The Origin of the Dutch Wife

Budiman BM
10 min readJul 28, 2024

--

Only a few Dutchmen came here with women. … Here, they were forced to take concubines. But the Dutch are known to be very stingy… They wanted to return to their country as wealthy people. As a replacement, they made bantal guling — concubines that cannot fart… That was indeed a genuine Dutch invention — a fartfree concubine. Dutch Wife. …— Pramoedya Anata Toer, Jejak Langkah

The Dutch Wife, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, June-November 1857.

Ladislao Székely, a Hungarian planter, on his arrival in Medan in 1914, stayed at The Grand Hotel Medan; he wrote in The Tropic Fever:

Nervously we stood in the centre of this strange room. The furniture consisted of a table, a wardrobe and two curious, somewhat alarming objects: enormous frames, a metre wide and two long, and one and a half metre in height, of thin white netting. “What can that be? Mass coffins?… Cautiously, on tiptoe, we approached one of the enigmatic objects. We searched round and felt it, and at last we discovered what it was. Pulling back the flimsy material, we saw a mattress covered with white sheet, while two hard-stuffed little pillows and a large white sausage were lying inside the frame. “A bed”, Peter declared. “The white covering is a mosquito-netting, but whatever is that large funny sausage?”

The funny sausage is bantal guling or the Dutch Wife, a specialty in the Dutch Indies. It appeared in various reports when Westerners visited Indonesia.

Australian W. Farmer Whyte wrote about his adventure in Java in The Daily Mail (Brisbane) 28 April 1924:

A “Dutch wife” is a bolster, Wherever you go, whether you are staying at an hotel or in a private house, you will find one on your bed-sometimes two of them. It is a warm country, and you rarely require any more covering than the mosquito-net provides; and the bolster, you learn, is a Dutch device to keep you cool. By resting your feet upon it you allow, the air to circulate — and you vote it quite a good idea.

The Dutch version of pillow fight (Het nieuws van den dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië 31–10–1938).

Miss Nellie M. Scanlon, a roving ‘ journalist’ from Australia, wrote her experience in Java in the Otago Daily Times, 5th December 1927:

There is a huge Dutch bed with, surely, the hardest mattress in the world — a tightly buttoned kapok affair. The average double bed is about 8x9, the size of a small room. You do not get into bed, but on top of it. There are no bedclothes, not even a sheet. A couple of pillows and a “Dutch wife” are the sole furnishings. Mosquito netting covers the entire bed from the four high posts, and when you climb in, you feel like a fly in a meat safe.

The “Dutch wife” is a small round bolster, placed down the middle of the bed. It is about 2 feet long and 9 inches in diameter. If used correctly, its function is to keep you cool, but no one gives lessons in how to use it, so the art is probably acquired by experience. I am still persevering. The “Dutch wife” is not confined to Java; it is universally employed throughout the Far East by British as well as Dutch, and I have heard men and women here say that they could not sleep without it.

Adjoining the bedroom is the bathroom. This is no ordinary bathroom. A deep square, set in tiles (rather like a set-in wash copper) is filled with cold water, and there is a little bucket with a firm handle across it. The tile floor slopes to an escape grating, and there you stand and pour buckets of cold water over yourself. It is not like a plunge bath, nor yet like a shower. It has a delicious quality all its own, in addition to the childish joy of splashing water all over the bathroom floor. Once you have tasted the delight of a Dutch bath, no bathroom is safe from inundation. There is a strange fascination about it, as the cool water pours in streams over you onto the tiled floor.

The Dutch bed has no great claim on my affection, but the Dutch bath has won my heart. And when I say Dutch, perhaps I should qualify it and add that this bath, like the bolster, is not confined to the Dutch nor to Java. Australia has its summer surfing, but it might well add this simple luxury for home.

Bed and bantal goeling for the brown baby! Outright racist comments from the Netherlands (Rotterdamsch nieuwsblad 07–01–1938)

Bantal Goeling

Bantal guling had been around in Indonesia since early 19th century or even earlier. It was a tradition in Asia, called bamboo wife, used in China. There are versions of it in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and others. Probably the Dutch saw the Chinese were using it and adapted to become a Dutch invention. Initially made of bamboo frame, later it was filled with kapok.

Bantal goeling was listed in the Malay-Dutch Handbook published in 1803: Maleisch Handboekjen, of Hollandsch-Maleisch en Maleisch-Hollandsch Woordenboekjen, naar Alphabetische Orde compiled by J.H. Moeleman. In another Malay-Dutch book, it was listed as bantal golik (Maleisch-Nederduitsch woordenboek by Jan Pijnappel).

An early description of bantal goeling was by Dr. M. J. E. Muller, the Chief of the Medical Service of Service. In his report, published in Tijdschrift van Nederiandsch-Indië in 1845:

The most peculiar thing about the bed is the bantal goeling, a long, round cushion filled with kapok, which is taken between the legs and embraced with one arm by the sleeper, contributing so much to a cool and comfortable position that it is adopted as a custom by all classes and nations and both genders.

It was considered a luxury item. In the Official Gazette of the Dutch East Indies (Nederlands Indies Staatsblad) 1854, related to civil servants and officers of the sedentary maritime service in Dutch East Indies:

For patients in first-class hospitals, the allowed maximum includes 3 roll cushions (rolkussens) or bantal-goeling and 6 pillowcases for them.
(Government decree dated 28 October 1853 no. 1.)

In the late 19th Century it was still a Dutch Indies custom, lawyer van den Brand from Medan visited Penang and wrote (De Sumatra Post 02–12–1898):

The next morning the ship anchored in the roadstead of Penang. This short crossing had taught me two things. Don’t forget your bantal goeling, if you are used to a roll cushion. The English do not use this bed decoration, indispensable for the Dutch in the tropics, which is known among them by the joking name of “Dutch wife”.

However it had been adopted in Malaya and Singapore much earlier. Andrew Carnegie on his trip to Singapore in 1879 wrote in his book Round the World:

I have had many experiences in beds, from the generous feather cover of the Germans to the canopy of state couch of England, but tonight my couch was minus covering of any kind. Calling to Vandy, I found he was in the same predicament. Each had instead a long, stiff bolster lying lengthwise in the middle of the mattress, the use of which neither of us could make out.

We soon discovered that there was no need of covering at the Equator; but this bolster must have some use, if we could only find it. Upon inquiring next day we ascertained that it is composed of a kind of pith which has the property of keeping cool in the hottest weather, and that it is the greatest relief at night to cultivate the closest possible acquaintance with this strange bed-fellow; in fact, in Singapore, “no family should be without it.”

The Dutch Wife

The term Dutch wife was used by the English people in Malaya and Singapore referring to bantal guling. There was a suggestion that when Raffles became Lieutenant Governor of Java in 1811, he saw male colonists sleeping with goeling, and thus, he called it a “Dutch wife” (De Telegraaf 08–06–1977).

Indeed, after that the term Dutch Wife can be found in many travelogues. European, American, and even Australian travellers who went to Batavia would always describe the Dutch Wife. American surgeon William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger on his journey to Batavia in 1836 described the hard bolster with an equivocal name “Dutch Wife”. Australian James Hingston also described it in his 1879 book The Australian Aboard.

Another account was by George J. Oliver who visited Batavia around 1856 and wrote “A Jaunt in Java” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine Volume XV, June-November 1857. On his stay at the Hotel de Nederlander:

And now, after the opera, you wend your way homeward, and penetrate into your little apartment, which, by being on the ground-floor with its door opening into the open air, seems like quite a separate bachelor establishment ; and pottering over the brick floor smeared with red clay, after the usual change of attire, you wage furious war against the mosquitos around the net, and popping into bed, you find yourself sprawling over your “Dutch wife.”

Don’t start ! You won’t get a curtain lecture; for a “Dutch wife” is merely a round, hard bolster, which, to the astonishment of every stranger, is to be seen in every bed laid neatly and stiffly down the middle like a small corpse.

What its use could be I was a long while finding out, and used to pitch the poor feminine out of bed every night with a hearty anathema ; but after I was taught her proper place I saw my error, and became much attached to her.

In a word, the “Dutch wife” is to be put under your legs or arms to prevent too warm a contact with the mattress, and to allow a cool circulation of air; and the comfort which this gives in a hot climate can be appreciated only by those who have tried it. Still better than one “Dutch wife” stuffed with cotton are four short, hollow Chinese ones — one for each limb — made of split bamboo work.

An American traveller in Java wrote in The Chicago Daily Tribune 8th July 1876 referred the “Dutch Wife” as a stick of bamboo or other light and highly-polished wood, 5 feet in length and about 2 in circumference.

German travellers also described the Dutch Wife when visiting Batavia, while French author Georges Kohn called it épouse hollandaise. Frenchman J. Leclercq wrote (Soerabaijasch handelsblad, 05–12–1903):

Under the mosquito net, I find no other bedding than a single bedsheet and a pair of pillows, and also the classic hollandaise: it is a long leather bolster, cylindrical in shape, covered with white linen, which is used to prevent the contact of the legs and thus reduce perspiration during sleep.

The Dutch wife became an English joke, in 1921, Lord Northcliffe, a a British newspaper and publishing magnate, visited Batavia. A rumour went around and the Singapore Free Press wrote (De locomotief 16–12–1921):

We understand that there is no truth in the report that Lord Northcliffe, on awaking after his first night spent in Batavia, remarked : „My -Dutch wife” is the finest in the Far East!

A reader wrote in The Straits Times 6th July 1927 started to query the origin of the “Dutch Wife”. Several readers replied the next day (The Straits Times, 7–8 July 1927).

According to a man named A.H. Desker, an Englishman was visiting Java and stayed at a hotel. He found a bolter on his bed, called for the djongos, and asked what it was? The djongos said Boeat pelok waktoe tidoer (for embracing during sleep). The man then said “The Dutch Wife!”

Another reader suggested that it was derived from an old song “My Old Dutch”:

We’ve lived together now for forty years

And it don’t seem a day too much,

There ain’t a lady livin’ in the land

As I’d swap for my dear Old Dutch.

Another reader from The Straits Times said the word wife is a misnomer, the origin was from old Dutch “viffoor”, which mean a long cylindrical bag of canvas in which thrifty housewives used to stuff all feathers and down garnered from the kitchen. When the Dutch captured Malacca in 1641, they introduced the viffoor. Maasdorp’s History of the Dutch Occupation of Malacca referred to the universal custom (adopted by the aborigines) of sleeping on the “viffoor” instead of laying their heads on hard planks and bare boards.

While the Dutch thought that the English satirised the cold-blooded temperament of Dutch women, by calling a bantal goeling the “Dutch wife” (De nieuwe vorstenlanden 17–06–1889).

Whatever its origin, guling is an essential for good sleep. Initially it was designed to provide coolness in the hot night, as it provided arm and knee support, allowing better air circulation. However using the Dutch wife now becomes a habit or a must.

Piglet Song

Ah, in the past, there was less turmoil;
Everything still had a purpose,
Swill still tasted like swill,
We still had a feel for everything,
And I still slept with a goeling.

RUDY KOUSBROEK

The West Australian 17 Feb 1951.
Goeling is part of the bed’s accessories (De Sumatra Post 20–03–1918).

--

--

Budiman BM
Budiman BM

Written by Budiman BM

Soil Scientist, interest in Colonial history.

No responses yet