A review of the ethnological investigations in the Dutch Indian archipelago / by J.C. van Eerde.

  • Eerde, J. C. van (Johan Christiaan), 1871-1936.
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A review of the ethnological investigations in the Dutch Indian archipelago / by J.C. van Eerde. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    illuHtrations and no maps, pays a good deal of attention to ethnographical subjects AVe might call this the third encyclopaedia after Valenti.tk’s work of the eighteenth century and Crawfurd’s Descriptive dictionary of the Indian islands of 1856. Holland further possesses as it were the key to all that has been printed aljont the colonies in Eastern Asia, viz. the catalogue of the Colonial Lil)rary at the Hague (1908, with supplements) which enumerates the l30oks, and the ^^Repertorium op de koloniale literatuur (7 vols. 1877 —1880, 1895, 1901, 1906, 1912, 1917, 1922) which refers to almost all periodical puljlications. Whoever consults these catalogues will obtain two impressions; not only, that diligent work is being carried out in Holland and in Dutch India in the domain of ethnography and ethnology, but also that there is a very rich literature, distinguished by excellent works which give a general survey of the various aspects of Indonesian civilisation. In the first place we mention the principal books dealing with the mental civilisation. In Wilken’s collected writings there will be found a Avealth of data and numerous interesting studies concerning primitive popular beliefs; also in Kruyt’s ^Wnimisme” 1906 and in his measa data in Bijdragen 1918, 1919 and 1920, further in van Ossenbruggen’s ^Trimitieve denken” (1916). These books deal Avith the subject from animistic, animo-theoretical and pre-animistic points of view and run therefore parallel to the line tTciced by Tylor, Durkheim and Preusz. The influence which Hinduism exerted after its arrival in the Indian Archipelago at the beginning of the Christian era, both on popular beliefs and on Indonesian society throughout the period of its action, may be traced in Kern’s “Collected Writings” (1913 etc.), Brandes’ edition of Para- raton (the latest in 1920); Kroai’s “Inleiding tot de Hindoe-Javaansche kunst (1920, Introduction to Indo-Javanese art), and the fine monographs which have been published on some of the Hindu temples of Java (Tjandi Tumpang, Panataran, Barabudur). Mohammedanism Avhich in the sixteenth century succeeded in driving Hinduism out of Java, is described in the already mentioned writings of Dr. C. Snouck Hurgron.te. After religion, the next important aspect is the customary law of adat which has developed in accordance Avith the requirements of native society and has thoroughly permeated the consciousness of the people. There is pro- ])ably no European nation Avhich can point to so complete a study of custo¬ mary law as can the Dutch with respect to those Indonesian customs which are binding in law. In Holland there are no official measures for collecting and codifying the customary law, no government commissions for its inves¬ tigation, ]jut a standard work “Het adatrecht van Nederlandsch-lndië” by