Architecture of Banjar Traditional House

A traditional house of Banjar. This type of house is often called the high roofed-house (rumah bubungan tinggi) or “rumah ba-anjung” because the roof is very high and sharp, South Kalimantan

History and the Development of the Traditional House of Banjar

The traditional house of Banjar is usually called “Rumah Hubungan Tinggi “ because the roofs form a 45° angle. This form of the Banjar House began to establish during the 16th century when Banjar area was ruled by Prince Samudra who became a follower of Islam. He named himself Sultan Suriansyah with the title of Panembahan Batu Habang. Before he became a Sultan, he was a Hindu. He ruled the Banjar Sultanate between 1596 – 1620.

At the beginning, the traditional house of Banjar was a long house with the narrow sides as the front and back part. Later, they attached additional houses on the left and right sides of the house. Near the back part of the house, they also add an additional house that had the same length as the previous one. They called this addition “disumbi”.

The additional building (house) attached on the left and right of the main building are called Pisang Sasikat by Banjar people and since they are like pavilions, they called them “anjung”, so that the traditional Banjar house is usually called “Rumah Ba-anjung”.

Around the year of 1850, they built house around the Banjar Palace, especially around the Martapura Palace. But the “Rumah Ba-anjung” is the main building where the Sultan and his family live.

The Gajah Menyusu, Kelayan Dalam. A type of traditional house of Banjar people, South Kalimantan.

Some of the buildings around the Palace are the Palimasan which is used to store gold and silverware the treasure of Sultanate. The Balai Laki where the ministers live, the Balai Bini where the servants live, the Gajah Manyusu, where the close relatives of the Sultan live, they are the Gusti-Gusti and Anang. There are also buildings that are called Gajah Baliku, Palembangan, and Balai Seba.

Balai Bini, Benua Anyar Banjarmasin

Later, many houses are built following the same patters as the palace “Rumah Ba-anjung” so that this typical building is not only owned by Banjar people. The typical form of the Rumah Ba-anjung has spread to South, Central and Eastern Kalimantan with its original and traditional Banjar style is still clearly seen.


Rumah Ba-anjung is found in Pangkalan Bun, the old Kotawaringin and Kumai, in the area of Kotawaringin, central Kalimantan. These Rumah Ba-anjung became a familiar sight following the fraction of the Kotawaringin Sultanate from the older Banjar Sultanate when Banjar was ruled by Sultan Musta’inbillah between the year of 1650 to 1672 and succeeded by Sultan Inayatullah. The first Sultan of the Kotawaringin Sultanate was Prince Dipati Anta Kusuma.
The traditional house of Banjar were also found in Eastern Kalimantan because many people from Banjar moved here and made their houses in the same way as when they were in Banjar and so the Banjar type house had spread throughout Kalimantan. Nowadays the Banjar-type houses are rarely seen. Since 1930 they have rarely made new Banjar-type houses because of the high cost, difficulties in getting the suitable location and the impractical usage of that kind of houses.

Many Banjar-type houses are repaired and changed to match their need of modern living (in terms of the maintenance and healthy environments). Many families still maintain their traditional Banjar houses, but they live in their modern houses that they built near the traditional ones.

When we see come traditional Banjar houses in South Kalimantan, we can conclude that those houses must have been built before the year of 1930. We can still find them in Sungai Jingah village, Kampung Melayu Laut (Banjarmasin), in Teluk Selong village, Desa Dalam Pagar (Martapura), in Birayanf village (Barabai) and in Negara. They are in a very good condition, and the government has tried to subsidize them for their renovation and maintenance, but unfortunately the owner refused the help some uncertain reasons.

Observing the traditional Banjar houses, we can study their beautiful architecture and their ornaments.

The Construction of the Banjar House

The traditional Banjar House is entirely made of wood because wood is abundant in Kalimantan. Wood is the only suitable material for that kind of traditional house.

The construction is divided into four main parts, they are:
1. The body of the main skeleton of the roof, in line to the main building.
2. Additional building attached to the left and right of the main building are called the “anjung”.
3. Sharp-type roofs (45° angle) we called “Hubungan Tinggi”.
4. A long skeleton elongated from the main one in the front part of the main house is called the Sindang Langit.

The body of the house is something like an oblong is divided into rooms with different level.
1. Palatar (front porch or ‘pendapa’)
This is the first room directly above the entrance ladder. The room is 7 by 3 meters.
2. Panampik Kecil
A small room behind the Palatar with an entrance door (lawang hadapan). The floor is higher than the floor of the front porch. The front floor of this room is called the Watun Sambungan. This room is 7 by 3 meters.
3. Panampik Tengah or Panampik Panangah.
This room is behind the Panampik Kecil and it is wider. The floor is wider than the floor of the Panampik Kecil. The front floor of this room is called the Watun Jajakan.
4. Panampik Besar or Ambin Sayup.
The floor is higher than the floor of the Panampik Tengah. The front floor of this room is called the Watun Jajakan, the same term used in the Panampik Tengah. This room is 7 by 5 meters.
5. Palindangan or Ambin Dalam.
This room is behind the Panampik Besar. The floor has the same level as that of Panamik Besar (there are some that have higher floors than those of Panamik Besar). Since the frame of the door does nothave the same level as the floor of the Palindangan, they call it Watun Langkahan (one has to step over it to enter). The room is 7 by 7 meters.
Inside the Palindangan room, there are 8 capitals to support the “hubungan tinggi’. The capitals are called Tihang Pitugur or Tihang Guru.
6. Panampik Dalam or Panampik Bawah.
A wide room in which the floor is lower than the Palindang, but it is the same level as the Panampik Tengah. The front floor of this room is called Watun Jajakan. The room is 7 by 5 meters.
7. Padapuran or Padu.
This is the last room of the main house which floor is lower than Panampik Bawah. The front floor of this room is called the Watun Juntaian. Sometimes the Watun Juntaian is high enough to step on so that they need a ladder to enter.

The Padapuran is divided into 3 parts:
* The atangan – a kind of kitchen.
* the salaian – a place to dry fire wood.
* the pajijiban and the pagaduran – a palce for washing.
The toom is 7 by 3 meters.

The traditional house of Banjar have relatively different dimension. This is caused by the different standards of measurements, should be in off numbers. It includes thelenght, width, height, etc., also the numbers of the windows, ladder-step, etc.

If we measure the dimension of the main house, it usually has 31 by 7 meters. Each anjung on the left and right of the main house is usually 5 meters wide. The height of the floor under the anjung and the palindangan is 2 meters above the ground, but under the palatar, it is only 1 meter.

Dahi Lawang Balai Laki di Kuin Utara

Dahi Lalongkang Rumah Gajah Manyusu di Kuin Utara
Woodcarving has an important role in the traditional house in Banjar. A unit of a traditional house is not complete enough without the application of woodcarving. They carved the bottom side of the wooden wall and the sides of the roofs. The carving is called the “lis-lis” or in Banjar they call it “Papilis or Pilis”. The motif of the carving is continuous flames, flower, etc.

SOUTH KALIMANTAN CULTURAL ART (3)

Study of its Traditional Arts

South Kalimantan is rich enough in its traditional art. They are the two dimensional art and the three dimensional. The two dimensional products of art include the weaving, painting on glass, ornaments, calligraphy and wooden craft. The three dimensional ones include architecture and statues. The raw material for weaving is rattan, bamboo and purun (stalks of certain grass). Weaving has prospered well in this area. Rattan weaving has become rattan craft and its products are: all kinds of rattan bags for various purposes, various kinds of hats, etc. Handbags for women are made with special designs that are very beautiful; the ornaments are also artistic. There are two types of ornaments; the traditional and the modern.

Weaving crafts

The products of bamboo craft are in the form of woven bamboo baskets (bakul). The ornaments are traditional, which are inherited from their ancestors. The motifs of the ornaments are usually spiral like, geometric, “tumpal”, etc.

“Purun” is the raw material for making floor mat by weaving, wide floor mat for sitting, for mattress layer, and small size mat for praying. The wide floor mats usually use regular geometrical motifs. Diagonal lines divide the mat into oblongs (rectangles), squares, parallelogram and kite-like form. They use re, green, blue and the natural colour of the purun itself. Mats for praying are rich in motifts and styles of weaving. If they use the natural colour of the purun itself, they will use certain method of weaving to expose the texture of the mats which are like products of modern art.

The multi-colour weaving show us the traditional products of the mat-weaving. But nowadays, there are some products of weaving that we call them optical art, even though the makers themselves haven’s known what optical art is.

Glass painting has become rare and most of them are the products of fifty years ago. They usually painted the buroq, Adam, Eve and the apple, mosques, calligraphy, etc.

There are also many kinds of ornaments, in the form of “the tree of life” and those that are applied for cupboards, beds and other furniture.

There are many kinds of motifs to be used, they are: the tree of life, double spirals, swastika, tumpal, clover leaf, geometrical, stars, flora and fauna, calligraphy, arabesque and turik.

Carving can be found in wood products and brass. Wood carving is used for furniture, parts of houses, certain parts of boats, wooden part of mosques, pulpits, wooden parts above the doors, wooden parts of tombstones, the roofs above tombstones. Brass carving (engraving) as craft can be found in: brass tray (bowl), abun, deep metal bowl for betel chewing, metal save to keep money, kettles, buckets, boxes to keep souvenirs, miniature guns, etc. Unfortunately, they are rarely made now, except those carving for cupboards, beds, and some other furniture.

Calligraphy sometimes stands alone as calligraphy, but some others are parts of certain ornaments. This calligraphy is written in Arabic alphabets in different form of the words depending on the needs, whether they are used to complete ornaments or stand for calligraphy themselves. Calligraphy is placed in respected place in the house. It is placed above the doors, on tops of dividers, on the pulpits in the mosque, on “liwan” and hung on the wall. Calligraphy is also used on brass products such as souvenir box, etc. They use carving or engraving method and sometimes etching method.

The three dimensional products of art are the architecture and statues. The traditional houses include the highroof houses, the palimasan, palimbangan, gajah baligu, joglo houses, Balai Bini, Balai Laki. These are only as monuments because new houses with the same types are not built any longer. The old ones were built about fifty years ago. The traditional mosques have overlapping roofs (double roofs) with domes on top of them. There are only a few mosques with this type of roofs. They are Syu’ada Mosque at Wasah (at the upstream of Sungai Selatan), Sungai Batang Mosque at Banjar area. People have changed he roofs of some double-roof-mosques with curved-roof-types like those mosques in North Africa or roofs of Byzantium types. They only changed the top roof of the mosques.

Dayak Statue - Borneo

There are no statues in the Banjar culture because the Banjar are the followers of Islam. Statues are only made by the Dayaks who are still the followers of Kaharingan.
Statues are made very simple but they are magical. The material for making these statues is the “ulin wood” that stands well against heat and rain. The black colour of the wood supports the magical purposes of the Dayak statues. These statues are erected just outside the Dayak villages as their protectors. They are also erected near the grave yards as guards. Statues for profane purposes are not made by the Dayaks.

SOUTH KALIMANTAN CULTURAL ART (2)

The Function and Social Role in the Society

Beside its artistic aspects, the South Kalimantan culture and art also have their functions as well as their social role. The Dayak statues, for example, which are erected outside their villages, have a magical function to guard their villages against bad spirits.

Air Guci

The “dinding air guci” (the painted screen) is made of a piece of white cloth embroidered with “air guci” or rembuci motif. The embroidery has become a standard for this kind of screen and other embroideries function only as ornaments. This standard embroideries symbolizes happiness and fertility. It is in the form of big water-jug with thick foliage and roots that come out from the mouth of the jug. This motif symbolizes magical meaning that expresses vitality that can make a man happy and that can silent the other people that live in the long house outside the screen.

The use of “air guci” screen is to provide a separate room for a newly married couple. The mosquito screen of the bed is doubted with this screen with a hope that this couple will be happy and will have many children. A lot of children is the classical hope of our older generation. With the “air guci” screen the couple is separated from the rest of the others who live in the long house that is without inside wall or dividers. The coupe live in their own world. The traditional and the social life of the people in the long house are not disturbed by the screened room of the couple.

In South Kalimantan, there is still another important thing; that is called the dragon head (Kepala naga). It has magical functions for the big family (clan) who owns them. They could treat them carefully with respect. They should cover them with yellow cloth and scatter some flowers around them and also put some eggs for their food at certain intervals. Big families (clan) usually have two kinds of naga heads; they are is Rintik and si Ribut. The two naga head also function as a means of transportation for the bride and bridegroom during the procession around the village. The descendants of the owners of the naga heads should treat them as best as they can; otherwise, the naga heads, they believe, will make one of the members sick. If they treat them correctly, the sickness will go away.

Another function of the naga heads is to identify the far away kinds that have not been known yet. Supposing for example, a member of a family is sick of an unnatural sickness, the family will search or try to find out where the naga heads of the clan are. By so doing, they will know their position in the big family tree. It also happens when a family wants to celebrate a marriage, they need naga heads to complete the ceremony or the procession. The presence of the relatives who belong to the naga heads can strengthen their relationship.

From the above mentioned description, we can make conclusion that the culture and art of this area have two sides; as magical things and as products of art themselves.

SOUTH KALIMANTAN CULTURAL ART (1)

Barito river

The History Background
The owners of the culture art of South Kalimantan are the Banjar tribes who give dominant styles to the culture and art of that area. The Dayaks, Malays, Javanese, Buginese and some others have also contribution in the forming of South Kalimantan art and culture. The Banjars are actually the mixture of the Maayan, Lawangan, Bukit and Ngaju tribes who are influenced by the Malayan and Javanese culture. It is said that the Malays had migrated to this area before the 6th century. Later, together with the Dayak, they formed a new tribe which was first known as the Banjar tribe.

The migration of the Javanese happened in the 13th century. They were mostly from East Java. The migration was probably caused by the political chaos in Java.

The settlers, who were the Malays or the Javanese, had to use rivers like the Barito, the Negara, the Martapura, the Tabalong, etc., for the means of transportation.

Floating Market in South Kalimantan.
Transportation is available on land or on water by riverboats. Vendors move from one place to another by rowing their canoes.

The Dayak had settled there along the rivers for long time. And so the mixture of these groups of people were inevitable. In forming the new groups, the Banjars were dominant.

Dayak Woman

The migration had continued. During the Sriwijaya era, the Malays came and during the Majapahit era, the Javanese did. And then came the Islamic culture which was brought by the Malays, the Banjars and the Javanese. The Islamic influences entered through the rivers of Barito, the Martapura, the Negara up to the smaller ones like the Tapin, the Amandit, the Tabalong, the Balangan, etc.

In the 16th century, the Buginese and the Mandars arrived at south east Kalimantan. The mixture (mingle) of the Dayak, the Malays and the Javanese formed a new language that is known as the Banjar language. In this language, the Malay structure and vocabulary are more dominant than the Javanese or other languages. When Islam was adopted by the Banjars, as a mixture of tribes, could easily adopt foreign influences, including the Islamic religion. And later, their descendants and Islam had great contributions to strengthen this tribe. The native or the Dayak who believe in Islam, call themselves “the Banjar”, but those who believe in the “Kaharingan” and those who are Christian call themselves the Dayak.

Since the Banjars are a mixture of tribes, their cultural and art is also a kind of synthesis. But later, their culture and art had become characteristically “Banjar”, which constitute one form of culture and art among the so many forms in Indonesia.

The Malay influences are not only on the language, but also on the culture and art. The Banjar headdresses are also similar to those of the Malayan ones. The formal dresses (clothes) for men (the “baju palimbangan”) are also similar to those worm by the Malayan (the “baju Teluk Belanga”).

Their dances are also influenced by the Malays. The “Japen” dance or the “Japin” is one of the dances that still exists in South Kalimantan in the settlements of the Banjars as well as the Malays ones. The theatrical art also gets some influences from the Malays society. Many years ago, Royal theatre was also found in the Malays settlements. The influences can still be found in the “Mamanda” theatre which is still popular up to now.

There are also Javanese influences in their language as well as their culture; mainly in the theatre and visual art (fine art).

At the theatrical art, such as the leather puppets (wayang kulit) there are two kinds of art, the theatrical and the fine art. The language they use is the mixture of Javanese and Banjar languages. The conditions in the “Wayang Orang” and “Damarulan” are the same. In Java, they are known as “Wayang Wong” and “Damarwulan”. Beside Wayang Orang, there is also “Wayang Gung” there. It is like wayang orang but there are some differences in the headdresses and the stories they perform.

The Javanese influences in the fine art also very cleat; especially in the making of leather puppets that have Hindu or Buddhist ornaments. The gamelan instruments they use are also similar to those of Java; they have the same name and forms.

If we study the whole culture of South Kalimantan, we’ll find that the local culture is influenced by other culture. They are as follows:
1. The local culture that is influenced by the Javanese one.
2. The local culture that is influenced by the Malays one.
3. The local culture that is influenced by the Dayak one.
4. The Dayak culture itself.

The Dayak culture originated from the old times when animism and dynamism had great influences.

The Function and Social Role in the Society
Beside its artistic aspects, the South Kalimantan culture and art also have their functions as well as their social role. The Dayak statues, for example, which are erected outside their villages, have a magical function to guard their villages against bad spirits (read more)

Study of its Traditional Arts
South Kalimantan is rich enough in its traditional art. They are the two dimensional art and the three dimensional. The two dimensional products of art include the weaving, painting on glass, ornaments, calligraphy and wooden craft. The three dimensional ones include architecture and statues. The raw material for weaving is rattan, bamboo and purun (stalks of certain grass). Weaving has prospered well in this area (read more)