Following the paper trail to the future

The Jakarta Post ,  Bandung,  Fri, 11/14/2008

As an ancient paper, daluang might be less popular than the lontar leaf. But after all these years, the paper continues to serve its purpose -- a medium for the culture of writing.

Daluang, which is made from Saeh wood or the mulberry paper tree, has been part of the country's heritage for more than 1,000 years; the Dutch colonialists called it "Java paper".

In the country's literature, the last daluang was known to be made in the 1950s in three places -- Garut in West Java and two East Java towns, Ponorogo and Sumenep on Madura Island.

Since then, its name has only been known to a limited circle of academics, ancient manuscript researchers and historians.

But the paper has resurfaced.

A young group of people in Bandung, called the Bungawari group, are working to preserve this ancient paper by conducting literature research and learning again how to make the paper to the point where it can be mass produced.

Their obsession is to establish daluang's identity with Indonesia, just like papyrus paper is identified with Egypt.

In the process they did not just want to return to ancient history; they want their project to have economic value and environmental preservation qualities.

Tedi Permadi, a history lecturer at the Indonesian Education University in Bandung, gestures to a prototype of daluang paper. (JP/Yuli Tri Suwarni)

Their tests, which are supported by the UNDP's Global Environment Facility, brought Tedi Permadi, a lecturer of history at the Indonesian Education University, to reconstruct its manufacturing process by tracing its history, to seek a community group that still uses it and to find those who still know how to make it.

Since 1998, he has researched daluang by tracing community groups who still use it, both for traditional law purposes or religious ceremonies, Tedi said.

"At the beginning we were curious about this wood paper after seeing that there are many ancient manuscripts written on daluang where the writing can still be clearly read," Tedi said.

The oldest daluang artifact had come from the third century before the Christian era in Cariu, Bogor regency, West Java.

Tedi, who is also interested in codicology (the study of ancient manuscripts), was impressed with the paper's strength and the paper-making technology involved as well as the knowledge of the special tools and the materials used in documenting manuscripts.

The word daluang itself is believed to have come from the Javanese words dalu (pronounced ndalu) meaning night, and uang (pronounced uong) meaning a human being. So a loose translation would be a human being who works at night.

According to Tedi, based on its root word, the understanding of daluang can be related to the job of writing usually done by the highest castes in the old society, the Brahmans.

These Brahmans transcribed stories and centuries of history onto paper at night.

The word could also mean an activity that was done by the holy people of the Hindu period who wrote mantras onto paper.

History records that daluang was the one medium that was universally used by people of many races, beliefs and religions.

Its universal value is seen by the use of daluang by Balinese Hindu society where it is still used in cremation ceremonies or Ngaben. At the ceremony, daluang is used to form a butterfly called Kitir whose duty is to deliver the human soul to heaven, Tedi said.

Daluang has also been used as clothing material for Hindu priests, while residents in the East Java town of Kediri used it as a medium to write the story of the beber puppets.

"When Muslims come to Indonesia, it is used as the material for writing Koranic verses and also for calligraphy."

At the early research phase in Garut in the south of West Java, he succeeded in discovering that mulberry trees or Saeh trees were used as the main material for making daluang.

He then brought the Bungawari team that found a person making the paper, a 72-year-old grandfather in Ponorogo, East Java. Then they found ancient manuscripts in Sumenep, Madura, that had been written on it.

Visitors watching the manufacturing process of the ancient paper daluang at Padjadjaran University campus in Bandung, West Java. The paper is believed to have been used by some tribal communities in the country for hundreds of years. (JP/Yuli Tri Suwarni)

Daluang's Latin name is Broussonetia papyryfera vent. It was also well-known in ancient society as a strong material for making head scarves, clothes and many household products.

Involving many of his university students, in 2001 Tedi began to find ways to make daluang after locating the paper-making tools in Garut -- though the tools were not in good condition.

"In its reconstruction, I guessed there were tools and there were trees. We tried to make it in 2002 and later on we were able to produce one sheet," he said.

Its quality, however, was still far from the quality of the old daluang.

Tedi also heard that there was a community in Sulawesi which still produces paper from wood bark.

"The key actually is that the wood in Sulawesi is soaked in water which has a cleaning paste. This cleaning paste can also absorb high degrees of acid found in wood bark," Tedi said.

Freeing the acid is a key factor which makes daluang wood paper last long -- up to 100 years without it changing color.

A mulberry tree can be harvested when it is about a year old and has reached a height of five meters. The tree is cut leaving around 20 centimeters in order to grow a bud which can then become a tree.

"From that trunk, after we have removed its cambium (cellular plant tissue), we take the sap found between the trunk and bark. Then we soak this with a cleaning paste for a month," Tedi explained.

The length of the soaking, he said, determines the quality of the daluang. The longer it is soaked, the better its quality.

It is then washed with water until it is totally clean. Then the process of layering starts using a large hammer made from heavy metal.

"The layering of daluang of A3 size, for example, only takes about 15 minutes. What takes the most amount of time is actually the soaking process," he said.

A sheet of A3 daluang can now be sold for Rp 15,000 (US$1.30) per sheet, while a longer piece of 2 meters x 50 cm sells for Rp 500,000 per sheet.