Jakarta, August 23, 2004 (Islam Online -IOL) - “Jamu, Madame, Sir!” That’s how a slim, young woman carrying
a heavy basketful of bottles tied up on her back greets her clients from door
to door at a Jakarta neighborhood every morning. The lady, wearing the Javanese
traditional dress called kebaya and batik sarong, is selling the
traditional Indonesian herbal medicine known as jamu.
Indonesia has the world’s largest biodiversity reservoir
with around 140 million hectares of rainforest. Therefore, nature is deeply
rooted in the life of the people culturally, socially and economically.
Traditional herbal medicine derived from leaves, fruits, roots, seeds, flowers
or tree barks, has been widely used since ancient times.
There are thousands of jamu ladies roaming
Indonesia’s narrow streets and kampongs (hamlets), offering a glass of freshly
prepared herbal medicine, which is usually mixed with raw egg and honey. In
addition to the ‘mobile’ jamu ladies, there are also many jamu
stalls almost everywhere.
Apart from homemade fresh jamu, the jamu
vendors also offer herbal medicine produced by jamu manufacturers. At
present, one could easily buy ready-made jamu packed in powder form, as
pills, capsules, tonics, oil and ointments. Jamu is used to treat a wide
variety of ailments ranging from fatigue and headache to malaria. It also
supplies the body with vitamin C, cleanses the blood, keeps the body in good
shape, and makes the skin smooth.
Jamu consumers come from every class of
society, from the poor to the rich, those who live in villages or those who
live in large cities. Indonesians like to consume jamu due to its
availability and comparatively cheap price. Jamu is usually consumed in
liquid form and in some cases is applied externally such as on the skin or
forehead. The traditional methods of making jamu such as by boiling the
prepared herbal ingredients still prevail in the country. The popular
traditional tools of making jamu such as by using a clay pot and grater
are still available in many families.
As part of the national family welfare program, each neighborhood
has been encouraged to have a medicinal plants garden to supply residents who
need to treat their family members. The garden is also aimed at preserving the
medicinal plants and to pass on the traditional knowledge to younger
generations.
Among common herbs used in jamu prescriptions are
ginger (Zingiber officinale), wild ginger (Curcuma cautkeridza),
turmeric (Curcuma domestica), greater galingale (Kaempferia galanga),
kumis kucing (Orthosiphon aristatus), bengle (Zingiber bevifalium),
secang (Caesalpinia sappan hinn), brotowali (Tiospora rumpii boerl),
calamondin (Citrae aurantifalia sivingle), cinnamon (Gijeyzahyza
glabra), and alang-alang (Gramineae).
Traditional Cosmetics
In principle there are several types of jamu. For
example, one type maintains physical fitness and health, and another type
treats various kinds of illness. Jamu for babies is also available,
usually in oil form. There are also herbal cosmetics to maintain the natural
beauty of women, and special jamu for pregnant women during the pre- and
post-natal periods.
An estimated 80 percent of the Indonesian population has
tried jamu at some stage of their lives. For Indonesian women, jamu
is considered essential to keep them young and beautiful for their husbands.
Drinking jamu is a must for women after giving birth, although some
might hate its bitter taste. A special treatment for women in their post-natal
period is usually a combination of massage, body wraps and tonics to help them
regain their figures and eliminate stretch marks.
Almost every woman is concerned that her physical appearance
always remains slim and beautiful with an alluring bright smiling face. As a
Javanese idiom says, “Ngadi Sarira”, or “to maintain the body to be
always in a perfect condition is of prime importance.”
In Javanese culture, the ladies of the royal families have a
reputation of inheriting the beauty of goddesses from paradise. Nowadays, many
women from outside the palace walls know some secrets of the royal palace
culture of Ngadi Sarira. Jamu is widely used to give an inner
beauty, which is thought to result from good physical health.
Some jamu products are consumed directly by drinking
or eating it. For instance, eating kepel fruit (a brown fruit of a chicken egg
size) gives the body - and even the urine - a fragrant odor similar to that of
the fruit itself. Some traditional cosmetics include bedak dingin (a
cool powder made from tendered rice with special ingredients such as pandanus
and kenanga flower) and lulur bathing powder for scrubbing. Finally, a
hair oil called cemceman, made of coconut oil with pandanus, kenanga
flower, jeruk purut etc. is applied.
Rich in Biodiversity and Cultures
Indonesia is the world’s second richest megacenter of
biodiversity, after Brazil. The country, comprising over 17,000 islands, covers
only 1.3 per cent of the earth’s surface, but it contains almost 15 per cent of
all higher plants and a significant share of the world’s fauna. According to
the country study on biodiversity in 1993, the number of species of flowering
plants in Indonesia is between 25,000 and 30,000, and 10 per cent of the total
flora of Indonesia is thought to have medicinal value. Around 40 million people
depend directly on the country’s biodiversity, and the communities make use of
around 6000 plant species.
With a population of over 220 million people, Indonesia has
at least 336 different cultures, speaking more than 250 languages. Thanks to
this diverse culture, Indonesia has many different varieties of traditional medicine,
depending on the local geography, ethnic groups and the historical processes of
the communities. However, jamu, which originated in Java, and probably
dates back to the construction of the world-famous Borobudur Temple in the late
eighth and early ninth centuries, is the most wide-spread form of traditional
medicine in the country.
In the course of time, jamu spread not only to the
whole island of Java and to neighboring Bali, but also to many of the other
islands. As a result of the continuous exchange of information between various
cultural groups, traditional systems of medicine are not static but dynamic,
regularly incorporating new knowledge and uses.
While all the various systems are based on more or less the
same plant material, users are limited by what is available in their own
locality and the existing knowledge, according to an article titled
“Biodiversity, traditional medicine and the sustainable use of indigenous
medicinal plants in Indonesia” written by Walter R. Erdelen, Kusnaka Adimihardja,
H. Moesdarsono and Sidik. To cure liver infections, for instance, the
Indonesian Sundanese ethnic group eats Curcuma domestica, or turmeric,
as lalab (a fresh vegetable salad), while the country’s other large
ethnic group, the Javanese, use boiled, dried turmeric to treat the same
ailment.
Untapped Market
Nowadays, there are around 997 traditional medicine
manufacturers in Indonesia, and 98 of them are industries. A few of the big jamu
industries have exported their products such as cosmetics, oils and herbal
medicines for women and babies to Malaysia, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Europe,
the United States, and several Middle Eastern countries.
The proceeds of the herbal medicine sales domestically
reached around 2 trillion Indonesian Rupiahs (Rp) annually or about US$225
million, and its export value was only US$5 million, according to data from the
Indonesian Food and Medicine Supervisory Body (POM) in 2002. The figure was
very small compared with China’s domestic sale value at US$5 billion and its
export at US$1 billion. The demand for herbal diet supplements alone is
estimated to be worth US$43 billion annually in the global market.
“Business opportunities for traditional medicines are very
promising, both in the domestic and international markets. We have not tapped
it maximally,” said Eng. Asyiantini, the organizing committee chairman of the
Indonesian Biopharmacy Exhibition and Congress (IBEC) that was held in
Yogyakarta from July 14 to 18, 2004. She said that the herbal medicine industry
uses only around 500 species out of the total 7,000 known medicinal plants
available in the country.
Meanwhile, according to Charles Saerang, secretary general
of the Indonesian Traditional Herbal Medicines Producers Association (GPJTI),
it is quite ironic that in herbal medicine production, the country falls far
behind countries such as China, Korea and Japan. Political will from the
government is a must for the country to rapidly develop the traditional
medicine industry if Indonesia wants to compete with other countries.
Indonesia will host an International Workshop on “Enhancing
Cooperation on Herbal Medicine: A Solution for Community Health Problems” and
an Herbal Fair in Jakarta, this year. Initially the event was scheduled for
July 27 to 30, 2004, but it has been postponed indefinitely. The workshop and
exhibition are to be organized by the Non-Aligned Movement Center for
South-South Technical Cooperation (NAM CSSTC) and the India-based Center for
Science and Technology of Non-aligned and other Developing Countries (NAM
S&T Center).
The international workshop and exhibition are expected to
address key issues such as enhancing cooperation; covering issues of research,
trade, business development, and intellectual property rights; and promoting
the use of herbal medicines in the treatment of diseases such as HIV/AIDS,
diabetes, and hypertension. It will also discuss solutions for community health
problems in which traditional medicine could be used as an alternative to
modern medicine due to its affordability, local production, cultural
acceptance, and direct benefit to both producers and consumers.
References :
ANTARA - Nyonya Meneer exports herbal medicine to South Asia
(2002)
ANTARA - It needs political will to develop jamu medicine
(2002)
Suryo S. Negoro - Traditional Herbal Medicine and
Traditional Cosmetics (www.Joglosemar.co.id/jamu)
Jamu Folk Medicine from the Kitchen - Tourism Indonesia.
Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, November 1999
- “Biodiversity, traditional medicine and the sustainable use of indigenous
medicinal plants in Indonesia” by Walter R. Erdelen, Kusnaka Adimihardja, H.
Moesdarsono, Sidik.
The NAM CSSTCMs
Website: http://www.nam-csstc.org.
Hani
Mumtazah is an environmental journalist based in
Jakarta, Indonesia. She graduated from a three-year English language non-decree
program at the University of Indonesia, Jakarta. She attended the Non-Aligned
News Agencies Journalism Course in New Delhi, India, in 1987. Comments and
suggestions may be forwarded to her by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
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