Stories from Deli

Louis Couperus, 1923

The life of the young assistants at Deli was then largely dominated by excessive partying. I believe I can see that this has changed completely. Let the young people rejoice at the ‘hari-besar’, at the Boer or elsewhere, who will let them not? They work hard, as hard as Westerners only work in the tropics. And they do not, one meets them, make an impression of shedding boys, who could not survive in Europe, but of fresh, sturdy young fellows, whose outdoor work in tobacco and rubber (malaise !!) and palm oil for the better. Comes to body and soul. They may not have had a study brain, but they had different qualities and energies. A young man who does not feel like studying in Leiden, Utrecht or Groningen … why should he not go to Deli and start the tough career of the healthy life force-generating planter’s life there? If I had a son who was healthy and had young muscles and he wanted to become a novelist in the Dutch syllabus, I would guess him: dear fellow, rather try to become an assistant somewhere at a company in Deli and leave your novels unwritten. If you are not placed in tobacco, your father will put a good word for you with the rubber gentlemen (malaise !!). And palm oil also has a bright future.

The planter has its own daily schedule and its own costume. He wears his socks pulled over his pants and his sock holders visible. If he doesn’t, he is a ‘salon planter’ and would be ridiculed. The first steps of a boy planter cannot be done differently than in this leg cover. He does not choose his sock holders mauve but rather black: this is more in the required genre. He has his closed jacket, khaki or white, and his helmet hat over his tanned, burnt, rosy face. He exercises tact and authority over his coolies and remains powerful without getting angry. He is in the field or in the barn from six in the morning to eleven; then he may have lunch (no rice table) and sleep for an hour, and then he will go back to work. He usually goes to bed early to get some well-deserved rest. His assistant house is sometimes primitive, lost, abandoned, but it can also be a bit more comfortable. He is sometimes lonely, he would do well to have a hobby for his evenings, his days off. If he is married, his young wife will be sometime to spend difficult days, like in the bush between tobacco, oil or rubber (malaise !!). However, if he works hard, if he is in good spirits, he can still be an inspector, at least an administrator, in these miserable times before he is forty. And inspector, that’s quite something. He then lives in a beautiful, spacious house. A tennis court for it. His wife is used and satisfied – by the way, they have been in Europe on leave and have seen the déboires of European life closely. His children are growing and thriving, and by the time their serious school days begin, he is ready to move to Europe with his wife and children for good. He makes money, even though the bonuses are no longer what they used to be. Life smiles at him, even if he works hard, hard, hard, as hard as a Westerner only works in the tropics. But he feels fresh, healthy and full of life though there may be a little jealousy around him, if he was young, for his zeal, so soon made a career. Everything has its pros and cons, and in every society, it has its sun and shadow sides.

In the past, there were more drawbacks, especially because of the young assistant, than today. In the past the laws of the hierarchy were very strict among the planters. An assistant was not allowed to wear a coat like this or a helmet like this: he was not allowed to own a gang (cart) of a model like this or like; he was not allowed to get married. Perhaps this complex of causes could be analyzed from his in the past excessive partying. But however it may have been in the past, it is quite different now, and I do not believe that it is too bad, if I believe that more sunny side has entered the life of the youthful and more mature planters: let us see the ‘malaise’ – nothing is eternal – forgotten for a moment. Planters, though your bonuses may not be what they used to be, your life is – all things considered – enviable.

I’m going to see a tobacco company and invite you to come with me. My captain is a young inspector and someone who can know. Where am I going? Do we want to name the flourishing company Sri Bintang Timoer (The Star of the East)? Whatever I do, I will remain a novelist, am I not, and a fantasist, and many companies have such beautiful, poetic names. Why should there be no poetry in and around a tobacco company? Unfortunately, it is not the time for the tobacco trees to be in the field. The planter always speaks of the tobacco tree, never of the tobacco plant. So I will not see that beauty of the fresh, broad leaf-outward movement, because March, April and May are the months that make this visible. We will see other interesting things meanwhile. At six o’clock my new friend comes to pick me up. I made his acquaintance on board and friendship can soon mature in favorable circumstances. Socks over the trousers and sock holders visible. This is always typical. The road to it is smooth for the little official car. We rush. Shiny green, shiny gold after the rain stand bamboo, bananas, ficus.

The Barisan range, at least the offshoots of that imposing mountain chain, switches on the horizon for a long, very long time. Sibayak, that lofty mountain, which I will show you more clearly later, rises up in the morning sky. It is blue and pink and fresh gold: the morning is gold in its mouth. For the first time I realize that truth. Suddenly we drive between a fresh, high-stemmed plantation with broad leaves. at least the offshoots of that imposing mountain chain link long, very long on the horizon.

Tobacco?? I ask hesitantly.

I am very stupid, but every bier commits this same stupidity. Just for a moment. I have mistaken a djati plantation on either side of the road for … tobacco. Behind those djati trees with straight trunks can sometimes still hide jungle or jungle, and an elephant and a tiger. Hard is the wood of the djati, which can be compared to our oak. The leaf of the young djati tree is broad and gracefully scoop-shaped, but gets smaller and smaller as the tree grows up. The djati, which is cultivated as a young plant in baskets, has already become young plantings and woods here. He hurries forward with his straight straight, proud tribe. It is sometimes cut down when young; his wood will soon become building material for the tobacco barns; older and heavier it gives the regular, smooth planks. Furniture made of djati wood occupies the same place in India as that of oak wood in our country.

Replanting is a big issue. Particularly striking are the sèngon trees – albizzia – with a mimoza-like type. They shadow the road and our car. We don’t have the tent up and take off our helmets. It is wonderfully fresh, and the light is soaked as in a damp haze of emerald. Those albizzia trees are being seeded. It is unbelievable how quickly such a seed becomes a plant, grows into a tree! My friend recognizes a planting which he himself, as an assistant, sown only four years ago. Now that planting is a forest. The leaves, falling off, renew the humus. The alang-alang – the planter speaks only lalang in his own dialect – the wild, rampant prairie grass, enemy of all cultures, is held back by the vigor of these albizzia or sengon trees. The lantana does that too.

Here we have arrived at the company, the ‘kebon’. I called her Sri Bintang Timur, the Star of the East. It doesn’t matter what her real name is. We can choose her as type. The clerk comes to meet us. I would like to mention here that everyone is doing this with the same kindness to the special correspondent of the Hague Post. We must absolutely keep on dejeun – it is eight o’clock – which we like to do. We have not yet consumed anything but the traditional, early morning cup of coffee – coffee extract with boiling milk – which generally gives you strength to start the day at six in the morning. After two hours of chugging, the dejeuner tastes delicious. The hostess is already dressed in a neat white toilet in a new fashion. Sarong and kabaai are no longer worn by the ladies. The breakfast is in the English style.

It  is wonderfully spacious, cool and airy in sight of the long, blue Barisan chain. The distant green valleys wave before our eyes in the last morning mist. We admire the beautiful orchid plantings, which fancifully festoon the beautiful strange flowers, turned into flowered chapels, along the front garden. And we set out, on foot, close by, to see how in a forest ravine, where all the wild primeval vegetation was cut down in June or August, the tobacco fields will be established.

The tobacco planter in Deli has its own dialect. “This is one long, narrow contract,” my leader points out a section of ravine, and I assure you that I do not understand for a moment. However, ‘contract’ is simply used here for land that has been given up by contract. It is a fairly inexpensive terrain here, where the forest has been cleared in June, July, or at the latest in August. Tree and shrub, then cut down, were so called ‘cow-pool’, that is ‘collected’, and the planter calls this the ‘gross cow-pool’, which must be burned. Sometimes there is ‘coop-rinsed’ and then burned again; the terrain, here the ‘long, narrow contract’, is then ‘chilled’, ‘patjoeld’. It is done with the patjul or shovel; the Chinese coolies have their shovels attached to a long stick, the Javanese coolies prefer a shorter handle.

The question of the coolies is a very complex one. They are sometimes recruited by agents; this is the professional recruitment; there is also a ‘voluntary’ recruitment to which, in China, the returnees coolies are working. These tell relatives and friends in the homeland of their good coolie life there in Sumatra. Generally, in many respects really improved, one compares it with much misery, that was inevitable in ancient times. At least I get the impression that the coolie has become somewhat of a small landowner.

After the busy fermentation period – about which later – the coolie comes to work in his own field, which is about one building in size. He chills this nicely, he lays his seed beds and maintains the soil entrusted to him with care. At least if he does this, he is acting in his own interest. In April the seed had already been collected; it is sown in January; a few months later the tobacco tree (not ‘plant’) has lush foliage. In the meantime, therefore, the coolie is preparing his field for planting, it is his busy time; he waters, he ‘thins out’, he weeds weeds, he fights caterpillars and vermin. After forty days, the ‘trees’ are transferred to the open ground in baskets and planted. Shoot the plant, the tree, then an embankment of earth is overthrown and it reaches new roots towards this embankment. After forty days, the coolie repeats this increase up to 2 dM.

A diligent coolie can plant 18,000 trees in 50 days. He sells his tobacco to the company at a specified price. The Javanese coolies receive a contractual daily wage. The Chinese do task work. The enemy of both, especially the Chinese coolies, is the overseer or “tandil.” He’s been a coolie himself, he’s had it more or less well; he has now become a distinguished, mighty man: in all sorts of ways he tries – if he is a bad tooth – to gag and remove the coolies that are under him. The coolie has a debt then a bad tandil – not every tandil is bad – tries to make that debt never paid off, so that the coolie might remain in certain bondage. To put an end to this mess, the present Labor Inspectorate demands that the coolie be paid first, and then his debt paid or paid. And that does not take place in reverse, so that often the coolie does not get a penny, and then again takes on a debt.

So the tandil, the natural enemy, the hostile supreme man may sometimes be so hated by his coolies that, if he dies, his house is surrounded and destroyed, his that the coolie be paid everything first and then his debt paid or paid off. And that does not take place in reverse, so that often the coolie does not get a penny, and then again takes on a debt. So the tandil, the natural enemy, the hostile supreme man may sometimes be so hated by his coolies that, if he dies, his house is surrounded and destroyed, his that the coolie be paid everything first and then his debt paid or paid off. And that does not take place in reverse, so that often the coolie does not get a penny, and then again takes on a debt. So the tandil, the natural enemy, the hostile supreme man may sometimes be so hated by his coolies that, if he dies, his house is surrounded and destroyed, his pigs are slaughtered and that the police must act. Fortunately, there are also good tandils.

In the matter of “monetary sanction” there is often friction between the Government and the planters. Under this principle, under punishment, the contractor may not refuse work and thus remains in a kind of slavery; against which the government guards. However, it would go too far to elaborate on this question.

If the coolie is ‘voluntarily’ or recruited by the professional officers, he comes over and is examined in the hospital. His long Chinese nails, of which he was proud, are being clipped to him. During his fieldwork he receives an advance to obtain his tools and he can act as landowner. He is this at least temporarily: he receives his field on loan. His income tax is paid for him. He has to pay back the preparation of his field – the ‘coarse cow pool’ – but he is charged less than this work cost the companies. He will also be billed for any field help during the busiest time, up to a contractually prescribed maximum. The chief tandil – the mighty man – explains to the Chinese coolie his current account every month. When the coolie delivers his tobacco, it is assessed for quality. So it is in his own interest that he works well.

These circumstances, regulated by the Labor Inspectorate, seem to me to have greatly improved the coolie life, about which strange things were heard in earlier years. The coolie-houses are adequate and clean: in one of them a Chinese coolie-woman immediately presented me with tea, although she looked a little nervously for a cup for the tuan-besar with his pencil and notebook. The mosquito nets (moustiquaires) were clean. However, I heard that they could be filthy too and they laughed at that the special correspondent of the about which strange things were heard in earlier years, greatly improved. The coolie-houses are adequate and clean: in one of them a Chinese coolie-woman immediately presented me with tea, although she looked a little nervously for a cup for the tuan-besar with his pencil and notebook. The mosquito nets (moustiquaires) were clean. However, I heard that they could be filthy too and they laughed at that the special correspondent of the about which strange things were heard in earlier years, greatly improved.

The coolie-houses are adequate and clean: in one of them a Chinese coolie-woman immediately presented me with tea, although she looked a little nervously for a cup for the tuan-besar with his pencil and notebook. The mosquito nets (moustiquaires) were clean. However, I heard that they could be filthy too and they laughed at that the special correspondent of thehp had just seen those neatly fresh mosquito nets around the coolie bed! But I really do not believe that a few minutes before I visited the coolie-kampong, beautiful curtains had been hung in my honor.

During the barn time – when the tobacco is picked – the coolie is paid. Then he is rich, then he plays, then he throws the money, then he becomes poor again; then he is landowner off, then he shifts opium for his last cents. And … reconnects. After twenty years of service he receives a pension of NLG 7.50. If he wants to return to China, he will receive an amount in one go. The National Board ensures as much as possible that the opportunity for dice and waste is not available.

So I miss the beautiful face of the tobacco tree in the field, I can appreciate the neat order that reigns in the fermentation house under its iron roof and in the drying sheds. Everything is clean and of the utmost cleanliness. The plucked tobacco leaves, which are attached to each other at 40 to 50 leaves, are sorted by coolies and, also by women, ‘cut to length’. This is done on fan-like centimeter meter shelves. The bundles of leaves can then be ‘received’ in the fermentation barns by the assistant. These bundles of tobacco are piled up. This stacking is a most dignified work, which especially the women do with admirable care. The edge stackers indicate with thin planks the edge that the square stack must not exceed, and they then quickly stack the bundles of leaves. Airy scaffolding to allow the women to climb the ever-higher pile of permits; over carefully laid planks they move over the stack of those so precious bundles of leaves and stack them higher and higher. A hollow bamboo with a thermometer is inserted into the stacks to check the temperature of the heating. When it rises to a certain degree, the whole pile is converted again; this sometimes happens twice. The work of these women is graceful and admirable for its deliberate, careful movements: it is of genuine Eastern delicacy; women crouching in long rows, sorting women, the leaf bundles light and quick in the fingers, are a spectacle that captivates and captivates by the gracefulness of the movement in the equally subdued interior light.

I have been assured that no less than 60 million leaves of tobacco pass through the hands after a harvest on a not very large enterprise. The square bales stand neatly there: the future wrappers of all your fine cigars packed in bales of elegant matting. They will be shipped and loaded with the utmost care: if one drop of rain falls, the loading will be stopped. When the bales arrive in Amsterdam, they, with their different qualifications according to quality – as db (dark fur) or lv (light pale) – will be taken less carefully by the warehouse workers. They call the precious bales out of a joke Double Barend or Lieve Vrouw, or baptize them with whatever funny names.

A famous anecdote from the Deli-Batavia-Maatschappij – anecdote is sometimes true – tells that a full tobacco shed was burned. On behalf of the insurers, the rescued tobacco, marked v (burnt), was sold and found to be so good that the mark v remained in honor from now on, even though it no longer came from a barn that was on fire.

Here’s an assistant cabin. However, the assistant herself is at work. It’s on the brink of the long, narrow contract. It is sometimes taken up in its entirety, if it is not in a very favorable location, and moved after one or three years. This is because after the first harvest year the tobacco fields are again given to the ‘settlers’, the population, to plant ‘padi’ (rice). Each family then receives a ‘jaloeran’, a field sufficient for its needs. Only after eight years the field, after that first harvest, is again declared suitable for tobacco cultivation. The assistant then lives here, then there, and takes up his house and walks. Especially in ‘a long, narrow contract’ if his home cannot be placed in the middle of it.

For months, from January to May, the barns are empty, because in March and April the tobacco trees are in leaf. Where is the tobacco flower? Well, the trees are ‘topped’ excepted the strongest; the elect, whose pollination, after selection, is artificially promoted and covered with gauze, provide for the next year’s new tobacco generation.

To conclude, I visited the hospital of this enterprise, which we have called the Star of the East, because in my sketch I did not have any particular enterprise in mind, but only wanted to give the reader a light idea of ​​how it should be done. wrapper of its most fragrant is obtained in the Delian regions. Well, the hospital was worthy of the beautiful name of my fantasy, and the hospital was above all touching reality. I admired the physician who guided me for his years of devotion to sick Chinese coolies. It was here that the recruited coolie, arriving, is examined; if he turns out to be ill, finds a cure; if it turns out to be incurable, it will be returned. He is weighed regularly and by name and surname each coolie is recorded in the archive with the details of his state of health. It is mainly foot and leg wounds that he suffers from, because he prefers not to wear sandals or shoes and the thorns and spines can violently rip open the flesh. Chinese, Javanese, Bengali are the nurses. If they are not leg wounds, it is mainly a shaking, violent malaria, which puts him on his baleh-baleh in-one keeps shrunken. They are sick men and sick women, between whose beds I have gone, but the doctor knew them all and called their names and gave them comfort for soon.

Outside was the Chinese cemetery with the narrow, terraced stone walls, behind which the bones of the dead. Their name and year of death are listed. For the symbolisms, saints, Exit of Life, which is like the Entrance of Death, and which is built there of stone and sod in the sacred form of the female Sex, was the lawn on which the funerals are celebrated. A tepekong temple with statuette and sacred plaque – the doorpost plastered with red bedclothes and gilded spell-streamers lined the left between the banana tree and smoke heavily still drenched with incense. A coolie had died a few days ago, and the scent of sacrifice still hung before the gods, the black evil and the good, rosy, god.

The midday sun radiated the azure and gleamed through the young golden-green transparent banana leaves; the long culms of the alang-alang quivered, though no wind blew, and the harrier, spreading wide in the blue sky, shrieked his cry of great sorrow, the sorrow, which in this East, despite all the blooming splendor and leafy riches, hangs in the heavy skies like the Westerner insoluble secret.

Oostwaarts(1992)–Louis Couperus https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/coup002oost02_01/coup002oost02_01_0003.php