At the heart of Kebaya jewellery
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The jewellery of the kebaya, especially the kerosang, is at the heart of the adornments which evolved together with the kebaya when it developed from an item of clothing to a form of fashion in the last three centuries.
The centrepiece of the kebaya is the kerosang or kerongsang (both are valid Malay terms, and are to be found in all Malay and Indonesian dictionaries) which comprises three gold-and-diamond brooches connected by a gold chain. My grandmother, who was born in 1906 and passed on in 1985, always referred to it as “kerosang”, not “kerongsang”.
This, I found out many years later, was because she pronounced it in the way Indian Peranakans, or Chetti Melaka, were used to doing so since the 1500s in Melaka, after the Portuguese conquered the city in 1511.
Kerosang is a loanword in Malay. It is derived from the Portuguese “coração”, meaning “heart” (pronounced korasang in Kristang), which was a term for a Portuguese jewel in the 19th century. Kerosang preserves the older pronunciation in Malay, and is a term familiar to people from old Melaka. Kerongsang is a slightly later variant, but one that is more current in the Malay language today.
One of the best sources of research into the kerosang is from Peranakan scholar Peter Lee’s 2015 book: Sarong Kebaya: Peranakan Fashion In An Interconnected World 1500–1950.
Mr Lee says the region’s jewellery - like fashion - was entirely cross-cultural and modern, and was finessed by all the communities of South-east since the 1500s, such as the Peranakans, Malays and Europeans.
“Another misunderstanding concerns the concept of ‘traditional’ jewellery,” Mr Lee writes in his 352-page book. “Jewellery and dress evolved in tandem in the colonial port towns. Even in the 16th and 17th centuries, observers noticed the opulent jewels of mestiza women in Goa and Batavia. These were probably made in a mixture of Indian and European techniques; in Batavia, Chinese and indigenous jewellery techniques were added to the mix. Many forms of supposedly Malay jewellery (and Peranakan jewels) in fact originated in much older European types.”
He says that in 1988, respected historian Mohamad Kassim Haji Ali noted the influence of Thai, Indian, Chinese, and European styles and techniques on Malay jewellery in his book “Gold Jewellery and Ornaments in the Collection of Muzium Negara, Malaysia”,
"(There was) a steady interchange of ideas between Chinese and Malay craftsmen all over the peninsula,” wrote Mr Mohd Kassim. “The Malay kerosang shows an extraordinary affinity in design to Anglo-Saxon silver brooches.”
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