Page 915 - Proceedings Collega2023

Figure 1

A text without paragraph found in manuscript Hikayat Raja Khandak and Raja Badar (Or.16128)
was written in black and partly in red ink. Image reprinted with kind permission of British Library

Materials and Experimentation

Siti Hawa (1995) in her article “Alatulis Melayu Tradisional” believed that the formulation of the
ink made by traditional Malay folk was based on trial and error procedures until they achieved the required
consistency. Except of the brief account mentioning the use of burnt rice as the writing ink in Hikayat
Abdullah, detail ingredients and processes in the making of Malay traditional black ink were never properly
documented. Wan Ali (1988) made an effort to compile and record the indigenous Malay traditional black
ink making. Those records, as well as the later compilation by Ding (1992) and Siti Hawa (1995) were
gathered mostly from personal communications with the informants, who either themselves once
involved in the ink making or witnessed the procedures performed by others. Yet, these compilations are
still insufficient should the legacy of Malay traditional black ink recipe is to be reproduced. Most
information gathered only specify the ingredients without the details of the processes. There seems to be
vague accounts on the source of ingredients such as octopus ink, latex from cashew nut, young
mangosteen skin, young rambutan skin, black glutinous rice, palm vinegar, flower of the senduduk
(Melastoma malabathricum) herb and inconsistency in the portion of respective ingredients. To date, there
were no documented attempts to validate and reproduce the invaluable Malay black ink making heritage.

This paper describe the initiative to validate and establish a selected Malay traditional black ink
recipe sourced from the compilation of Wan Ali in his book “Pemuliharaan Buku dan Manuskrip”. The
schemes are as follow. First, a particular black ink recipe was chosen based on availability of the ingredients
from the surrounding natural resources. Then, attempt was made to reproduce the ink by following exactly
the traditional recipe selected. Next, modifications were made so as to achieve the optimum ink quality.

International Conference on Local Wisdom of the Malay Archipelago (COLLEGA 2023) Page - 902 -