The development of sawah civilization in ancient Java

Abstract

Apart from the fact that there was no active part taken by the Netherlands Government in agrarian matters in Bali, even after direct government was introduced after 1880, the Balinese sawah farmers' success appears to stem mainly from their efficient independently-organized irrigation associations known as sekaha subaks. These guild-like co-operations of sawah farmers who share the same water supply have existed for many centuries in Bali, but nowhere else in Indonesia's wet-rice areas does there appear to be a similar organization, although one operates in Northern Luzon and another in Madagascar. Writers of the previous century and early years of the present one were surprised to find no traces of an indigenous system of irrigation management in Java to compare with the Balinese subaks, but nevertheless considered it likely that a type of subak system had once existed in Java. Show more