There are many, many Chinese made jars found here in Sarawak. One can find them in any antique shop or curio store. Sorting them out and trying to tell which kiln they were from in China is a daunting task, which we will try and pursue at a later date.
The Bartmann Jugs were made in several places in Germany, especially Cologne. Bartmann means bearded one. They were exported in large numbers to England and elsewhere and were used as ale jugs. When one wanted a glass of beer, it was poured into these jugs and then served.
They became very popular and were copied in Holland, France and England in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were widely used in merchant ships.
These jugs were the earliest European ceramics. They were used as containers for commodities. They stored butter and beer, among other things, for the German or Dutch communities in the archipelago. The large ones measured two feet in height (60cm). A few hundred were unearthed on the west coast of Sumatra where in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, gold was dug from the Salida mine under the supervision of German engineers. The jugs were doubtlessly full of beer and later discarded.
As Mukah oral history states, one day, a fisherman speared a butol fish and put it in the bottom of his boat. To his great surprise, it changed into a Bartmann jug and a dent appeared where he speared the fish. (the dent is visible in the picture) The great grandson of the fisherman has ownership of jug now (1965) and believes it have magical properties.
There were no Dutch or German settlements in Sarawak. The advent of ceramics from Europe did not begin until the early 1870’s while the known arrival to Mukah of Europeans did not occur until the 1840’s, long after the Bartmann jugs were made. It is very doubtful that a sailor would throw an antique Bartmann into the Mukah River.
There must have been a European ship from long ago when a sailor threw the Bartmann jug overboard while visiting the Mukah River. Who he was or where the ship came from remains a mystery.
The previous information is from the Sarawak Museum Journal, July-December 1965 written by Eine Moore. It is probably a pen name because it means “one more” as if ordering another glass of ale.
Copies of our book, The Sarawak River Valley: Early Days to 1840 is available as an e-book from Amazon.Com and Lulu.com. There are scattered copies around in both Malay and English at the Smart Bookstores in Kuching.
