On Java is 'the woman with the bottles' familiar appearance. Regularly she appears along village roads and in the streets of the big cities, her bottles ful brightly colored liquids in a
slendang ( carry cloth ). Who thinks this lady is a representative of a local lemonade factory is wrong; her bottles contain
jamu, traditional healing Javanese herbal drinks.
Normally the medicinal drinks are prepared at the sellers home, and are sold house to house. The bottles are carried in a bucket with water to keep them cool. Her customers don't know the composition of the drinks. They also don't order a special drink or mixture. The 'woman with the bottles' only sels tonics for healing widely spread diseases like colds, headaches and tiredness.
Many Indonesians make their own
jamu for their complaints. Most women in villages know a massive number of compositions for mixtures ands salves. The needed
materia medica are mainly vegetable. which are grown in their own garden or are substituted with dried compounds from the store. About 150 different plants are used to make
jamu; from Eucaliptus to Tamarind and Acacia. Spices like cinnamon mint and sweeteners like palmsugar are added for the flavour, since most mixtures are reasonably bitter. Mixtures usually contain not much minerals and animal products, but in some cases ingredients like copper, suphur or sulphate and even grinded animal skin, tails or testicles are added.
The modern jamu-industry
About 1930 the jamu production was done in factories, mainly as a reaction to the import of western pattented medicines. Products from the factory had the name to be more modern, easy to use and much more efective than the original jamu, made at home most of the time. In the beginning the factories only made
jamu bubuk and standard
jamu products. Soon after the Second World War strong expansion started.
Jamu were made for almost every pain. These so called 'modern'
jamu was not only the sollution powders, but also pills, tablets, capsules , cremes and cosmetics.
The production of pre-packet
jamu has become a big industry, in which about 350 factories are working which are said to produce about 5 milion doses a day. Well known brands as Air Mancur. Nyonya Meneer, Cap Jago and Mustika Ratu are battling for power in which lots of money is used for advertising and publicity.
The addressing names of the products - Tresnasih ( love ), Sorga ( heaven ), Dewi Kecantikan ( Goddess of Beauty ) and Sek Hot ( Hot Sex ) - are an example of the strategy that the factories have. Many factory produced
jamu are not meant for healing pains, but for pleasuring the other sex.
Until 1963 the
jamu industry could expand without rules. In that year the Indonesian government cold which products were allowed to be sold for
jamu, which since then was described as 'native Indonesian medicine (
obat asli Indonesia ). With this was acknowlegded that
jamu belonged to the Indonesian society and identity, but at the same time there were limitations and qualifications for the products. Since then
jamu had to contain only natural and traditional compounds. With this it was not allowed to make new formulas with some traditional ingredients and new medicines.
Traditional treatment
Prepared
jamuis used for virtually every illness. Globally there are four different groups in which their effectiveness is said to be very good. Some examples are little pains, viral infections, sexual potention, menstruational problems, pregnancy and birth.
The
jamu is also separated in smaller parts than the four main groups. A main split it made on the warmth of the product ( from 'hot' to 'cold' ), but also other features like bitter, sour and sweet are seen as important healing features. These features do not point at the taste of the medicine, but the effect that it has on a persons body. For example 'hot' ingredients are
kencur and pepper while tamarind and others are 'cold' products.
Madurese women who want to become pregnant, drink 'cooling' mixtures of herbs as a stimulation of fertility. Once they are pregnant they shift to the more 'hot' mixtures , eventually with some additional 'easy-to-drink' mixtures like coconut-oil, to ease the birth. After the birth the mother is washed with water, mixed with ash from the cooking place, and is rubbed in with specially made salves; 'hot' ones for the lower body and 'cold' and good smelling for the upper body. They believe 'hot' mixed help to descrete 'dirty' blood, while 'cold' ones are said to stimulate the production of milk.
Besides these wash- and rub-treatment. which last about forty days, the woman will be massaged, and will get various
jamu drinks. This is an good example of the many different things
jamu is used for.
