Hats

Malay and Chinese plaited and sewn hats constitute a significant body of traditional craftwork across the Malay Peninsula and parts of Borneo, serving practical functions for fishermen, rice-field workers, and labourers while also embodying distinct regional identities and aesthetic traditions. The principal materials—various species of Pandanus, bamboo, rotan, and several palm species—are drawn from the immediate environment, and the techniques of plaiting and sewing have been transmitted through local communities for generations. By the late 1940s, however, the introduction of European cotton thread, synthetic dyes, and commercial competition from external producers was already eroding the diversity of local patterns that had existed only a generation or two earlier [1, pp. 133–134]. The hats documented here range from the highly intricate fisherman’s hat of Kedah, whose brim is secured by a criss-cross webbing worked over eighteen successive circuits, to the simple bamboo covers of the Malacca coast, and from the stout Cantonese labourer’s hat imported in large quantities to the more delicate Teochew pattern that had become the most widely worn of the Chinese forms [1, pp. 154–155], [2, pp. 39].

Materials and Construction Techniques

The raw materials for Malayan hats and dish-covers are drawn from a limited but regionally differentiated set of plants. On the west side of the peninsula, Pandanus species dominate: Pandanus atrocarpus Griff., known locally as mengkuang (the coarser species, reaching heights of sixty feet with leaves about twenty feet long), supplies the material for all the western hats except the small bamboo hat from the Parit district of Perak, while the much smaller P. tectorius Sol., called pandan (a primarily coastal plant reaching about fifteen feet), provides the finer fibre used in the better work from Malacca and Negri Sembilan [1, pp. 130–131]. On the east coast, by contrast, Pandanus is used relatively little, and its place is taken by the Serdang Palm (Livistona saribas Merr.), which is the normal material for hats in Kelantan and the Pekan district of Pahang, and the Nipah Palm (Nipa fruticans Wurmb.), employed over the intervening area from Kuala Besut south to Kuala Pahang [1, pp. 130–131]. The Lontar or Palmyra Palm (Borassus flabellifera Linn.), known locally as tah, supplies the leaves for the dish-covers of Kelantan and northern Trengganu, while an unidentified species of Licuala, called sah in the Paka and Dungun districts, is used for the finer covers of that area [1, pp. 131].

Two methods of construction are employed: plaiting, used for the dish-covers and generally performed by women, and sewing, used for the hats and normally carried out by men [1, p. 131]. In the sewn work, the strips of leaf material are arranged in a fixed number of units that meet at the peak of the crown. The cruder mengkuang work uses six units; the Trengganu nipah hats use twelve; the Kelantan and Pekan hats typically use twenty-four; and the Kedah hat has twelve fronds in each layer [1, pp. 132–133]. The stitches run in circles round the cone, and after the sewing is completed the rim is trimmed with a knife and bound between two hoops of rotan or bamboo to protect it, hide the cut edges, and maintain the shape of the hat [1, p. 133]. The binding is secured by the common Malay knot, and considerable variety is introduced in the better work by the manner of spacing the knots: in the most intricate example, the Kedah fisherman’s hat, every eighteenth knot of the final series is made on each of eighteen circuits [1, pp. 133–134].

The plaited dish-covers derive their technique from the Malacca Anyam gila method, but with a crucial modification: the operator starts with five strips of material rather than six, and each circuit is completed with the addition of a further five pieces, so that a cone is formed instead of a flat sheet of plaiting [1, p. 134]. As a result, the number of arms in any radiating pattern, or the number of rosettes in each ring, is always five or a multiple of five—a feature that immediately distinguishes these covers from all other local work of this kind [1, p. 134].

Regional Varieties and Distribution

The hats and dish-covers of the Federation of Malaya can be grouped into approximately nine hat types and ten dish-cover types, described regionally from Kelantan working clockwise around the states [1, p. 129]. In Kelantan, two hat shapes are made: the beehive-shaped fisherman’s hat (No. 1), with a brim diameter of 12–15 inches and a vertical height of 8–9 inches, produced at a number of points from Bachok northwards and most extensively in the villages on and near the southern part of the Kelantan River delta; and the flat, broad-brimmed padi-worker’s hat (No. 2) from the vicinity of Pasir Mas and Salor, with a maximum diameter of 18–22 inches and a vertical height of only 4½–5 inches [1, pp. 138–139]. Both are made of Serdang Palm strips, but the fisherman’s hat is sewn with coarse white crochet cotton, while the padi-worker’s hat in its best form is decorated with a double star of radiating strands of white thread and one or more discs of carved wood or stamped metal at the base of the crown [1, pp. 137–139].

The Trengganu hat (No. 3), made of Nipah palm fronds and sewn with fine strips of brown rotan, is the standard product exported widely from the area. It is produced at a number of coastal kampongs (villages) from Kuala Besut south to Kuala Pahang, and by the late 1940s it was being used from the Sedili River in Johore north to the Kelantan coast, in spite of being less well made than the Pekan hats and probably less suitable for fishermen than the Kelantan coast hat [1, pp. 144–145]. The Trengganu hat costs about 40–50 cents, compared with 70–80 cents for the Kelantan fisherman’s hat, and this price differential was driving the replacement of the latter across the Kelantan coast [1, p. 138].

In Pahang, the Pekan district formerly produced excellent hats of high quality, sewn with extremely fine strands cut from the outer layer of a rotan sega (Calamus sp.), with a normal price of $1.50 to $2.50; by 1948, however, only occasional new examples could be obtained [1, p. 146]. The Malacca and Negri Sembilan region produces several different hats and dish-covers, but they are simple in design and for the most part of inferior workmanship, with little or no use of rotan and a large reliance on bamboo [1, p. 147]. The Kedah fisherman’s hat (No. 9), from Perlis and the northern parts of Kedah, is the most technically intricate hat in Malaya, built up of several layers of mengkuang leaves sewn neatly in one piece, with the brim sealed between two flat hoops of bamboo and the stitching forming a band of criss-cross webbing round the edge [1, pp. 154–155]. It sold at $3 in 1948 and measured approximately 16½ inches in diameter by 5½ inches in height [1, p. 155].

Chinese Labourers’ Hats

The Chinese bamboo labourers’ hats imported into Malaya represent a distinct category of headwear, far more prevalent in western Malaya and the only kind normally seen in Singapore [2, p. 33]. Gibson-Hill identified five patterns reaching the country: one from the Canton district of Kwang-tung, three from the Swatow district of Kwang-tung and adjacent south Fu-kien, and one from Hainan Island, all imported through Hong Kong [2, pp. 33]. They share a common structural plan of two plaited bamboo lattice frames enclosing layers of bamboo leaves, bound tightly at the rim with bamboo strips, and typically finished with a plaited cap at the peak of the crown [2, pp. 35–36]. They diverge in the number of base strands—four for the Swatow/Fu-kien group, six for the Canton and Hainan hats—and in overall proportions [2, p. 36].

The Cantonese hat is the most stoutly constructed, about 8–9 inches high with a brim diameter of 20–24 inches, selling in Singapore for $1 to $1.25; the Teochew hat (No. 2) is the most popular, about 7 inches high with an 18-inch brim, selling for 60–80 cents [2, pp. 39]. The Hylam hat from Hainan is about 6½ inches high with a 14–15 inch brim diameter, used almost exclusively by boatmen and fishermen in Malaya, and was giving way to the trilby by 1952 [2, pp. 45–46]. Two Teochew families in Malacca began local manufacture of the No. 2 pattern after the recent war, producing coarser work at 75 cents retail—the only known attempt at local production [2, pp. 33].

Gibson-Hill also examined a parallel form described by Das Gupta (1950) in North Bengal, arguing that its nearest affinities in detail are with the Swatow patterns, and speculated on possible routes of transmission—either through Chinese labourers brought to Assam for the tea industry established in the 1820s, or through older Indian-Chinese contacts in the Amoy/Swatow region [2, pp. 36–39]. He further considered the influence of the Canton hat on the Tumpassuk Dusun hat of North Borneo and the obsolete toering of the Cape Malays, which appeared in South Africa early in the nineteenth century and was replaced by the fez after 1861 [2, p. 34].

Economic Dynamics and Decline

The economic life of these hats is characterised by a tension between local production and external competition. Over the greater part of Malaya, hats and covers, if still made locally, are produced at a few centres in the district and sold through the shops, so that the products from certain places are spreading and finding a good market over a wide area [1, p. 128]. Work from outside Malaya is also available in some of the principal centres at low prices: in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca and Singapore one can buy dish-covers from Brunei, south Borneo and Java [1, p. 128]. The Trengganu hat, produced at a figure allowing re-sale at a price of only 40–50 cents, was already surplanting indigenous forms in neighbouring areas by the late 1940s [1, p. 145]. A similar phenomenon was observed in North Borneo, where a Dusun hat made in the small district of Tuaran was spreading and could be bought at shops from Labuan Bay in the south round to Lahad Datu in the north-east [1, p. 145].

The Malacca painted dish-cover (No. 16), produced mainly at Kuala Sungei Bahru and Telok Kemang, represents the most highly commercialised product: a good worker could complete the plaiting in twenty minutes, producers sold to agents at 50–60 cents a cover, and retail prices ranged from 80 cents in Malacca to $1.50 in Penang [1, p. 149]. By 1947 the covers were reaching as far north as Kota Bharu in Kelantan [1, p. 149]. Gibson-Hill noted that at least a few of the surviving local patterns would disappear before this double competition from cheaper local centres and imported goods [1, p. 128].

Research and Documentation

The systematic documentation of Malayan hats and dish-covers began with Gibson-Hill’s 1951 paper, which he described as the first attempt to describe any of the Malayan hats or dish-covers in detail, apart from the single cover mentioned by Winstedt (1909) [1, p. 127]. Gibson-Hill’s study was based largely on a private collection and notes gathered in 1947 and 1948, with the addition of a little material obtained subsequently [1, p. 127]. He acknowledged that the methods of manufacture had changed in some cases in the last fifty years, and that a few local variations had already disappeared [1, p. 127]. His original intention had been to prepare a more comprehensive account covering the neighbouring regions in addition to Malaya, but insufficient material from areas outside the country prevented this, and he published the Malayan section as it stood [1, p. 127].

The 1952 paper on Chinese labourers’ hats addressed a conspicuous gap left by the 1951 study: while the Malay hats had been covered, the Chinese hats—far more prevalent in western Malaya and the only kind normally seen in Singapore—had never been described even at their point of origin [2, p. 33]. Gibson-Hill’s descriptions were grounded in direct examination of examples in Singapore and Malaya, supplemented by photographic evidence of labourers wearing these hats in southern Kwang-tung, and by comparison with the British Museum collection [2, pp. 36]. A brief appendix described two locally made hat forms from the Bangkok district of Thailand, noted as the first published description of those forms [2, p. 46].

The historiographical significance of these two papers lies in their establishment of a typological baseline at a moment of rapid change. Gibson-Hill was explicit that the account would have been far more interesting if compiled seventy to eighty years earlier, before the introduction of European cotton thread and synthetic dyes, and while the regions of the bigger rivers were still largely isolated from each other [1, p. 128]. The records thus serve not only as a catalogue of forms and materials but as a document of cultural transition, capturing the last generation in which many of these patterns were still being produced in their traditional manner.

MBRAS Sources

• C.A. Gibson-Hill (1951). Malay hats and dish covers. JMBRAS 24: 133–158
• C.A. Gibson-Hill (1952). Chinese labourers’ hats used in Malaya. JMBRAS 25: 35–47

References

1. C.A. Gibson-Hill (1951). Malay hats and dish covers JMBRAS 24(1): 133–158.
2. C.A. Gibson-Hill (1952). Chinese labourers’ hats used in Malaya JMBRAS 25(1): 35–47.