The djong, jong, jung, or original junk is a type of sailing ship originating from Java that was widely used by Javanese sailors. The word was and is spelled jong in its languages of origin, the "djong" spelling was a colonial Dutch romanization. In English, the jong lends its name to other ships of similar configuration, called junks, and to their characteristic style of rigging, the junk rig.
Jongs are used mainly as seagoing passenger and cargo vessels. They traveled as far as the Atlantic Ocean in the medieval era.Carta IX, 1 April 1512. In Pato, Raymundo Antonio de Bulhão; Mendonça, Henrique Lopes de (1884). Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, Seguidas de Documentos que as Elucidam tomo I (pp. 29–65). Lisboa: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencas. Their tonnage ranged from 40 to 2000 deadweight tons, with an average deadweight of 1200–1400 tons during the Majapahit era. Javanese kingdoms such as Majapahit, Demak Sultanate, and Kalinyamat Sultanate occasionally used these vessels as warships, but they were still predominantly transport vessels. The Mataram Sultanate primarily used jongs as merchant ships rather than warships.
Etymology
It was claimed the word jong, jung, jüng, or junk comes from Southern Min Chinese, specifically Hokkien . However, Chinese ocean-going tradition in Southeast Asia was relatively new – until the 12th century, most trade between the regions was carried in Southeast Asian vessels. Paul Pelliot and Waruno Mahdi reject the Chinese origin of the name. Instead, it may be derived from "jong" (transliterated as joṅ) in Old Javanese which means ship. One of the earliest records of Old Javanese jong comes from Sembiran inscriptions found in Bali, dates back to the 11th century CE. The word was borrowed by the Sumatrans (particularly in Malay) and possibly recorded by the 15th century thus practically excludes the Chinese origin of the word in Sumatran (Malay). The late 15th century Undang-Undang Laut Melaka, a maritime code composed by Javanese shipowners in Melaka, uses jong frequently as the word for freight ships. European writings from 1345 through 1609 use a variety of related terms, including jonque (French), ioncque, ionct, giunchi, zonchi (Italian), iuncque, joanga, juanga (Spanish), junco (Portuguese), and ionco, djonk, jonk (Dutch).
The origin of the word "junk" in the English language, can be traced to the Portuguese word junco, which is rendered from the Arabic word j-n-k (جنك). This word comes from the fact that Arabic script cannot represent the digraph "ng". The word used to denote both the Javanese ship (jong) and the Chinese ship (chûn), even though the two were markedly different vessels. After the disappearance of jong in the 17th century, the meaning of "junk" (and other similar words in European languages), which until then was used as a transcription of the word "jong" in Javanese and Sumatran (Palembang and Malay), changed its meaning to exclusively refer to the Chinese ship.
Native Indonesians from the Indonesian Archipelago usually refer to large Chinese ships as "wangkang", while small ones are called "top". There are also terms (especially in Palembang, which later borrowed to Indonesian and Malay), "cunea", "cunia", and "cunya" that originate from Amoy Hokkien Chinese 船仔 (), which refers to Chinese vessels 10–20 m in length. The "djong" spelling is of colonial Dutch origin, rendering the j sound as "dj", though both traditional British and current Indonesian orthography romanizes it as jong.
Sailing and navigation
The Nusantara archipelago was known for the production of large junks. When Portuguese sailors reached the waters of Southeast Asia in the early 1500s they found this area dominated by Javanese junk ships, operating on the vital spice route, between Moluccas, Java, and Malacca. The port city of Malacca at that time practically became a Javanese city. Many Javanese merchants and ship captains settled and at the same time controlled international trade. Many skilled Javanese carpenters are building ships in the dockyards of the largest port city in Southeast Asia.
For seafaring, the Austronesian people invented the balance lugsail (tanja sail), probably developed from the fixed mast version of the crab claw sail. The junk rig commonly used on Chinese ships may have been developed from the tanja sail.Needham, Joseph (1971). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part III: Civil Engineering and Nautics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
During the Majapahit era, almost all of the commodities from Asia were found in Java. This is because of extensive shipping by the Majapahit empire using various types of ships, particularly the jong, for trading to faraway places. Ma Huan (Zheng He's translator) who visited Java in 1413, stated that ports in Java were trading goods and offered services that were more numerous and more complete than other ports in Southeast Asia. It was also during the Majapahit era that Nusantaran exploration reached its greatest accomplishment. Ludovico di Varthema (1470–1517), in his book Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese stated that the Southern Javanese people sailed to "far Southern lands" up to the point they arrived at an island where a day only lasted four hours long and was "colder than in any part of the world". Modern studies have determined that such a place is located at least 900 nautical miles (1666 km) south of the southernmost point of Tasmania.
The Austronesian people used a solid navigation system: Orientation at sea is carried out using a variety of different natural signs, and by using a very distinctive astronomy technique called "star path navigation". The navigators determine the bow of the ship to the islands that are recognized by using the position of rising and setting of certain stars above the horizon. In the Majapahit era, compasses and magnets were used, and cartography (mapping science) was developed. In 1293 AD Raden Wijaya presented a map and census record to the Yuan Mongol invader, suggesting that mapmaking has been a formal part of governmental affairs in Java.Suarez, Thomas (2012). Early Mapping of Southeast Asia: The Epic Story of Seafarers, Adventurers, and Cartographers Who First Mapped the Regions Between China and India. p. 53, Tuttle Publishing. The use of maps full of longitudinal and transverse lines, rhumb lines, and direct route lines traveled by ships were recorded by Europeans, to the point that the Portuguese considered the Javanese maps the best in the early 1500s.
When Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca, the Portuguese recovered a chart from a Javanese maritime pilot, which already included part of the Americas. Regarding the chart Albuquerque said:
...a large map of a Javanese pilot, containing the Cape of Good Hope, Portugal and the land of Brazil, the Red Sea and the Sea of Persia, the Clove Islands, the navigation of the Chinese and the Gores, with their rhumbs and direct routes followed by the ships, and the hinterland, and how the kingdoms border on each other. It seems to me. Sir, that this was the best thing I have ever seen, and Your Highness will be very pleased to see it; it had the names in Javanese writing, but I had with me a Javanese who could read and write. I send this piece to Your Highness, which Francisco Rodrigues traced from the other, in which Your Highness can truly see where the Chinese and Gores come from, and the course your ships must take to the Clove Islands, and where the gold mines lie, and the islands of Java and Banda, of nutmeg and mace, and the land of the King of Siam, and also the end of the land of the navigation of the Chinese, the direction it takes, and how they do not navigate farther.— Letter of Albuquerque to King Manuel I of Portugal, 1 April 1512.
A Portuguese account described how the Javanese people already had advanced seafaring skills and had communicated with Madagascar in 1645:Couto, Diogo do (1645). Da Ásia: Década Quarta. Lisbon: Regia Officina Typografica, 1778–1788. Reprint, Lisbon, 1974. Década IV, part iii, p. 169.
The Javanese are all men very experienced in the art of navigation, to the point that they claim to be the most ancient of all, although many others give this honor to the Chinese, and affirm that this art was handed on from them to the Javanese. But it is certain that they formerly navigated to the Cape of Good Hope and were in communication with the east coast of the island of São Lourenço (San Laurenzo — Madagascar), where there are many brown and Javanese-like natives who say they are descended from them.— Diogo do Couto, Decada Quarta da Asia
Research in 2016 showed that the Malagasy people have genetic links to various Maritime Southeast Asian ethnic groups, particularly from southern Borneo. Parts of the Malagasy language are sourced from the Ma'anyan language with loan words from Sanskrit, with all the local linguistic modifications via Javanese or Malay language. The Ma'anyan and Dayak people are not a sailor and were dry-rice cultivators while some Malagasy are wet rice farmers, so it is likely that they are carried by the Javanese and Malay people in their trading fleets, as labor or slaves.Kumar, Ann (2012). 'Dominion Over Palm and Pine: Early Indonesia's Maritime Reach', in Geoff Wade (ed.), Anthony Reid and the Study of the Southeast Asian Past (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies), 101–122. Javanese trading and slaving activities in Africa caused a strong influence on boatbuilding on Madagascar and the East African coast. This is indicated by the existence of outriggers and oculi (eye ornament) on African boats.
Description Duarte Barbosa reported that the ships from Java, which they called Jungos, have four masts, are very different from Portuguese ships. A Javanese ship is made of very thick wood, and as it gets old, the Javanese fix it with new planks, this way they have 3–4 planks, one above the other. The rope and the sail are made with woven rattan. The Javanese junks were made using jati wood (teak) at the time of his report (1515), at that time Chinese junks were still using softwood as their main material. The Javanese ship's hull is formed by joining planks and keel with wooden dowels and treenails, without using iron bolts or nails. The frame would be built later, after the planking (the "shell first" construction). The planks are perforated by an auger and inserted with dowels, which remain inside the fastened planks, not seen from the outside.Manguin, Pierre-Yves. 2012. "Asian ship-building traditions in the Indian Ocean at the dawn of European expansion", in: Om Prakash and D. P. Chattopadhyaya (eds), History of science, philosophy, and culture in Indian Civilization, Volume III, part 7: The trading world of the Indian Ocean, 1500–1800, pp. 597–629. Delhi, Chennai, Chandigarh: Pearson. The hull was pointed at both ends, they carried two rudders and used tanja sail, but it may also use junk sail, a sail of Indonesian origin. On top of the mast there is a top or gávea, which is used for observation and fighting. They were very different from the Chinese ships, whose hulls were joined by iron nails and strakes to a frame and bulkheads. The Chinese vessel had a single rudder, and (except in Fujian and Guangdong) they had flat bottoms without keels.