Djong (ship) Informations

The djong, jong, or jung (also called junk in English) is a type of ancient sailing ship originating from Java that was widely used by Javanese and Malay sailors. The word was and is spelled jong in its languages of origin, the "djong" spelling being the colonial Dutch romanisation.

Djongs are used mainly as seagoing passenger and cargo vessels. They traveled as far as Ghana or even Brazil in ancient times. The average burthen was 4-500 tons, with a range of 85-700 tons. In the Majapahit era these vessels were used as warships, but still predominantly as transport vessels.

The word jong or jung derives from the Chinese word for boat (船), originally pronounced ɦljon in Old Chinese. It is related to several Southeast Asian terms for boat, and entered the Indonesian and Malay languages at an early date. The word jong can be found in a number of ancient Javanese inscriptions dating to the 9th century. It is first recorded in the Malay language by the 15th century, when a Chinese word list identified it as a Malay term for ship. The late 15th century Malay Maritime Laws uses jong frequently as the word for freight ships. European writings from 1345 through 1601 use a variety of related terms, including jonque (French), ioncque (Italian), iuncque (Spanish), and ionco (Dutch).

The "djong" spelling is of colonial Dutch origin, rendering the j sound as "dj", though both traditional British and current Indonesian orthography romanises it as jong.

The Nusantara archipelago was known for production of large junks. A Portuguese account described how the Javanese people already had advanced seafaring skills when they arrived:

When the Portuguese captured Malacca, they recovered a chart from a Javanese pilot, Albuquerque said:

For seafaring, the Malay people independently invented junk sails, made from woven mats reinforced with bamboo, at least several hundred years before 1 BC. By the time of the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) the Chinese were using such sails, having learned it from Malay sailors visiting their Southern coast. Beside this type of sail, they also made balance lugsails (tanja sails). The invention of these types of sail made sailing around the western coast of Africa possible, because of their ability to sail against the wind.

Duarte Barbosa reported that the ships from Java, which 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 boards. The rope and the sail is made with osier. The Javanese junks were made using jaty/jati wood (teak) at the time of his report (1512), at that time Chinese junks were still using softwood as their main material. The Javanese ships hull is formed by joining planks to the keel and then to each other by wooden dowels, without using either a frame (except for subsequent reinforcement), nor any iron bolts or nails. The planks are perforated by an auger and inserted with dowels, which remains inside the fastened planks, not seen from the outside. The vessel was similarly pointed at both ends, and carried two oar-like rudders and lateen-rigged sails.[note 1] It differed markedly from the Chinese vessel, which had its hull fastened by strakes and iron nails to a frame and to structurally essential bulkheads which divided the cargo space. The Chinese vessel had a single rudder on a transom stern, and (except in Fujian and Guangdong) they had flat bottoms without keels.

Historical engravings also depict usage of bowsprits and bowsprit sails, with deckhouse above the upper deck, and the appearance of stemposts and sternposts. Extending from the front to the back there is a structure like a house, where people are protected from the heat of the sun, rain, and dew. At the stern there is a cabin for the ships captain. This cabin, is square in shape and protruding ("hanging") above the sharp waterline stern (the sternpost). The bow also has square platform that protrude above the stempost, for bowsprit and forward facing gun shield/gun mount (kota mara in Malay language). According to father Nicolau Pereira, the jong has 3 rudders, one on each side and one in the middle. Pereiras account is unusual, however, because other accounts only mention 2 quarter rudders. This may refer to hybrid jong, with middle rudder being like those on Chinese vessels (hanging axial rudder) or western axial rudder (pintle and gudgeon rudder). A jong has about 1:3 to 1:4 beam to length ratio, which makes it fell to the category of "round ship".

Barbosa also reported various goods carried by these ships, which include rice, meat of cows, sheep, pigs, and deer, dried and salted, many chickens, garlic, and onions. Traded weapons include lances, dagger, and swords, worked in inlaid metal and very good steel. Also brought with them cubebs and yellow die called cazumba (kasumba) and gold which is produced in Java. Barosa mention places and route in which these ships visited, which include Malacca, China, Molucca Islands, Sumatra, Tenasserim, Pegu, Bengal, Palicat, Coromandel, Malabar, Cambay, and Aden. The passenger brought their wives and children, even some of them never leave the ship to go on shore, nor have any other dwelling, for they are born and die in the ship.

The size and special requirements of the djong demanded access to expertise and materials not available everywhere. Consequently, the djong was mainly constructed in two major shipbuilding centres around Java: north coastal Java, especially around Rembang-Demak (along the Muria strait) and Cirebon; and the south coast of Borneo (Banjarmasin) and the adjacent islands. A common feature of these places was their accessibility to forests of teak, as this wood was highly valued because of its resistance to shipworm. Southern Borneos supply of teak would have come from north Java, whereas Borneo itself would supply ironwood.Pegu, which is a large shipbuilding port at the 16th century, also produced jong, built by Javanese who resided there.

Greek Astronomer, Claudius Ptolemaeus, ca. AD 100, said in his work Geography that huge ships came from the east of India. This was also confirmed by an anonymous work called Periplus Marae Erythraensis. Both mention a type of ship called kolandiaphonta, which may be a translation of the Chinese word Kun-lun po.

The 3rd century book Strange Things of the South (南州異物志) by Wan Chen (萬震) describes ships capable of carrying 700 people together with more than 10,000 "斛" of cargo (250-1000 tons according to various interpretations). These ships came from Kun-lun, meaning "Southern country" or "Islands below the wind." The ships called Kun-lun po (or Kun-lun bo), could be more than 50 meters in length and had a freeboard of 4-7 meters. Wan Chen explains the ships design as follows:

A 260 CE book by Kang Tai (康泰) also described these ships as seven-masted vessels called Kun-lun po (Southern country ships) that could travel as far as Syria. The word "po" is derived from the Malay word proa-prauw-perahu, which means large ship. Note that in modern usage, perahu refers to a small boat. Faxian (Fa-Hsien) in his return journey to China from India (413-414) embarked a ship carrying 200 passengers and sailors from Kun-lun which towed a smaller ship. A cyclone struck and forced the passengers to move into the smaller ship. The crew of the smaller ship feared that the ship would be overloaded, therefore they cut the rope and separated from the big ship. Luckily the bigger ship survived, the passengers were stranded in Ye-po-ti (Yawadwipa - Java).[note 2] After 5 months, the crew and the passengers built a new ship comparable in size to sail back to China. In I-ch’ieh-ching yin-i, a dictionary compiled by Huei-lin ca. 817 AD, po is mentioned several times:

In 1178, the Guangzhou customs officer Zhou Qufei, wrote in Lingwai Daida about the ships of the Southern country:

In 1322 friar Odoric of Pordenone reported that the archipelagic vessel of the zunc[um] type carried at least 700 people, either sailors or merchants.

The Majapahit Empire used jongs as its main source of naval power. It is unknown how many exactly the total number of jong used by Majapahit, but they are grouped into 5 fleets. The largest number of jong deployed in an expedition is about 400 jongs accompanied with uncountable malangbang and kelulus, when Majapahit attacked Pasai. Each ship was about 70 metres (230 ft) long, with burthen around 500 tons and could carry 600 men. The ships were armed with 3 meter long cannons, and numerous smaller cetbangs. Prior to the Battle of Bubat in 1357, the Sunda king and the royal family arrived in Majapahit after sailing across the Java Sea by nine-decked hybrid Sino-Southeast Asian junks (Old Javanese: Jong sasanga wagunan ring Tatarnagari tiniru). These hybrid junk incorporated Chinese techniques, such as using iron nails alongside wooden dowels and the construction of watertight bulkhead.

Wang Dayuans 1349 composition Daoyi Zhilüe Guangzheng Xia ("Description of the Barbarian of the Isles") described the so called "horse boats" at a place called Gan-mai-li in Southeast Asia. These ships were bigger than normal trading ships, with the sides constructed from multiple planks. The ships uses neither nails or mortar to join them, instead they are using coconut fibre. The ships has two or three decks, with deckhouse over the upper deck. In the lower hold they carried pressed-down frankincense, above them they are carrying several hundred horses. Wang made special mention of these ships because pepper, which is also transported by them, carried to places much away with large quantity. The normal trading ships carried less than 1/10 of their cargo.

Usually, the main vessel towed behind a smaller "tender" for landing. Data from Marco Polo records made it possible to calculate that the largest ships may have had capacities of 500-800 tons, about the same as Chinese vessels used to trade in the 19th century. The tender itself may have been able to carry about 70 tons.

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