In the beginning, humans get their salt from the meat of animals.
With the advent of agriculture, we ate more grains and vegetables in place
of meat. As humans need salt (like air and water) to survive, we have to
compensate for the reduced salt intake in our diet from other sources.
Our forefathers harvested salt from the sea, salt lakes, wells or mines.
People who don't live near any of these natural sources of salt had to
trade other commodities for salt (or fight wars to get it as we do over
oil today). As salt is a basic human need, trade in salt was huge. The
value of the salt trade is greater than the value of trade for gold (due
to its sheer volume, though by weight, gold is worth more than salt by
many times).
All ancient civilisations from China to Egypt harvested salt from the sea,
salt lakes, wells or mines. Ancient China's
Liangzhu people 良渚文化 (3400 BC - 2250 BC) of the Yangtze River delta
operated a large sea salt harvesting facility on Daxie island (off
Ningbo city near Shanghai).
运城盐池
Yuncheng Salt Ponds
have been in use since before the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD).
|
| The Chinese character for salt is beautifully instructive. Top left refers to government inspectors (a reference to salt tax). Top right - a salt worker bending over a caldron of boiling seawater. At the bottom, the stove. |
As salt is a necessity of life (like water), imperial Chinese
governments from the Han dynasty till the end of the Qing dynasty (1911)
collected taxes on it. The Republic of China government continued salt
taxes till it evacuated to Taiwan in 1949.
Salt taxes were collected by controlling price and monopolising the
harvesting / production, distribution and sale of salt. As everyone
needs salt (like water), no one can escape the salt tax. For centuries,
the salt tax was successive Chinese government's largest source of
revenue with the burden falling mostly on the poor due to its broad
base.
While we take salt for granted nowadays, it was higher up in people's minds
in the past. So, it is less surprising then that when Chinese adventurer
Wang Dayuan 汪大渊 passed by the kingdom of Singapura / Temasek 淡馬錫
around 1330, he took note of how local inhabitants Ban Cu 班卒 made salt
by boiling seawater "煮海為鹽".
He also took note of how they brewed wine with rice "釀米為酒" which is
another very important basic human need 😄 You can
read more here
👈 click
Wang Dayuan provided only short notes of stops of his two voyages from
Quanzhou in Fujian to as far as north Africa between 1328 and 1339. He
provided no other information on salt making in Singapura except that it
was being made by the Ban Cu 班卒 settlers.
For Wang Dayuan to notice and mention Ban Cu sea salt making in his
travelogue, it would suggest that it was being produced at, at least on a
moderate scale.
How might salt be produced in the kingdom of Singapura?
Unfortunately, other than the brief mention in Wang Dayuan's travelogue,
salt making is not documented in any other historical records of
Malaysia and Indonesia.
There are basically two methods of producing salt from seawater - one
by sun drying seawater in evaporation pans and, secondly by boiling
seawater till all the water is evaporated.
We have an idea of the sun drying method as sea salt is still harvested
from the sea and sun dried in evaporation pans the millennium old way in
Bali, Indonesia.
However, producing sea salt by boiling seawater in pots is no longer seen in
Malaysia and Indonesia.
I am going to rely on how they still make sea salt in Taiwan by boiling
seawater and infer from that what Wang Dayuan might have seen in
Temasek, 700 years ago.
The Ban Cu people probably boiled seawater in large pots outside their
homes either in a shed or in the open. It was probably produced in at
least moderate, if not large scale, for community use. Salt making then
could already be a profession or craft. I wonder if there was even a
Chinese style salt tax in the kingdom of Singapura i.e. the king
controlled salt making and distribution in return for goods like fish,
grain, labour, services, etc 🤔
(Wang Dayuan was probably not describing how a Ban Cu homemaker made
salt at home as he was unlikely to be invited into a home kitchen.)
Ban Cu people of Singapura probably used sea salt for flavouring,
seasoning, to make salted fish and preserve other seafood.
If you like to make salt from seawater today at home, it is as easy as
boiling seawater in a pot or pan (till all the water evaporates, leaving only the
salt crystals). The bigger challenge today is where to get clean
seawater around Singapore 🤔
Written by Tony Boey on 30 May 2021
References:
Image of salt crystal courtesy of Wikipedia. Image of mammoth courtesy of
Wikipedia. Image of Egyptian farmer courtesy of
Wikipedia. Image of sea salt farmers in Thailand courtesy of
Wikipedia.
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