Ruminant Relations

Java offers exciting opportunities to trace human–cattle relations in a Southeast Asian context. By foregrounding inscriptions, court poems (kakavin), and other textual and iconographic sources, we aim to unearth some historical and cultural aspects of pre-Islamic cattle management and milk consumption, paying special attention to the words used for different breeds, dairy products, and other bovine terminology. Contacts with the Indian subcontinent heralded the introduction of larger cows and eventually milk-based economies, despite the conventional wisdom that the early Javanese avoided dairy products. When read critically and comparatively, Old Javanese texts reveal that locally domesticated cattle (sapi) had a relatively low status and were often used for heavy work. South Asian zebus (lǝmbu), by contrast, enjoyed more prestige and were valued for their holy profile and superior lactation. The consumption and ritual use of dairy products was especially prevalent in Hindu circles, but appears to have had an impact on rural village life more broadly. When the religious hegemony of Brahmins decreased, the production of milk and butter generally ceased to be seen as a worthwhile investment. As a result, the bovine landscapes reconstructed in this article gradually changed beyond recognition in Islamic, colonial, and postcolonial times.