Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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The life of a miner
The life of a miner
You recall the first time your father brought you to the mines to show you the ropes. You were only 12 years old then, barely tall enough to stand in the shallow regions of the pits.
You glance at the shallow pits- scraped into the earth, flooded with rainwater. The water caused diamonds, almost invisible to the eye, to float to the water’s surface. Miners like you would wade through these murky waters with worn rattan baskets to sift for these mineral gifts.
You can't help but sometimes feel intimidated by the waist deep waters, and how these murky waters sometimes take the lives of other young man like you.
The sun was blazing hot as your skin glistened and the nape of your neck dampened by sweat. In these soaring temperatures, even the strongest gust of wind offers no respite.
As a Banjarese, you believe strongly in the Banjarese proverb:
“Haram manyarah waja sampai kaputing”
which translates to staying resilient and strong until the end.
Traditional Diamond Mining
Traditional Diamond Mining
Traditional diamond mining in Banjarmasin involves the following:
The miners will first dig a pit in the area where diamonds are suspected to occur and collect the gravel at the bottom of the hole, which is often flooded. Scooping up the gravel with a rattan basket, the miner hands it over to his buddy who then hands it over to the sifter.
The contents of the basket are then drawn through long, dug out tree trunks. They then stomp out the silt, small rocks and gravel from the mixture. The remaining contents are then dumped into a stream where panners sift for diamonds with their black ironwood dulang (Pan). (Spencer et al. 75; Das)
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