The making of traditional clay roof tiles or genting
Rudin Salinger’s 1997 article documents the traditional craft of making genting (hand-formed clay roof tiles) in the Trengganu and Kelantan east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, drawing on fieldwork in the Besut District and oral histories from four elderly tile makers. The piece establishes that the craft is essentially Thai in origin, having been introduced from Singhora (Patani) and subsequently adapted by local and Chinese communities in Kelantan before spreading to Trengganu.
Summary
Salinger’s article is primarily an ethnographic record of the genting production process, observed in a small village outside Kampong Raja in the Besut District of Trengganu. The narrative traces the full sequence from clay extraction at the edge of a pond, through softening, kneading, moulding, drying, edge-forming, kiln-loading, and firing, to the final installation of tiles on a roof framework. A distinctive feature of the craft is the gendered division of labour: men extract and prepare the clay, while women perform the moulding; men then handle the drying, edge-forming, and kiln operations. The firing process itself is described as a week-long heating followed by a week of cooling, with the kiln master’s skill determining the success or failure of an entire batch.
The historical dimension emerges through interviews with four men, two of whom had since died by the time of publication. Their accounts converge on the Thai origin of the craft but diverge on specific details of transmission. The most detailed narrative comes from Lau Chou Kok (Che Pah), who identified his great-uncle Pok Ming Hoo (known locally as Pah Ming Jawa) as the first tile maker in Malaysia, a man who walked overland from Petani into Kelantan in search of a wife and subsequently established the trade using his family’s inherited skills. Other informants recall tiles being shipped from Petani in large sailing vessels, and the introduction of genting to Trengganu by a figure described as “Cikgu Sumatra from Palembang” who brought tiles from Singhora for the roofing of Istana Tungku Long.
The article also records a substantial glossary of Malay terminology specific to the craft, covering every stage from clay extraction (pusu, jeruk) through moulding (petak, tunggang) to kiln operations (gok, karak, api kelip) and roof installation (kayu jerial, perabung). This lexical record is presented as a separate appendix, reflecting Salinger’s broader interest in the istilah of traditional Malay material culture.
Key Findings
- The craft of genting making in Malaysia originated in Singhora (Patani), Thailand, and was introduced to Kelantan by a Chinese tile-maker, Pok Ming Hoo (Pah Ming Jawa), who walked overland from Petani (pp. 103–104).
- A standard genting tile measures approximately 24 cm in length, 14.5 cm in width, and slightly more than 1 cm in thickness; the kayu jerial battens are spaced at roughly 13 cm centre-to-centre (p. 107).
- A single kiln firing holds ten laksa (100,000) tiles arranged in a herring-bone pattern, requiring two chords of wood (typically rubber wood) and approximately two weeks total for heating and cooling (pp. 106–107).
- Prices for a laksa of tiles rose from 30 rial in the pre-war period to 40 rial in the 1960s–70s, and reached 300 rial by World War II; production costs were approximately 20 rial per laksa in the later period (pp. 103, 104).
- Each woman working a mould could produce several hundred tiles per day, with total output reaching about one thousand tiles per day across all workers in a shed (p. 105).
- By the time of Salinger’s fieldwork, only a few kilns remained in operation, primarily in the Bachok District of Kelantan, as demand declined with the shift to zinc roofing and modern construction (p. 101).
Conclusion
Salinger presents the genting trade as a craft in terminal decline, its survival dependent on a shrinking clientele of traditional Malay house builders. His closing remark—that many genting makers have turned to brick production using the same techniques—underscores the economic pressures that have displaced the craft, while his hope that “the beautiful sight of wholly natural houses will not disappear” frames the article as both a technical record and a plea for cultural preservation.
Context
- The article is based on direct field observation in the Besut District of Trengganu and semi-structured interviews with four elderly informants (two of whom had died by publication), representing a small-scale ethnographic study rather than an archival investigation.
- Historiographically, the piece contributes to the documentation of intangible cultural heritage in the Malay east coast, filling a gap in the material culture record for a craft that was already near extinction by the mid-1990s.