—A village generally consists of two or three settlements, situated near together, and under the authority of a single lakay or headman. There is no plan or set arrangement for the dwellings or other structures, but, as a rule, the house, spirit structure, and perhaps corrals are clustered closely together, while at the edge of the settlement are the rice granaries and garden plots. ”

“ What strikes the eye most in any village, or set of villages, in a Bengal district, is the exuberant fertility of the soil, the sluttish plenty surrounding the Grihasta’s (cultivator’s) abode, the rich foliage, the fruit and timber trees, and the palpable evidence against anything like penury. Did any man ever go through a Bengalee village and find himself assailed by the cry of want or famine? ”

“ I joined the main Lachung Valley at Yac-cha, some four miles above the village of Lachung, where I was met by the Phodong Lama, and where we remained some time transacting business with the headmen of the valley.
The two villages of Lamteng in the Lachen and Lachung in the Lachung Valley have an unusual and almost communistic government of their own. On every occasion the whole population meet at a “panchayat,” or council, where they sit in a ring in consultation. ”

“ When an epidemic appears in a nearby settlement, the lakay summons the old men in council, and they decide on the number of pigs, and the amount of rice, basi, and other articles required, after which the necessary funds are secured by levying a tax on all the people of the village.
To keep the evil spirits, who bear the sickness, out of the town, a cord of bamboo or rattan is stretched around the whole settlement, while at the gate a high fence is erected. ”

“ They are separated from each other by a little stream, or kali, and each has its own rajah, and formerly had its own little square mosque, for all these eleven tribes are Mohammedans, and keep separate from each other, because they lived in different parts of the island when the Dutch arrived. In the centre of this village is a large, square lawn, formed by the fort, the residence of a controleur, and a few other houses. Back of the lawn is the Christian kampong; for in every village where there are Mohammedans and Christians, each has a separate part to itself. ”

“ The residence of their chief (B) is constructed of poles fixed in the ground, bound together and covered with mats, which are thrown off at pleasure, to admit as much light and air as they may require. Some are covered with the boughs of trees. The natives, as represented in the plate, are indulging in their sports. When the spring or pond is at a distance from the town, they dig a ditch from it that supplies them with water." [18]
The village consisted of seventeen joint-tenement houses and a councilhouse, arranged around a central open space, and surrounded with a palisade. ”

“ The roads are fairly good, and the ditches which border them well kept. Sanitary rules are strictly enforced, the headman being made responsible for village cleanliness. Unlike the poor, [Pg 235] ragged, filthy villages of the peninsula, these are well-built in Korean style, of whitewashed mud and laths, trimly thatched, the compounds or farmyards are enclosed by whitewashed walls, or high fences of neatly woven reeds, and look as if they were swept every morning, and the farm buildings are substantial and well kept. Even the pigsties testify to the Argus eyes of the district chiefs of police. ”

“ The chief duty of the cabeza de barangay came to be the raising of money among the people for the government. If the people were poor, if times were bad, if the crops had failed, still this money must be raised. The government looked to the barangay chief to get it, in one way or another. Often, when the people were unable to pay, his property was taken, and many a headman of a village was stripped of all he had by the officers of government. ”

“ We must bring in the folks from some neighbouring village just to stir them up. The people of the Tribo district are best suited for that I should think. Many of them are shepherds and herdsmen; men who lie in the fields, who can be brought together in the night time, without anyone observing it. There is a distillery in the village too, and he who says that poison is concocted there does not lie in the least. In general, every village should choose its leaders from some other village, so that the local gentry may not recognise the strange faces. ”

“ As to the life and customs of the natives, it is not necessary to describe all the different races, but the Malay villages deserve notice. In Java and Sumatra these are not arranged in streets, but the houses are grouped under large trees, and are separated from the road by a bamboo fence, on the top of which notice boards are fixed at intervals bearing the names of the villages; these are necessary, because it is often difficult to see where one village ends and the next begins. ”

“ The inhabitants of the districts under the sway of the Company are of many different races. The bulk of the population are Dusuns or Idaán, very much like the better class of the Land Dyaks of Sarawak. They are easily governed, and among them head hunting is a tradition rather than a practice, as only in one village that Sir Hugh Low and I visited did we find a head house, or any skulls hung up to the rafters, as is commonly the case in the communities south of the Baram. ”

“ It is necessary to say something further about the position of the suburbs in the 15th century. Bābur quotes as especially suitable to Akhsī, the proverbial questions, ‘Where is the village?'2754 (qy. Akhsī-kīnt.) ‘Where are the trees?’ and these might be asked by some-one in the suburbs unable to see Akhsī or vice versâ. But granting that there were no suburbs within two miles of the town, why had the whole inner circle, two miles of Yāqūt’s four, gone out of cultivation? Erosion would have affected only land between the river and the town. ”

“ At daybreak the next morning we were steaming up the Klang river, whose low shores are entirely mangrove swamps, and when the sun was high and hot we anchored in front of the village of Klang, where a large fort on an eminence, with grass embankments in which guns are mounted, is the first prominent object. Above this is a large wooden bungalow with an attap roof, which is the British Residency. There was no air, and the British ensign in front of the house hung limp on the flag-staff. ”

“ A newly-formed village contains but a few families, while in the capitals the population often amounts to several thousand souls. Súra-kérta, the capital of the chief native government, though its population is estimated to exceed one hundred thousand, may be termed an assemblage or group of numerous villages, rather than what in European countries would be called a town or city. ”

“ The Chinese kámpongs may always be thus distinguished from those of the natives.
The cottages, which I have already described, are never found detached or solitary: they always unite to form villages of greater or less extent, according to the fertility of the neighbouring plain, abundance of a stream, or other accidental circumstances. In some provinces, the usual number of inhabitants in a village is about two hundred, in others less than fifty. ”

“ Originally hunters and dwellers in the jungle they are still but indifferent agriculturists. Like the Mundas and Hos and other representatives of the race, they are jovial in character, fond of their rice beer, and ready to take a joke.
Their social organization is very complete; each village has its headman or manjhi, with his assistant the paranik; the jogmanghi is charged with the supervision of the morals of the young men and women; the naeke is the village priest, the godet is the village constable. ”