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Note on the Inscriptions found on Java
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In these inscriptions the word Jenggi is used (meaning Zanj). It can not be proven right now if this applies to East Africa or to Irian Yaya and nearby islands.
In the Muslim world it was believed that Africa did not stretch south but east making Irian Yaya where people live resembling the Africans the most eastern part of Africa. People who really came from Africa would however also have been called Jenggi.

A map of Java showing the geographical distribution of the inscriptions containing the word Jenggi. All date from after 1000AD. All older uses of the word in inscriptions have turned out to be later copies.
The language used is always old Javanese  (also called Kawi). This language was only spoken in East and Central Java. After the middle ages the word Jenggi spread to middle-Javanese and also to a number of other languages in South East Asia and has today the meaning of African.

Black people as servants were rather common in the middle ages in Java as is attested in the sculptures of the temples of Borobodur and Prembanan. Most of them will have had other origins then Africa.

African slaves in Medieval Java

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For those who know something of Medieval Africa it is no secret that the Muslim countries called the people on the East African coast Zanj.

(or: zenj, zinj, zendj, zendji, zendjes, etc…) 

As jengi this form appeared also in inscriptions written in old Javanese.

As the word means African in several present day South-East Asian languages, it is generally believed that centuries ago its meaning was also: African. Its most well known use in present day Malay is as “pau-jengi” “Fruit of Zang” (Coco de Mer) (the double coconut) from the Seychelles islands. Rarely they are thrown up on the beach of South East Asia where the tree became a mythical tree growing on an island in the centre of the world. La Galigo the manuscript from around 1800 about the Pao Jengki is based on an oral story from around 1400.

It is indeed true that one can follow the use of this word “jengi” or “jenggi” or “jangi” in south-east Asian languages back through the centuries up to finally those medieval inscriptions in Eastern Java. Of which the most recent one appeared in 1447. The next mention is in Bali but also in Kawi language is in the Smarawedana(1700-1800), in which it is related how a prince of Koripan is born as an ape, comes to the court of the prince of Panclan Salas, and there takes the form of a man. The word jengi is used here in the phrase: ‘asasaka kaṅ candana jĕṅgi’ ‘a pole of red sandalwood’. And in the undated Adhigama (= holiness) inscription ‘kayu candana jĕṅgi’: ‘dark Indian Sandelwood’.

During the 15^th century the different Islamic Hikayat stories arrived from Persia in the Malay world. (Hikayat M. Hanafiyyah; Hikayat Seri Rama; Hikayat Iskandar Dhu'l-Qarnayn; Hikayat Amir Hamzah; Hikayat Bayan Budiman). The Jenggi occurring in these stories are surely African.

This however is not enough prove. Black people live and lived everywhere in South-East-Asia as is attested in the sculptures of the temples of Borobodur and Prembanan.

It can easily be thought that during the Islamisation of Java the word jengi came to be used for (some of) the black people on neighbouring islands.

To add some prove (in favour or against) it was necessary to collect all medieval mentions of “jengi” in inscriptions and books and try to translate them.

Zoetmulder found 12 mentions in inscriptions and 2 in books. By now more are known. (Old Javanese-English Dictionary by Petrus Josephus Zoetmulder, Stuart O. Robson - 1982 - 2394 pages) His dictionary is the only modern work on the Old Javanese language. Another frequently used name for the language is Kawi.

The use of older dictionaries has not brought more information:

Kawi-balineesch-nederlandsch woordenboek by Hermanus Neubronner van der Tuuk – 1912

Oudjavaansch-nederlandsche woordenlijst by Hendrik Herman Juynboll - 1923 -

The journal in which most (but not all) of the inscriptions were found happened to be: Egbert Heemen : Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen 1913

This can already provide one reason why never an attempt was made to translate. It is written in an old form of Dutch not known to most East Africa History scholars.

Each inscription is given in phonetic transcription using the western alphabet.  From the introduction to each inscription it becomes clear that the majority are a list of rights (like tax exemptions and owning slaves and fancy dresses) given by a ruler to a certain mentioned place in a certain year.

There is also a clear geographical distribution: central-east Java.

The result of the translation using Zoetmulder’s dictionary is shown on my website; with each inscription or book having its own webpage among all the other medieval written sources about East Africa. 

What made it easy to translate extracts from such texts properly, was the fact that the official language used was nearly completely duplicated in all inscriptions. And most of all it were lists. In the inscriptions the lines in which the word jengi appeared were lists of different categories of people. Meaning words that without much grammar had to be found in the dictionary. There were two kinds of lists; the first and most common had added that those people belonging to neighbouring princes could not show up in the place (to collect taxes). The second list gave the dignitaries of the place the right to keep all these kinds of slaves like: slave that walks in front of his owner (to clear the road); slave that carries the cushion of his owner; African slave….. In Java in medieval times keeping slaves to show of your status and wealth was a royal privilege and so needed detailed mentioning if not-nobles were allowed to behave as kings.

Where as the two books which mention “jengi” are concerned; the name stands each time for an attendant to the royal family.

Note: added list of all medieval inscriptions and manuscripts in which the word Jengi occurs.

1-Sri Bwuwanecwara Wishnu Sakalatmaka: Inscription of Kancana (860AD) but later copy.

kdi, walyan, sambal, sumbul, hulun haji, singgah, pabrsi, pajut, jenggi watek I jro

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

2- Sri Mpu Sinduk : Inscription of Waharu IV (931)

wenan ahuluna pujut bondan jengi

context: important nobleman and the community of Waharu: to be able to own as slaves pujut, bondan and jengi.

3-Sri Maharaja Kudi: Prasasti Nganjatan I c. 10^th

Kdhi. Walyan. Sambal. Sumbul. Hulun haji. Jenggi. Pawulungwulung. Widu mangidung. Singan. Pamrsi. Watek jro

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

4-Sri Airlangga: Inscription of Cane (1021AD)

kdi walyan pawuruk sambal sumbul hulun haji jenggi singga pamrsi  pa wulungwulung watek I jro

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

5-Sri Airlangga: Inscription of Baru (1030AD)

dayang, hunjman, nambi, jenggi, pujut

context: community of Baru: to be able to own as slaves dayang, hunjman, nambi, jenggi, pujut

kdi walyan, sambal sumbul, hulun haji, jenggi, singgah, mabrsi, mawaluwulung, etc,

context: in a list of thieves and trouble makers.

6- Sri Airlangga: Inscription of Gandhakuti at Kambang (1042AD)

dayang, ahuluna, dayaug, pujut, jonggi, amupuh

context: his son to be able to own as slaves dayang, pujut, jonggi

7- Sri Airlangga : Inscription of Pandan (1042)

hulun haji jenggi singga pamrsi

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

8- Sri Mapanji Garasakan : inscription of Garaman (1053 AD)

pawulun wulun, kedi, walyan, hulun haji, jengi, singah, pamrsi, watek I jro

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

9-Sri Bameswara Maharaja Inscription at Plumbangan (1120)

Kdi, walyan, sambal sumbul, hulun haji, pawulungwulung,   widumangidung, jenggi, singgah, pamrpi, watek i jro

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

10- Sri Mapanji Jayabhaya Sriwarmeswara Madhusudana: Inscription at Ngantang (1135)

sambal sumbul, hulun haji, jenggi, singgah, mabrsi, watek i jro,

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

11- Sri Kertajaya: Inscription of Kemulan (AD 1194)

Kdi, walyan, widumangidung, sambal sumbul, hulun haji, jenggi, timur singga, wulungwulung, watek I jro

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

12-Mpu Monaguna: (Kakawin) Sumanasantaka (1205)

Padangadeg pujut lawan jengi raramawahiren

Context: personal retainer in the royal family.

bondan sajuru lawan ikan pujut sajuru jengi sajuru humadan

Context: personal retainer in the royal family.

13-Sri Kertarajasa: Inscription at Gunung Butak(1294)

kdi, sambal, sumbul, hulun haji, jengi, singgah, pammasi,

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

14-Mpu Triguna; Kresnayana (13th cent.)

awan jenggi rare marek resep amangku sedah asila tan salah bhawa .......

Context: personal retainer in the royal family.

15-Sri Kertarajasa: Inscription of Balawi (1305)

kdi walyan, widu mangidung, sambal, sumbul, hulun haji, singgah, pawresi, pawulung-wulung, pujut, bondan, jenggi, pandak, wwal, wungkuk, watek I jro

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

16-Inscription Pabuharan (14th)

widumangidung, kdi walian, sambal, sumbul, bulunaji, janggi, singgab, pabrsih watek i jro

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

17-Inscription of Raja Wijaya Parakrama Wardana at Surodakan (1447)

kdi walyan, widu manidung, sambal sumbul, hulun haji, singah, pabresi, pawulungwulung, pujut bhondan, jengi pandak, wyal, wunkuk, watek I jro

context: in list of officials that may not enter the freehold to collect taxes.

(Slave) Officials: 12 mentions

Slaves: 3 mentions

Royal Retainer: 3 mentions

Trouble makers: 1 mention.

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Taken from: Black Africans on the Maritime Silk Route Jəŋgi in Old Javanese epigraphical and literary evidence by Jiří Jákl

………… Black Africans are denoted in Old Javanese epigraphical and literary record as jəŋgi, a term which is generally taken to represent a Persian loanword, usually traced to the form zaŋgi (Bausani 1964; Jones 2007). ……….. Our main source of evidence pertaining to black Africans in pre-Islamic Java are the socalled ‘sima charters’, administrative documents which record the transfer of tax and labour rights by a ruler or another highly placed tax authority to a specified beneficiary (Wisseman Christie 1993: 181). In all cases known to us, black Africans documented in Old Javanese epigraphical record were sub-status people, either slaves or bonded servants. …………

….. Serving as court attendants, the status of jəŋgi is specified in a number of inscriptions as being that of ‘king’s slaves’ (hulun haji), as, …….  Strikingly, having the right to own black African slaves is represented in several inscriptions as a definite privilege. In the Simpang inscription, issued in 1030 by King Airlangga for the community of Baru, we learn that the elders are given a ‘privilege to own as slaves… black Africans and Negritoes’ (vənaŋanya mahuluna…jəŋgi pujut). Obviously, this honour stemmed from the military assistance the villagers provided to the king, as specified in the text (Brandes 1913: 129–30). These inscriptions further strengthen the view that foreign slaves were considered in pre-Islamic Java to be in principal a private property of the king, unless specified otherwise.

Interestingly, black African slaves may also have become through such transfers a property of a religious institution. We gather this from the Keboan Pasar inscription, a late East Javanese copy of a grant dated to 1042, issued for the (Buddhist) establishment (dharmma) of Gandhakuti. Among the privileges vested upon the members (vəka) of this religious establishment was the right ‘to dispose of female (prostitute?) slaves, black Africans, and Negritoes’ (ahuluna dayaŋ pujut jəŋgi), apart from using certain textiles, ceremonial umbrellas, and other status symbols (Brandes 1913: 141).

Comment: It were not the members of this religious establishment who received these rights. It was the son of the king who was placed in this community that retained these royal rights. See the text and translation in: Monumen: karya persembahan untuk Prof. Dr. R. Soekmono By Ingrid Harriet Eileen p 140.

….. Also, the administrative restrictions seem to point to other than just the utilitarian value of black Africans in ancient Java; rather than being just one of a number of servile categories, the jəŋgi are singled out as representing a valuable asset worth being regulated and protected by written edicts issued by rulers and other high-standing taxing authorities. …….

………… Africans were at first associated in Java with other, better-known categories of dark-skinned people. In the Kancana inscription, issued in 860, jəŋgi are named together with a number of other servile groups.

Comment: But in Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient of tombe 47 of 1955; études d’épigraphie Indonésienne by Louis-Charles Damais the inscriptions of Kuti; Waharu III; Waharu IV are indicated as late copies of the original; with the possibility of having been heavily redacted. For Kancana (=Waharu IV) he proves it (he gives a list of words in the copy that belong to way later centuries) so that I would table it under the year 1400 which is about the time Damais puts this copy.

……… A category listed immediately before jəŋgi are pujut. Zoetmulder, who collected references to these people in Old Javanese inscriptions and literature, contends that the term pujut denotes dark-skinned Negritoes (Zoetmulder 1982: 1434). The Dharma Pātañjala, an Old Javanese Śaiva text, gives an intriguing description of pujut, listing them among the peoples ‘coming from overseas’ : Acri, Andrea. 2011. Dharma Pātañjala: a Śaiva scripture from ancient Java studied in the light of related Old Javanese and Sanskrit texts. Leiden: Brill.

………. The foreign countries across the sea, it is possible that men know about their existence, for one sees thus, namely that there are men of different appearance, like the Brahmans and the Pujut, the Nambi, the Persians. These are seen by you. And further, there still are entities which are not seen, they originate in [foreign] lands, in [other] islands, such as gems, musk, camphor. These constitute the evidence that the islands across the sea exist; it is the mind that infers that they exist.

We can assume that the pujut came to Java probably as enslaved war captives, either from Sumatra or eastern parts of Indonesia. It is also plausible that the term covered the Papuans as well. The order of listing the pujut and jəŋgi in the Kancana inscription may suggest that exotic black Africans were classed in this early source as a sub-group of Negrito dark-skinned people with curly hair. In fact, the phrase pujut jəŋgi may be alternatively rendered as ‘jəŋgi, a sort of pujut’…………

……….. The fact that jəŋgis are repeatedly forbidden to enter religious freeholds indicates their relatively common presence in parts of rural Java, and further supports a hypothesis advanced by Hall (1999: 213) that sima grants were ‘the centrepiece of the royal offensive’ against other secular landlords. As far as we know, black Africans were owned exclusively by Javanese rulers, other high-standing court figures, or by religious institutions established by them.

Comment: although it is correct that the Javanese rulers and other high-standing figures could own them; no case of a religious establishment is known. See previous comment.

There were however two rural communities in which the elders received the right to own them:

Sri Airlangga: Inscription of Baru (1030AD); Sri Mpu Sindok: Inscription of Waharu IV (931).

Taken from: Analysing the Presence of Enslaved Black People in Ancient Java Society by Siti Maziyah 2022

Comment:

This article is the best ever written on the subject. But only two have been written.

His text is based on analyzing the ‘Hulun Haji’= the King’s slaves. He mentions that there are 10 categories but I regret that he did not add how his research found out about that. And the explanation to his table is incomplete as it mentions only eight of the ten categories.

Information related to the existence of the hulun haji obtained before the 9th century AD include Chinese news from the Tang Dynasty (Groeneveldt 2009, 21) that stated that in 813 AD, a messenger from Ho-ling (The Chinese term for Java that refers to the Kalingga Kingdom located in Jepara) came to China with offerings of four slaves Sangchi.

Comment: G. Schlegel in his article: Geographical Notes. III. Ho-Ling 訶陵 Kaling; T'oung Pao, Vol. 9, No. 4 (1898), pp. 273-287 (15 pages) proves using information from Chinese sources that Ho-ling was not located in Java but is South-East Asia. He also adds in his article that Seng-shi slaves could not be African slaves as the pronunciation of the word was Seng-ti in those early centuries. Groeneveldt who died in 1915 was wrong.

For way more information from other authors and my own see my:  Note on the Zangi slaves offered as tribute to China.

Broadly speaking, based on the meaning of each type of hulun haji, there were two groups, namely black slaves (jĕŋgi, pawuluŋ wuluŋ, pujut, and boņḍan) and people who had physical disabilities, such as midgets (paņḍak), hunchbacks (wuŋkuk), white people (=albino), and dwarfs (wwal). The meaning of the stop (=singgah) and the pabŗşi is not yet known clearly.

Pawuluŋ wuluŋ is an Old Javanese local term for people with bluish-black skin. This bluish-black colour by the Javanese is called wuluŋ. If examined further, people with this skin colour were people from central Africa, called Negroes and had a black skin colour as if they were bluish-black (Kbbi Daring).

Comment: there really is no evidence for them being from Central Africa.

Comments:

This table is a very important part of his article. But in Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient of tomb 47 of 1955; études d’épigraphie Indonésienne by Louis-Charles Damais the inscriptions of Kuti ; Waharu III ; Waharu IV are indicated as late copies of the original ; with the possibility of having been heavily redacted. For Waharu IV he proves it so that I would table it under the year 1400 which is about the time Damais puts this copy. The other two I would replace by other ones with a known date. When doing so one can see that there are three groups of Hulun Haji according to the time they started being used in the inscriptions.

First group being: pabrsi and singgah they are on the inscriptions from the beginning of the 9th century till the end of the 15^th century.  These are the servants whose name is a ‘job description’.

Kern (1880) translates them as: Singgah is probably a servant or slave whose work is to walk in front of his master to make space for him. Compare Javanese singgah and sesinggah.

Pabresi also mabresi, a servant that carries the cushion to sit on for the master. 

Zoetmulder (1982) translates them as follows: siṅgah among the watĕk i jro (and maṅilala dṛwya haji) siniṅgah: to get out of the way. I would conclude slaves that have to make the road free for the master passing.

pabrĕsi, among the watĕk i jro (and maṅilala dṛwya haji); mabrĕsi cushion-bearer. I would conclude slaves that carry the belongings behind the lord travelling.

Second group jenggi, pawulung wulung, pujut, bhondan. They start arriving on the inscription at least a century later and up to two centuries later. These are identified as ethnicities. More specifically black people.

The Dharma Pātañjala, an Old Javanese Śaiva text, gives an intriguing description of pujut, listing them among the peoples ‘coming from overseas’: Acri, Andrea. 2011. Dharma Pātañjala: a Śaiva scripture from ancient Java studied in the light of related Old Javanese and Sanskrit texts. Leiden: Brill.

………. The foreign countries across the sea, it is possible that men know about their existence, for one sees thus, namely that there are men of different appearance, like the Brahmans and the Pujut, the Nambi, the Persians. These are seen by you. And further, there still are entities which are not seen, they originate in [foreign] lands, in [other] islands, such as gems, musk, camphor. These constitute the evidence that the islands across the sea exist; it is the mind that infers that they exist.

Third group pandak, wungkuk, wwal: They start arriving in the inscriptions again a century later.  These are people with deformities kept at the court for their magical powers. The bule (albino) is also among these but it is mentioned only once in a redacted copy of the Majapahit age of an 840AD original; but it would be probably OK.

Note: Kancana inscription is a modified copy from an original of 860AD.

Note: Waharu IV inscription is a modified copy from an original of 931AD.