Selamat Datang

What the early recorders wrote about the life of the people of Melaka

Agriculture:

1.The marine alluvium extended some distance inland was not permissible for rice plantation.

2. Sago was adopted as the staple food.

3. Earlier they planted quick growing crops sugar-cane, bananas, tapioca, yam, jack-fruit, vegetable and spices.

Vegetables: Ginger, onion, leeks, mustard, gourds, water melon.

Local products: rhizomes. Ebony, damar , tin etc.

Damar for lighting purposes

They have amber and turn into manek, for wearing on tengkolok etc.

Tin in two localities is Melaka.. Tin cast into ingots of disk-like shape. Standard weight 1 kati 8 tahils or 1 kati 4 tahils.

Animals: Cattle, goats. Fowls and ducks, buffaloes

A head of buffalo cost a kati of silver.

No donkeys or horses reported.

On the shores they have turtles and dragons (crocodiles)

In the jungles a lot of tigers and leopards

4. Tome Pires (Suma Oriental) : Beginning of the century (15^th ) estimated 1 000 orchard in the Malacca territories (ref. Cortesado Pg 260 , Barbosa Pg 178 Varthema Pg 231

5. The abundance of fruit trees was one of the salient /prominent characteristics of the landscape. JMBRAS Vol. X11 pp 71 – 107
6. In the wilderness. The sago palm.. The flour obtained from the palm is dried and moulded into pallettes as big as green beans dried in the sun and sold as food.
7. Along the are the nipah palms. The leaves are woven into attap and the fruits resembles the licyee the size of hen’s egg. The people use them to ferment liquor/ Kajang Wine.
8. The local folks interweave the nipah leaves with bamboo (Mengkawan) to make attap/ mats and offered for sale.

Nelayan. Boat made of dugged trunk of trees./atau papan di sapu dengan damar.