Silk and cotton dyeing by the Malays
W.W. Skeat, a British colonial administrator in the Straits Settlements, published this ethnographic account of traditional Malay dyeing practices in 1902, documenting the processes by which silk and cotton thread were dyed in Kelantan, Patani, and Selangor. The article serves as a record of indigenous textile technology at a moment when imported aniline dyes from Singapore were rapidly displacing native vegetable dyes.
Summary
Skeat’s article is a practical ethnographic record of the dyeing processes used by Malay weavers to produce a full spectrum of colours for sarongs and other textiles. The central historical problem it addresses is the transition from indigenous vegetable dyeing to imported chemical dyes: by 1902, most of the colours described (yellow, yellow-green, green, blue-green, and beyond) were “now usually obtained from aniline dye-stuffs imported from Singapore,” and the native methods were preserved only in out-of-the-way inland districts among older generations (p. 125). The article thus functions as a salvage document, capturing a technology in the process of obsolescence.
The narrative is organised around a numbered series of standard colour swatches shown to Skeat’s informants, each entry detailing the specific botanical ingredients, mordants, and procedural steps required. The most extensively documented process is the red dye (“chelu mala” or “chelup malau”), which uses asam gelugor fruit, tamarind, and alum as a mordant, with the silk boiled, left overnight, kneaded, dried in the sun, and then exposed to dew (pp. 123–124). The indigo process is similarly detailed, specifying four local varieties of indigo plant and the use of coconut-palm bark and lime in a large earthenware jar (tepayæ) (p. 125). Skeat also records a distinctive technique for producing black by burying already-dyed yarn in the soil of the gurah tree, and for violet by steeping red-dyed silk in fermented coconut milk (pp. 125–126).
A comparative section on Selangor (the west coast) notes differences in available botanical resources: mangrove bark for black, temu kunyit for yellow, and tumu fruit for a superior black (p. 127). The article also records aesthetic preferences, noting that red was the most generally favourite colour, followed by yellow and a delicate rose-colour (kembang petaw), and that women’s sarong patterns featured smaller checks and were considered more tasteful than men’s (p. 126).
Key Findings
- Silk was purchased from peddlers or bazaars at $4 to $4.50 per kati (1⅓ lbs), with typical dyeing batches ranging from four to ten kati’s weight (p. 123).
- Four distinct local varieties of indigo were identified in Kelantan and Patani: tarung kechil, tarung gelanggang, tarung Siam, and tarung akar (or tarung utae) (p. 125).
- The red dye process (“chelu mala”) required ten to fifteen fruits of asam gelugor, two or three tamarinds, and alum “as much as will cover the nail of the fourth finger” per kati of silk (p. 123).
- In Raman (an inland province of Patani), red was obtained from Brazil-wood (sepang) mixed with an equal proportion of chips from the heartwood of the kedrang tree, and green from old indigo leaves mixed with pounded young coconut juice (p. 126).
- Black dye in Raman was not a separate process but simply the deepest achievable shade of indigo blue, confirming a single-source colour system (p. 126).
- In Selangor, the fruit of the tumu tree produced the best black dye, superior to that obtained from kedudok (Melastoma) fruit (p. 127).
Conclusion
Skeat’s definitive historical takeaway is implicit rather than explicitly argued: the article stands as a record of a self-sufficient, botanically grounded dyeing technology that was being systematically replaced by imported aniline dyes within a single generation. The fact that the author felt compelled to document processes “in the absence of such dyes” (p. 125) signals that the knowledge was already considered at risk of loss, making the article both a technical manual and an act of cultural preservation.
Context
- Skeat served as a British government official in the Straits Settlements and the Malay States; this article reflects the colonial administrative interest in documenting indigenous economic and technical practices, likely motivated by the perceived urgency of recording knowledge that commercial modernisation was erasing.
- The article draws on direct informant interviews in Kelantan, Patani, and Selangor, with colour references tied to physical swatches that are no longer available, limiting the precision of the colour descriptions for later readers.