L E O N A R D Y.

A N DAYA

A
:
6K
:
H
of the SAME TREE
Trade and Ethnicity in the Straits of Melaka

Leaves of the Same Tree

Leaves of the Same Tree

Trade and Ethnicity in the Straits of Melaka

Leonard Y. Andaya

University of Hawaii Press

Honolulu

 2008 University of Hawaii Press

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
13 12 11 10 09 08

6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Andaya, Leonard Y.
Leaves of the same tree : trade and ethnicity in the Straits of Melaka / Leonard Y.
Andaya.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8248-3189-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. EthnicityAsia, Southeastern. 2. EthnologyAsia, Southeastern. 3. Asia,
SoutheasternCommerceHistory. 4. Malacca, Strait ofCommerceHistory.
I. Title.
DS523.3.A5 2008
305.80095951dc22
2007044638

University of Hawaii Press books are printed on acid-free

paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Council on Library Resources.

Designed by Paul Herr

Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

To Barbara
Its been a truly wonderful journey

Contents

List of Maps | viii

Acknowledgments | ix
Introduction

Chapter 1:

Malayu Antecedents | 18

Chapter 2:

Emergence of Malayu | 49

Chapter 3:

Ethnicization of the Minangkabau | 82

Chapter 4:

From Malayu to Aceh | 108

Chapter 5:

The Batak Malayu | 146

Chapter 6:

The Orang Laut and the Malayu | 173

Chapter 7:

The Orang Asli/Suku Terasing and the Malayu | 202

Conclusion: Framing the Southeast Asian

Past in Ethnic Terms | 235
Notes | 241
Abbreviations | 285
Select Bibliography | 287
Index | 315

vii

Maps

Southeast Asia | 2
East-West Trade | 3
Sea of Malayu | 23
Minangkabau

| 92

Northern Sumatra | 130

Batak

| 171

Riau and Lingga Archipelagoes |

Malay Peninsula

viii

| 233

179

Acknowledgments

aving reached the twilight of my academic career, I have

a greater appreciation of any of my projects that reach
fruition. This particular book has been long in the making, not only because of the demands of teaching but also because of having
ventured into academic disciplines and cultural areas that were less familiar
to me. In the process I have benefited immensely from the generosity of many
individuals who were willing to guide me through difficult material. It makes
one aware that in any academic enterprise, collegial cooperation is essential.
To the following colleagues, many of whom read sections of the manuscript,
I would like to express my sincere gratitude for their help: Taufik Abdullah,
Sander Adelaar, Jane Allen, Geoffrey Benjamin, Leonard Bluss, Robert Blust,
David Bulbeck, Cynthia Chou, Robert Dentan, Juli Edo, Kirk Endicott, Jeff
Hadler, Tsuyoshi Kato, Uli Kozok, Michael Laffan, Adri Lapian, Henk Maier,
John Miksic, Henk Niemeijer, Colin Nicholas, Wannasarn Noonsuk, Jon Okamura, Nathan Porath, Jim Scott, Miriam Stark, and Wazir Johan Karim. Any
omission of a name is not deliberate, but simply a sign of failing memory.
The major part of the research was undertaken in Indonesia, Malaysia,
and the Netherlands in 19992000 through the Fulbright-Hays Program, and
I would like to acknowledge the generous funding that made all of this
possible. In the Netherlands in 2000 I was fortunate to have been a Fellowin-Residence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. I would like to
take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation to the staff for the
opportunity to meet such intellectually stimulating colleagues from all parts
of the world and for all the wonderful support facilities in conducting research
in that country. The Netherlands has some of the best libraries and archives
in the world for the study of Indonesia, and I would like to express my thanks
to the staff at the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague and

ix

at the library of the Royal Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), especially Sirtjo Koolhof, for their help during my research in
their institutions. In Indonesia I benefited from the kindness of members of
LIPI (Indonesian Institute of Sciences), particularly my friend and colleague,
Dr. Taufik Abdullah. I also would like to thank the helpful staffs in Malaysia
of the Malaysian-American Commission on Educational Exchange (MACEE)
and the Asia-Europe Institute at the University of Malaya, and particularly
their generous and gracious executive directors, Dr. Don McCloud and
Dr. Shaharil Thalib. Back home at the University of Hawaii, I would like to
express my appreciation to Yati Paseng, our Southeast Asian bibliographer,
who continues to make a researchers life a pleasant one. To the staff of the
University of Hawaii Press, particularly Pam Kelley, my sincere thanks for
the very helpful suggestions in the preparation and the completion of the
manuscript. I am also grateful to Jane J. Eckelman, who so patiently drew and
redrew maps to my specifications, and to the University of Hawaii Research
Relations Fund for their financial assistance.
Once again, as in my previous works, I owe so very much to my wife
and colleague, Barbara Watson Andaya, who has been so patient and longsuffering. Having married another Southeast Asian historian has had many
benefits, of which having a captive reader is one. Throughout this project she
has helped me to think through many difficult problems in conceptualization,
and in the final stages she has patiently (encouraged by promises of Starbucks
coffee) waded through the manuscript identifying inconsistencies, lapses in
analysis, etc. It makes me realize that O. W. Wolters perhaps was not being
sexist but merely pragmatic when he jokingly told his (male) students: Marry
a typist. I actually type better than Barbara, but she obviously has many more
redeeming qualities, and for that I am immensely grateful.
To all of you, my heartfelt thanks.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

f some six thousand ethnolinguistic groups in the world,

about a thousand are found in Southeast Asia. This
immense ethnic diversity has piqued the curiosity of linguists, anthropologists, and sociologists, but oddly, not that of historians until
recently. In general the latter have tended to apply ethnic names loosely, giving insufficient attention to the nature of ethnic identity and the constant
redefinition of groups, particularly in the precolonial period (i.e., before the
late nineteenth century). Historians can therefore profit from social science
insights regarding the shifting components that constitute an ethnic group
and the complexity of ethnicity as a concept. One such insight, from the
anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff, recognizes the ambiguous nature
of ethnicity. Is [ethnicity] an object of analysis, something to be explained?
they ask. Or is it an explanatory device capable of illuminating significant
aspects of human existence? They then proceed to demonstrate the mutual
and dialectic influences between ethnicity as an analytic framework and ethnicity as a conceptual subject.1 The Comaroffs are just two of many social
scientists who have sought to explicate some aspect of this slippery concept.
From this vast array of theoretical ideas, I have selected those that I feel have
direct relevance to historians who wish to use ethnicity as a way of understanding Southeast Asian history.
The value of problematizing ethnicity becomes apparent in the context of
trade, long the lifeblood of Southeast Asians and one of the dominant themes
in the regions history. Southeast Asia sprawls across the Indian and Pacific
Oceans, and until perhaps the sixteenth century the only known sea passage
through the region was the Straits of Melaka. Located midway between the
major civilizations to the east and the west, the straits proved an ideal haven
for ships because it was protected from the strong monsoon winds by parallel

Banda Is.

mountain chains along the spines of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. It was
the endpoint of both the northeast monsoons that blew between January
and April and brought traders from the east, and the southwest monsoons of
July to November, which carried traders from the west. While traders awaited
favorable winds to return home, the communities located astride the straits
quickly seized the opportunities the situation provided. They established ports
for traders to repair their ships, replenish supplies, obtain local products, and
exchange goods with merchants from all parts of the world. Furthermore, the
interior of both landforms that bordered the straits produced valuable forest products, particularly camphor, benzoin, gaharuwood (eaglewood), and
dragons blood (a kind of kino)all of which were highly prized in the international marketplace, particularly in China.
For more than two thousand years, this narrow waterway brought traders, religious scholars, diplomatic missions, and adventurers to the ports
bordering its shores. As a result of the economic opportunities provided by
the steady influx of people and goods, communities in the vicinity of this
waterway became increasingly involved in international trade. Much has been
written about the impact of international and domestic trade in the transformation of Southeast Asian societies, both materially and spiritually. In every
period it was trade that served as the stimulus for the movement of goods and
ideas across continents, and Southeast Asias ideal location midway between

Introduction

major civilizations provided its leaders with the luxury of surveying, experimenting, and selecting those elements that were most appropriate to advance
their societies. Little noticed by historians has been the role of trade in the
process of ethnic formation. The continuing presence of foreign merchants
and visitors contributed to an intense awareness of self among local individuals and groups. To maximize advantage, small socioeconomic units ethnically
identified by their location and involved in small-scale exchange gradually
began to join others of like mind to form numerically larger and more extensive community networks.
The vicinity of the Straits of Melaka is an ideal site to investigate the
relationship between trade and ethnic formation, especially in precolonial
Southeast Asia. Before the middle of the first millennium of the Common
Era, the favored passage through Southeast Asia combined sea and land
routes across the Isthmus of Kra and the northern Malay Peninsula. While
these northern routes continued to be used in later centuries, they became
secondary to the preferred sea route through the straits. Communities bordering or in close proximity to the Straits of Melaka were therefore blessed
with a continuing flow of seaborne commerce, bringing benefits to those
most effective in adjusting to the opportunities presented. In the process of
adapting to change, certain communities in the straits area saw the value of
detaching themselves from a larger ethnic identity to form smaller and more

Introduction

effective units, whereas others saw greater advantage in becoming affiliated

with a larger ethnic grouping.
Ethnic formation in the Straits of Melaka may have been stimulated further by increasing contact with Europeans from the sixteenth century, the
century that has been called a high point in the cycle of ethnic consciousness in Europe.2 With increased ethnic awareness, coupled with the desire to
classify and thus control, the Europeans assiduously listed local individuals
with whom they came into contact by their ethnic group. This was particularly evident in the ports, where European officials wished to control the
movement of certain rival or enemy groups. The results were predictable:
individuals tended to claim the most useful ethnic identity because there was
little to distinguish one group from another, and most could communicate
in Malayu, the trade lingua franca. When the Malayu3 kingdom of Johor was
given special privileges by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) for their
assistance in the seizure of Portuguese Melaka in 1641, there would have been
many who claimed to be Malayu from Johor. An opposite reaction occurred
when the Bugis of southwest Sulawesi were regarded as the enemies of the
VOC. They simply claimed to be Malayu, Javanese, or another more favored
ethnic community in order to be allowed to trade in Dutch ports and to travel
the seas free from VOC harassment.
Malayu ethnicity is an important theme in this study. In a situation of
increasing economic competition there was a politicization of ethnic identities,
or what Kahn has termed the ethnicization of groups.4 The emergence and
expansion of the Malayu resulting from a convergence of economic and political interests encouraged at different times the formation of the Minangkabau,
the Acehnese, and to a certain extent the Batak ethnic identities. For such
groups, identifying cultural discontinuities within a common Malayu culture
was a necessary process in the erecting of ethnic boundaries.5 The Malayu
were also the stimulus for the formation of the new ethnic categories of Orang
Laut (Sea Peoples) and Orang Asli/Suku Terasing (Original Peoples/Isolated
Ethnic Groups, i.e., the forest and hill peoples). They performed valuable services for the Malayu rulers as providers of ocean and jungle products and as
defenders of the routes through the various seas and forests. In return they
were richly rewarded economically and spiritually by the Malayu rulers, thus
encouraging the maintenance of this symbiotic exchange through the preservation of separate lifestyles. Yet deliberate efforts by all groups in the straits to
erect ethnic boundaries to emphasize difference cannot disguise the fact that
they are leaves of the same tree.6
In this study I have attempted to capture the dynamism of the process of
ethnic formation with each individual group. Because of the unevenness in the
quality and quantity of materials available, it has not been possible to follow a

Introduction

single pattern of investigation nor to maintain a common time frame for all.
Instead, my primary concern has been to make the best use of the sources in
illuminating the process and thus demonstrating its vitality and significance in
the interpretation of Southeast Asian history. Too often the story of Southeast
Asia has been structured according to ethnic struggles, a presentist approach
that obscures the flexibility of ethnic identities in the past. I hope that this
work, focusing on trade and ethnic formation in a small area of Southeast Asia,
will encourage other historians to engage the issue of ethnicity to determine
the extent to which it informed the actions of Southeast Asians in the past.

Ethnicity as an Explanatory Device

The plethora of writings on ethnicity in the social sciences has led to a bewildering variety of interpretations, raising some doubts regarding its usefulness as a concept. Yet scholars persist in attempting to understand ethnicity because of the intensity of emotion that ethnic issues continue to evoke
among ordinary people. While some have argued that ethnicity is a modern
phenomenon, there is every reason to believe that group identity based on
shared beliefs, practices, and real and fictive ancestors would have been as
significant in the past.7 This is the proper task of the historian, who can bring
a different perspective to the studies of ethnicity long dominated by social
scientists. At the very least such an endeavor should encourage other historians to become aware of the problem of an unreflective acceptance of ethnic
communities as somehow fixed forever in time.
Anthropologists have demonstrated the fluidity and complexity of ethnic
identities, particularly in Southeast Asia. Edmund Leachs classic 1954 study
of highland Burma reveals the ease with which a Kachin could become Shan
and a Shan a Kachin by means of a preference of one form of social system over another. In viewing the Kachin as a complex product of its political relations with neighboring distinctive communities, Leach encouraged a
new direction in the study of ethnicity.8 Since Leachs work, social scientists
have examined the socially constructed and political nature of ethnicity, and
it has become clear that the colonial state and the modern nation-state have
been instrumental in the creation of ethnic categories and groups.9 Charles
Keyes has even argued that ethnicity has flourished as a result of nationalist discourses.10 In the United States, the increasing politicization of ethnic
minorities has spawned an entire new field of ethnic studies and created new
identities based on geography (pan-Asian), as well as on culture and language
(Latino).11
Yet the interest in difference is a human quality, and there is every reason to believe that ethnic ideas were also prominent in Southeast Asias past.

Introduction

Although people, and hence documents, may not have used such terms as
ethnicity or nationalism, there is no reason to believe that such notions
of group identities were absent. The anthropologist Richard OConnor was
among the first to suggest that ecological adaptation, language, and agricultural techniques are significant shifts that can explain the so-called decline
and emergence of ethnic groups in Southeast Asia.12 There are encouraging
signs that historians of Southeast Asia are finally engaging the issue of ethnicity. In a recent article, David K. Wyatt cautions against reading modern
ethnic identities into Thailands past.13 A similar critical reading of ethnicity
is addressed in Victor Liebermans 2003 study of Southeast Asia between the
ninth and nineteenth centuries.14 The persistence of ethnic issues suggests that
ethnicity should not be regarded simply as a precursor to nationalism of the
modern nation-state, but as a concept that was relevant in the past and may
help to illuminate the particular ways that events unfolded in Southeast Asia.
Although the much-quoted phrases invention of traditions and imagined
communities begin with the premise that this process was associated with
the creating of modern ethnic or nation-state nationalisms, this process was
also a feature of communities in precolonial Southeast Asia.15
The complexity of the subject demands a clarification of certain key
terms. Ethnicity is used throughout this work to refer to a way of conceptualizing the world and acting in it by privileging group identity and interests.
Religion, class, and gender are other ways in which the past could be structured, but they are subordinated to and form components of ethnic identity.
The second key term is ethnic group or community. The historian
Anthony Smith believes that the French word ethnie best captures and combines the distinction found in Greek between genos, applied to kinship-based
groups, and ethnos, a broader term used for groups sharing a culture. He lists
as attributes of an ethnie a collective name, a common myth of descent, a
shared history, a distinctive shared culture, association with a specific territory, and a sense of solidarity transmitted by the upper strata to the rest of the
community. The last point is particularly important because in times of crisis
all class, factional, regional, and other identities are submerged by the strength
of the groups sense of solidarity.16 Smiths ethnie attributes are relevant in the
formation of ethnic groups in the vicinity of the Straits of Melaka. In defining
a group, greatest emphasis was on a strong social network established through
real and fictive kinship ties, reinforced by shared myths and symbols associated with and often created by their leaders.
Ethnic category forms the third key term in this study. This refers to
a loose and generalized collectivity to which groups attach themselves or are
assigned by outsiders because of certain shared characteristics. While the
members of an ethnic category acknowledge some common cultural relation-

Introduction

ship, their interpersonal and intergroup relationships are limited. In central

Borneo, for example, such ethnic categories as Kayan, Kenyah, Kelabit, Penan,
etc., do not form social units or a distinct social system and may not even
share the same language and culture.17 A similar observation may be made of
the Orang Laut and Orang Asli/Suku Terasing ethnic categories in the Straits
of Melaka. Ethnic categories and ethnic groups are fluid concepts and can be
re-formed to include or exclude others.
Basic to the notion of ethnicity is that a groups ethnic consciousness
arises through contact with others who are perceived as different. As Thomas
Eriksen explains, ethnicity is essentially an aspect of a relationship, not a
property of a group.18 Once difference is acknowledged, it is necessary to
exploit this difference through the establishment of ethnic markers. Commonly cited as ethnic markers are cultural elements, such as dress, clothing,
food, language, or even religious belief, but different ethnic groups may also
share the same cultural elements. For this reason Frederik Barth argues that
rather than focusing on the contents, one should identify the boundaries
erected by the group to distinguish itself from its neighbors. In his study of
the Pathans of Afghanistan, for example, he lists hospitality, councils of equals,
and seclusion of women as elements that make up the Pathan boundary.19
In a close reading of Barths study, however, Marcus Banks found evidence that Pathans will in fact grudgingly claim a common ethnic unity
based on cultural features, or what Barth calls the contents of an ethnicity.
Among the shared features named by the Pathans are patrilineal descent from
a common ancestor, Islam, and custom, including language, oral literature,
and certain masculine attributes. Banks argues that both the Pathan-centric
and the Barthian-centric conceptions are closer to Barths contents than his
boundaries, since many of these features are shared by neighboring ethnic communities. Banks then makes the important observation that the only
principle that distinguishes the Pathans is their putative descent from a common ancestor.20
In 1998, responding to criticisms of his pioneering 1969 work on ethnic
boundaries, Barth modified his arguments. He acknowledged that in individual lives, culture often consists of the blending of difference and of adaptation, rather than the erection of boundaries. For this reason he suggested
focusing on the process whereby variation of culture is identified and made
salient to form a shared understanding of the cultural discontinuity that
then forms the crucial boundary of an ethnic group.21 Such boundaries may
separate an ethnic group from another, or ethnic groups within an ethnic
category. Each new boundary-making exercise is accompanied by the process of reinterpreting tradition to establish legitimacy for and loyalty to the
new community. As this study shows, ethnicity can be invoked to serve as a

Introduction

stimulus and a justification for group action to maximize the groups advantage, as well as to counter a negative image or prevent absorption by a dominant
ethnic community. Membership in the group is determined by acknowledgment of a shared field of interaction and communication. An ethnic group
can identify itself and be identified with an ethnic category, but most of its
interactions will be within an ethnic group or community.
A study of ethnicity usually begins with the old debate between the primordialists and those called situationalists, circumstantialists, instrumentalists, or constructivists. The former stance, often associated with Edward Shils
and Harold Isaacs,22 argues that individuals are born endowed with certain
fixed qualities that they share with a specific group of people. It is these primordial elements that serve to bond the members into an ethnic unity. The
situationalist position, which many social scientists adopt, criticizes the rigidity implied in the primordialist argument and views ethnicity as a fluid concept. It argues that the elements defining the group are constantly undergoing change and rearrangement in response to shifting historical and cultural
circumstances.23
Most scholars writing on ethnicity today take a middle ground. They
agree that an ethnic group is fluid, is continually adjusting to shifting circumstances, and is multilayered, but they also recognize the significance of the
primordialist emphasis on some ineffable quality of group identity that defies
any situationalist explanation. It is this perceived primordial element that
has evoked such fervent, even fanatic response from individuals throughout
history. There is also a recognition of the agency of ethnic actors who are not
merely shaped by contexts, but who actively seek to construct their identity
from a host of variables. In the process of ethnic re-formation, the group
adjusts the contents and boundary to enable its members to be ideally
placed to benefit from new circumstances. The middle stance therefore
acknowledges the ongoing, active role of the group in redefining the cultural
elements constituting its identity, as well as the desire of a group to believe in
an essential core that distinguishes it from others.
The resulting traditions are not invented in the Hobsbawm sense
of being manufactured in order to inculcate certain values and norms of
behaviour.24 They are instead selected, reorganized, and reinterpreted from
a corpus of old and new symbols, myths, remembered events, etc., in light of
shifting circumstances. It is essential that members believe in an enduring core
that defines the group, despite the constantly shifting elements that make up
that core. Individuals seek commonalities that can be summoned to bind
them together as a group for maximum economic, social, or political advantage. The enhancement of a groups status and prestige in the eyes of others,
which Donald Horowitz describes as group entitlement, in turn serves to

Introduction

bolster the individual members own sense of pride and self-worth.25 The process of ethnic formation enables the individual and the group to select from,
in Joanne Nagels memorable phrase, a portfolio of ethnic identities.26
The increasing globalization in all spheres of life and the resulting human
and capital mobility have all but transformed our traditional perceptions. The
porous borders, transnational activities of individuals, and the merging of
global economic forces have all produced a phenomenon Arjun Appadurai
has described as an ethnoscape. By this neologism, he means the landscape
of persons who make up the shifting world in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guest-workers, and other moving groups and persons.27 Those inhabiting this ethnoscape interact with the more conventional
established networks of affiliations to create new possibilities of unities. The
cultural dynamics of deterritorialization thus enable individuals and groups
to imagine themselves from a wider set of possibilities than ever before.28 For
a historian working in the precolonial period in Southeast Asia, the situation
described by Appadurai is familiar. The Straits of Melaka served as a channel
of goods, ideas, and news from the outside world, thus igniting the imaginations of individuals and groups living along its shores to new possibilities of
ethnic and other affiliations.
A common origin and a shared ancestor form meaningful ethnic markers
that legitimize the group and reaffirm its sacred links to the past. Acknowledging the spiritual potency of the idea of origins, John Armstrong and Anthony
Smith have both used the concept of a mythomoteur, defined as the constitutive myth of the ethnic polity, which is based on the belief in a mythic
primordial past.29 Adherence to a mythomoteur, they argue, provides a powerful sense of a common fate among its members, thus defining them from
others.30 Although Smith distinguishes between a dynastic and a communal
mythomoteur, he nevertheless questions whether one should insist on such a
division. He asks, Is it true that upper-class culture was generally of an utterly
different character from the many cultures of the peasantry, and that therefore
there could be no sense of shared identity between the classes in any area or
polity?31 In the case of the Malayu in the precolonial period, sumptuary laws
may have been created to recognize difference but customary law and shared
cultural ideas clearly emphasized the communal purpose, thereby strengthening group unity. Precolonial Southeast Asian societies were characterized by
strong bonds between chiefs/rulers and their subjects, who were often kinfolk.
When a larger unity was required, the dynastic mythomoteur served to establish the social and political bonding for the newly extended boundaries of the
group.32
In the theories of ethnicity, the elite groups play a leading role in the
creation of a groups cultural ideology. But the process is not all one-sided,

Introduction

and ordinary people are equally important in reinforcing these boundaries

by emphasizing differences, no matter how slight. How men and women wear
their hair or tie their sarongs, what types of food they eat, what language
they speak or even how they speak it, can all be important markers of ethnic
identity. For the common folk these are not soft boundaries33 but meaningful ones that are reinforced through daily activities. By making these mundane choices, people themselves strengthen the boundaries established on a
more reified level by their spiritual and temporal leaders. Tangible and easily
adopted, the boundaries erected by common people can be readily breached
to enable individuals and groups to strategically deploy one or more identities
in different circumstances to maximize advantage. The role of the elite and
the ordinary people in the process of ethnic formation thus allows for maximum flexibility in periods of rapid change. This is the situation that prevailed
among many of the communities living in the vicinity of the Straits of Melaka
in the precolonial period and explains the ease with which individuals and
groups moved from one ethnic community to another.
Language is one of the most cited elements in defining a group, and its
strength as a unifying force comes from its flexibility. This is clearly demonstrated in an episode involving the main protagonist Hang Tuah and the
maidens from Indrapura in the popular Malayu tale the Hikayat Hang Tuah.34
When the maidens apologize that their use of the Malayu language lacks the
purity of that of the Melakans, Hang Tuah reassures them that the language of
Melaka itself is mixed (kacukan).35 During Acehs dominance as the center of
the Malay world in the seventeenth century, its form of the Malayu language
became the prestigious version even though it created difficulties in comprehension in parts of the wider Malayu-speaking world. A Muslim scholar from
Banjarmasin in the seventeenth century wrote a companion piece to a Malay
Islamic treatise from Aceh because he claimed that the latter contained too
many Acehnisms.36 These examples suggest that the Malayu language was
spoken in different ways in the seventeenth century. Even Melaka, regarded as
the center of Malayu culture in the fifteenth century, acknowledged the validity of the Malayu language spoken in Indrapura. Yet the dialectal differences
in no way diminished the importance of the Malayu language as an important
boundary marker in delineating a Malayu world that incorporated a diverse
population.
While the variation in the manner in which the Malayu language was
spoken and written was used to define specific ethnic communities, the
Malayu language was the boundary for the ethnic category. The variations of
the Malayu language suited the multiplicity of ethnic groups that used that
language as a basis of identity. The late nineteenth century, however, saw a
change in the attitude toward language use. In order to learn more about the

10

Introduction

area and to facilitate their control, European colonial powers commissioned

the recopying of local histories, law codes, belles lettres, and other cultural
works. The coincidence of a particular language that was used both for written documents and for ordinary speech by the majority community often
became the colonial basis for ethnic identity. In time such ethnic boundaries were self-fulfilling, with bilingual or even trilingual speakers claiming the
most advantageous language and ethnic group with which to be identified to
the colonial powers.
It may be scientifically indefensible to argue for distinctive ethnicities
because of the continuing intermingling and exchange of biological and cultural elements among groups.37 Nevertheless, individuals and communities
have displayed a persistent desire to underscore difference and to define and
redefine themselves in order to promote their individual or group interests.
History is rife with examples of ethnonations and nation-states successfully
appealing to some sense of communal solidarity to defend a bounded entity.
There is a conviction that their venerable traditions, and hence their link
to the ancestral past, remain unchanged. Activity based on ethnic consciousness, notwithstanding ethnicitys variability and ongoing reinterpretations,
is an undeniable historical reality. The corpus of traditions allows variant
interpretations and a degree of ambiguity that facilitates the incorporation of
desired individuals or communities. Even the concept of hybridity, seemingly
counterintuitive to ideas of origins, can be harnessed to strengthen a groups
identity. It is precisely this hybrid quality that enabled individuals to claim
Malayu ethnicity no matter how tenuous their claim to shared traditions.38
The ambiguity and multiple meanings that groups could extract from Malayu
origins and traditions made Malayu an extensive, expansive, and imperializing ethnicity.
There is a large menu of ethnic theories with a bewildering array of
approaches. Although some lament the lack of precision and consensus regarding a definition of ethnicity, such unsatisfactory results are to be expected.
Human interactions are by nature unpredictable and dynamic, defying any
clear and definitive characterization. Yet it is possible to use ethnicity as an
important analytic tool to explain group relations in Southeast Asian history.

Ethnic Communities as Objects of Analysis

According to many oral traditions, the early communities in Southeast Asia
began as small, kin-based societies with clan elders as their natural leaders.
Such groups were generally known by a name they called themselves (endonym) and one or more names given to them by outsiders (exonym). The most
common form of self-identification was the local word for human being

Introduction

11

or people, in contradistinction presumably to animals, ethereal beings,

the forests, and all others that inhabited their universe. To distinguish themselves from other human communities, a group often added another form of
identification based on location, such as people of the upriver, people of
the hills, people of the swamplands, etc. These were appropriate and adequate markers of ethnicity among economically interdependent groups living
within a limited geographic space.
In time the groups numbers generally increased, the search for additional resources became necessary, and contact with the outside world grew
more frequent. The impingement of groups became common, and the need
for some type of mutually agreeable economic and political arrangement
encouraged the formation of a more active and intrusive form of governance.
The process is captured in local traditions, where a pre-existing community
seeks an arbiter in its affairs whose judgment would be accepted by the people.
This condition is met in the dynastic myth (Smiths dynastic mythomoteur),
which associates the progenitor of the royal family with supernatural origins.
Around this sacred figure the various kinship communities coalesce to form
a single political entity. With the proliferation and expansion of such polities,
the authority of these sacred figures/rulers overlapped at the frontiers. These
frontiers thus formed the dynamic region of political arrangements termed
mandala polities by Wolters and galactic polities by Tambiah.39
According to this roughly similar conception, the mandala/galactic polity is the center of its universe, with satellite communities located around
it. A graphic image of the exercise of power in such polities is that of an
upturned lamp, whose light is intense in the center but gradually fades away
at the edges.40 What the image conveys is a situation of constant realignment
of groups, in which the overlapping edges of authority become the site for
contestation. The periphery retains a position of strength because it is able to
shift allegiances or maintain multiple allegiances in promoting its best interests. At these dynamic edges individuals and groups are able to claim multiple
ethnic identities, or to move in and out of ethnicities as the circumstances
warrant. The periphery, then, determines whether the exemplary center
survives or is replaced by another. For this reason, the center takes great care
to maintain strong bonds with influential families or individuals in the crucial borderlands.
The common practice of bilateral kinship, which traces lineage through
both males and females, facilitated alliances among families in Southeast Asia.
There was no particular advantage in having male children; female children
were as valuable because they, too, could be strategically married to advance
the familys economic, social, and political fortunes. Through such marriages,
certain powerful families had networks extending to more than one polity,

12

Introduction

with some family members at the periphery claiming multiple allegiances.

Bilateral kinship inheritance patterns made it imperative for individuals to
retain rights both in their own families and in those of their in-laws. Sometimes this involved belonging to two separate ethnic groups, as in the case of
the Batak, because land ownership and the rituals associated with its transfer
could only be effected by ethnic Batak.41 In some cases, the Batak adopted an
additional Malayu ethnic identity because of the advantage of being intermediaries between the Malayu coast and the Batak highlands.42
In short, precolonial Southeast Asia was not subject to international conventions confining individuals within a fixed space and imposing on them a
specific legal identity. Ethnic identity was a fluid concept, and the decision to
adopt one or more ethnicities was the privilege of the individual. The mandala/galactic polity encouraged rather than opposed such practices because
people were a source of wealth. The relative paucity of people in Southeast
Asia until the twentieth century made rulers particularly anxious to retain
their subjects and to attract others. Indigenous documents exhort rulers to
perform good deeds to attract followers and thereby bring prosperity to the
land. In this regard, Southeast Asian groups were more concerned with the
maintenance of the porosity rather than the impermeability of their ethnic
boundaries.
In this study I have been guided by Joel Kahns astute observation that
one should not focus on the principles that unite a culture, but on the social
process operating under specific historical circumstances that produced that
culture.43 Implied in this statement is the futility of depicting any ethnic identity as fixed since the construction of ethnicity is an ongoing sociohistorical
process. For this reason I have focused on the process of ethnic formation
to highlight the contingent nature of ethnic identity and the fluidity of its
manifestation.

Process of Ethnic Formation in the Straits of Melaka

Each chapter relies on a historical narrative based on trade that helps explain
why, when, and where various ethnic groups and categories were formed or
re-formed in the distant and more recent past. The groups that have been
chosen as the basis of this study are those that are regarded as the ancient
inhabitants of the lands and seas bordering the Straits of Melaka. Although
Indians, Chinese, and the Bugis have played important roles in the history
of the straits, they are relatively recent settlers and are associated with home
areas outside the straits. Inclusion of these groups would also have required
attention to another major issue, that of diaspora, and thus complicate an
already complex subject.

Introduction

13

The Malayu were one of the earliest and most influential in the straits,
and their prominent role in international trade spurred the ethnicization of
other groups. As far as I can determine, as an ethnonym, Malayu referred
first to the communities living in southeast Sumatra and later came to include
those settled along both coasts and in the central and northern interior areas
of the island. From the fifteenth century the ethnonym was also applied to
those living on the Malay Peninsula who were descendants of Malayu immigrants from Sumatra. The name itself has been used at various times to refer
to a language, a culture, a regional group, a polity, and a local community. It
is not surprising, therefore, that it has spawned a wide variety of interpretations concerning its meaning and significance.44 Most of these discussions,
however, overlook an emerging culture in the northern portion of the Straits
of Melaka that formed the antecedents of Malayu culture. The settlements in
northern Sumatra and in the Isthmus of Kra and the Malay Peninsula were
part of an extensive network of communities, which I have termed the Sea of
Malayu. Chapter 1 explores this exchange network that extended from southern India and Sri Lanka to northern Sumatra, the Isthmus of Kra, and the
northern Malay Peninsula, across to the Gulf of Siam and the Lower Mekong
of southern Cambodia, to the Cham areas of southern and central Vietnam.45
The long and profitable interaction within this common sea produced a
shared cultural idiom that helped shape Malayu identity.
Chapter 2 is a more specific examination of the Malayu culture that
developed in the early southeast Sumatran polities of Sriwijaya and Malayu
between the seventh and fourteenth centuries. While inscriptions and external
sources are limited, there is sufficient linguistic and archaeological evidence
to form the basis for a tentative reconstruction of the sociopolitical organization and the nature of the economy of these polities, especially of Sriwijaya.
Certain features of the society can be detected, including the role of family in
government, a reliance on sea and forest peoples in assuring the collection of
products and protection of routes for international trade, the maritime and
riverine environment, the sacral quality of kingship, and the use of oaths as an
important political and economic tool. The term Malayu thus came to designate those communities that had incorporated many of the features identified
initially with Sriwijaya and its successor, the polity of Malayu. In Sumatra,
the expansion of the Malayu as an ethnic community and an economic force
served as a catalyst for the ethnicization of other groups.
The historical circumstances that gave rise to a separate Minangkabau
ethnic identity from the Malayu is the subject of chapter 3. In 1365 the Javanese court poem, the Desawarnana, included the Minangkabau highlands
and most of the areas on Sumatra as part of the bhumi Malayu, the Malayu
world. Inscriptions, artistic remains, and other archaeological finds indicate

14

Introduction

that there was a polity in the highlands whose royal settlement was called
Malayupura, the Malayu City. But sometime between the late fourteenth
and early sixteenth century, the local identity that had been subsumed by the
Malayu began to assert itself. Early sixteenth-century Portuguese documents
mention the Minangkabau by name and of their kings ruling in the highlands.
Only with the arrival of the VOC in the seventeenth century, however, are
there sufficient contemporary reports to trace the ethnicization process of the
Minangkabau. The economic opportunities provided by the removal of Acehnese control and the increase in trade through the straits provided the impetus
for the formation of a separate Minangkabau ethnic identity. Through a convergence of local beliefs in the supernatural powers of the Pagaruyung ruler
and the VOC decision to support his claims, a new Minangkabau ethnicity was
created that proved effective in rallying the people to act as one for economic
and political advantage.
The Malayu were associated with Sumatra until the rise of Melaka on
the Malay Peninsula in the fifteenth century. Melakas stunning success as an
international entrepot and center of Islamic scholarship raised the regional
status of the Malayu considerably. Melaka became synonymous with Malayu
and began to be regarded as the standard-bearer of Malayu culture. With the
capture of Melaka by the Portuguese in 1511, two competitors emerged to
claim the mantle of Melakas successor in the Malayu world: Johor and Aceh.
As shown in chapter 4, Aceh prevailed because of its strong economic and cultural links to the great Muslim kingdoms in the Middle East and India. During the sixteenth and for much of the seventeenth century, Aceh established
new standards of Malayness based on Islam and on many court practices that
mirrored the foremost Muslim kingdoms at the time. As the leading Malayu
polity, Acehs new standards were applied along both Sumatran coasts, in the
west coast of the Malay Peninsula, and in Pahang on the east coast.
When Johor eventually emerged in the late seventeenth century to replace
Aceh as the center of the Malayu world, it adopted the stronger Islamic behavior
instituted by Aceh but reverted to the court customs of the Melaka period. By
the late eighteenth century, Acehs rejection as the major Malayu center forced
it to emphasize a new ethnic identity centered on the interior and agriculture,
rather than on the coast and international trade. Unlike the coastal regions
of Aceh, where the Malayu language was dominant, the interior areas were
principally Acehnese-speaking. The new Acehnese identity was reinforced by
literary works written not in the Malayu but the Acehnese language. The new
Acehnese identity proved so successful that by the nineteenth century few
remembered Aceh as once being the leading center of the Malayu world.
Chapter 5 narrates the story of the ethnicization of the Batak. As with
the Minangkabau and the Acehnese, the Batak were formerly a part of the

Introduction

15

fourteenth-century Javanese depiction of the bhumi Malayu. Contrary to

widely held opinion, the Batak were never isolated from the outside world
because they were the principal suppliers of camphor and benzoin. These two
resins grow abundantly in north Sumatra in the Batak country surrounding Lake Toba and were in great demand in the international marketplace.
To meet this demand, the interior Batak communities organized themselves
for the collecting and transporting of valuable resins to the Malayu entrepots
on both Sumatran coasts. Until the destruction of Sriwijaya by the Cholas
in 1025, these products were brought to this leading entrepot on the southeastern coast. Subsequently, the Batak brought the resins to Kota Cina and
other polities on the northeastern coast of Sumatra, as well as to Barus, an
ancient entrepot located on the northwest coast. As a result of this long trade
relationship, there was a flow of ideas between the Malayu and the Batak. This
is clearly evident in the monuments and statues found at the archaeological site of Padang Lawas, at the frontier of the Batak and the Malayu (later
Minangkabau) lands.
Beginning in the fifteenth century, the introduction of pepper cultivation in Sumatra provided yet another opportunity for the Batak to become
involved in international trade. The intensive labor required for the cultivation of pepper left little time for rice cultivation, and so rice became a valued
commodity in the pepper-producing areas of Sumatra. Many of the Batak
were thus encouraged to move out of their home areas around Lake Toba
to seek lands for the planting of rice. The spread of the Batak into different
areas led to separate developments and modifications of Batak cultural ideas
and the formation of various Batak subethnic communities known today as
Karo, Simalungun, Pakpak-Dairi, Toba, Angkola, and Mandailing. But in earlier times the term Batak would have been used as an ethnic identity for
those who traced their origins to the area of Lake Toba and adhered to the
indigenous religion. The ancient belief system provided the myths and symbols that defined and strengthened ideas of Batakness. Its priests and religious
teachers with their extensive network of marketplaces, worship centers, and
students forged a common Batak identity that proved useful in the competitive economic environment of the Straits of Melaka.
The final two chapters discuss two ethnic categories, marginalized today
but once invaluable to the Malayu groups both in Sumatra and the Malay
Peninsula. Chapter 6 discusses the communities that form the ethnic category
known by the exonym Orang Laut (though the government in Malaysia has
arbitrarily submerged this identity under that of Orang Asli), and chapter
7 focuses on the Orang Asli (known as Suku Terasing in Indonesia). Their
current emasculated political and economic position has colored interpretations of their important role in Malayu polities in the past as collectors of

16

Introduction

sea and forest products and as guardians of the sea and jungle routes. The
Orang Lauts knowledge of the seas and their navigational skills made them
an indispensable part of the Malayu rulers naval forces. Malayu traditions
themselves acknowledge the debt owed to the Orang Asli and the Orang Laut,
and even highlight the significant marital arrangements contracted between
these two groups and the Malayu rulers to strengthen their mutually beneficial relationship.
The distinct, complementary economic role of the Orang Laut and
the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing to that of the Malayu was a major reason for
a respected partnership in earlier times. Their ethnicization was therefore a
deliberate effort to preserve a way of life that guaranteed their advantage and
eventual survival from the intrusions of their numerically dominant Malayu
neighbors. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the shift in economic wealth away from sea and forest products, the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing and the Orang Laut lost their value to the Malayu. In a relatively short
space of time, an exonym once bestowed in respect and proudly ethnicized by
its members became a stigma. The result was a predictable rise of mutual suspicion and of violence committed mainly by the Malayu against the sea and
forest peoples. Through the revitalization and resymbolizing of the Orang
Asli name, the group has been able to promote its political interests in Malaysia and acquire greater recognition from the outside world. No such progress,
however, has been made in the position of the Suku Terasing in Sumatra.
Ethnic formation is an ongoing process, with trade being the principal
stimulus for change in Southeast Asia in earlier centuries. With this understanding of the nature of ethnicity and of the process of ethnic formation, it
is necessary to rethink views of ethnic politics in history. Ethnicity can be
a means of explaining difference, a basis for group action, and a mechanism
contributing to the successful functioning of the mandala/galactic polities in
precolonial Southeast Asia. Fortunes of groups change, and the stories of the
Orang Asli/Suku Terasing and the Orang Laut are useful reminders that some
groups exercise greater agency than others in the formulation of ethnic identities. By acknowledging both ethnicitys explanatory value and its dynamic
characteristics, historians should be able to examine this concept with greater
precision and offer a more nuanced view of its role in Southeast Asian pasts.

Introduction

17

Chapter 1

Malayu Antecedents

n many history books the story of the Malayu1 begins with

the fifteenth-century kingdom of Melaka and occasionally
with the seventh- to eleventh-century kingdom of Sriwijaya. The first can be justified in terms of the history of the Malayu on the
Malay Peninsula, while the second is based on growing evidence of the early
development of Malayu culture in southeast Sumatra. But the story can be
pushed back even further as a result of the latest linguistic and archaeological
research. In reaching back into the past, the outlines of ethnic groups as we
know them today become blurred and indistinct. For this reason it would be
presumptuous to assume that there was a clear Malayu ethnicity in prehistoric
times that has continued basically unchanged into the present.2 It is not my
intention here to establish the antiquity of the Malayu people, but simply to
try to understand how such a group could have emerged from an ancient past
where ethnicity was an indeterminate and perhaps even irrelevant category.
In the seventh century CE there was a group of people speaking the same
language living in a place known as Malayu, who could have called themselves
at appropriate times people of the land Malayu. Through comparative linguistics it is even possible to trace the Malayu language to a proto-language
that developed in west Borneo. But the ability of the linguist, the archaeologist, and the historian to see connections between groups of people in no
way implies that such links were perceptible to the people themselves. A more
reasonable assumption is that long social and economic intercourse among
communities helped create a form of identitynot necessarily expressed
in ethnic termsbased on a common language of communication and of
shared experiences. In this chapter I argue that the ancient ongoing intercourse among particular communities straddling the Indian subcontinent,
the Southeast Asian isthmus and the northern Malay Peninsula, and the
shores of the South China Sea created a voyaging corridor3 and a pattern

18

of interaction that became the basis for a common identity. It is impossible

to know whether such an identity was actually formalized or even referred to
by name. Although early travelers and modern scholars have given specific
names to such complexes for convenience or heuristic purposes, one should
not assume that the participants of the complexes themselves perceived an
overarching identity. As discussed in the introduction, specific circumstances
would have determined choices of identity. My decision to refer to this voyaging corridor as the Sea of Malayu is based on the nature of the relationships and the prominence played by groups who later became identified as
Malayu. Linked by sailing ships, a sea of communities came to be characterized by the most dominant of the participants. In the first half of the first
millennium CE, communities in the Lower Mekong, which the Chinese called
Funan,4 were most likely the dominant partner. Funans language and customs may have then become the norm for the lesser partners in the common
sea. Other traders, like those now called Arabs, may have dealt with different
communities and hence called the network by the name of that group. In the
tenth century, for example, Arab geographers referred to the network (which
extended to east Africa) as the Cham Sea.5
The evidence points to the Malayu as the major group within this sea
extending from India to Vietnam and the most likely successor to Funan. By
the end of the seventh century, Sriwijaya had arisen in Palembang in southeast Sumatra as a major polity. It was inhabited by people who wrote stone
inscriptions in the Malayu language but who are not mentioned specifically as
Malayu people. When Sriwijaya was succeeded by Malayu, a polity located
in present-day Jambi, it would therefore have been likely that local inhabitants would have been called orang Malayu, or people of Malayu. The stone
inscriptions supply convincing evidence that Malayu was one of the major
languages of both Sriwijaya and Malayu. A way of life developed by the orang
Malayu would then have become the basis for the association of the group with
certain cultural features. It is important to reiterate, however, that the name
Malayu and what it meant in southeast Sumatra would have undergone
a number of permutations over the centuries.6 What the ancestors of the
Malayu may have called themselves is a mystery, and even the name Malayu
has never been convincingly explained. In other words, it is only possible here
to speak of the antecedents of those who later came to identify themselves as
Malayu in southeast Sumatra, without claiming a direct link between the two.

Austronesian Speakers and the Nusantao Communities

The most widely accepted reconstruction of ancestral Malayu origins is the
Bellwood-Blust synthesis. It dates the initial settlement of proto-Austronesian

Malayu Antecedents

19

speakers in Taiwan between 4000 and 3000 BCE. Proto-Austronesian either

developed in Taiwan or in a subsequent move to the northern Philippines
c. 3000 BCE. With the dispersal of these peoples throughout the rest of the
Philippines, protoMalayo-Polynesian emerged about 2500 BCE. By about
2000 BCE the protoMalayo-Polynesian language began to break up as migration resumed to the southern Philippines, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Borneo, with
settlement in western Borneo dated between 1500 and 500 BCE.7
In the proto-Austronesian family tree reconstructed by linguists, a subgroup called Malayo-Chamic forms part of the Western MalayoPolynesian
languages. Working from this basis, Graham Thurgood lists two branches of
Malayo-Chamic: one is Malayic languages, from which derived proto-Malayu
and the various Malayu dialects, including Minangkabau; and the other is
proto-Chamic, which gave rise to coastal Cham and Acehnese.8 Linguists
believe that the homeland of Malayo-Chamic was in western Borneo and that
several hundred years BCE there was a move outward through the Tambelan
and Riau islands to the Malay Peninsula. From the Malay Peninsula, one group
crossed over to southeast Sumatra and became the ancestors of the Malayu
speakers, while another group proceeded to the coasts of Vietnam and became
the ancestors of the Cham language speakers.9 Sometime before 1000 CE
a northerly Cham group left central Vietnam and became the Acehnese speakers of northern Sumatra.10 From very early on, therefore, the Acehnese in
northern Sumatra formed a different branch of the Malayo-Chamic subgroup
from the Malayic speakers in the southern part of Sumatra. Resulting from a
back-migration to Sumatra, the Acehnese language contains clear borrowings from interaction with non-Austronesian speakers.11 Contact between the
Acehnese and the Chams may have been maintained through the centuries.12
Early Malayo-Polynesian communities developed in a subtropical coastal
and riverine environment where the economy was based on cereal, tubers,
and domesticated animals. In the process of adapting to specific ecological
niches, their descendants began to embrace differing lifestyles. Some foraged
the rain forests and the seas for products in great demand in the international marketplace; others engaged in various forms of irrigated and rain-fed
cultivation of cereals, fruits, and tubers; while still others specialized in the
exploitation of the sago palm.13 Archaeological records for island Southeast
Asia indicate that during these migrations the best coastal sites were occupied
first. Only when or if there were no suitable coasts to settle did migrants move
into the interior. A feature Peter Bellwood terms founder rank enhancement
played an important part in this process. Because founders of new settlements
and their descendants were elevated to almost godlike status, there was strong
motivation for members of a junior branch to seek an empty area and establish a new senior line with priority over resources.14

20

Chapter 1

Less well known is a theory advanced by Wilhelm Solheim over a number of years. This ambitious conception incorporates the story of the Austronesian speakers into a wider network of Nusantao communities. Instead
of positing a monodirectional Austronesian movement, Solheim proposes a
multidirectional flow from the different lobes that formed the Nusantao network. He believes that the Nusantao homeland (calculated simply in terms
of the earliest dates known for the existence of a group) is in the Early Central
Lobe in eastern coastal Vietnam and dates it to c. 8000 BCE, much earlier than
Bellwoods reconstruction for the ancestors of the Austronesian speakers. He
suggests that in c. 5000 BCE the people in the Late Central Lobe involved in
this network began moving by water and developed a trade communication
network. It was these maritime trading people who developed Austronesian
as a lingua franca from pre- and proto-Austronesian to facilitate communication among the communities forming this network. As the Nusantao network
expanded out of Taiwan, it was Malayo-Polynesian languages rather than
Austronesian that developed with it. Solheim emphasizes that the expansion
of Malayo-Polynesian was not the result of migrations but of the interaction
occurring within the network. He also emphasizes the important role of maritime people in the dispersal of the Nusantao community.15
In discussing these two major theories regarding the antecedents of the
Malayu, it is important to stress that Austronesian and Nusantao are not
synonymous. The former is linguistic, the latter cultural, and neither refers to
a genetic group. Solheim, however, uses a gene marker identified among the
Southeast Asians but not found in China as an argument for rejecting the view
that the origin of the Austronesian speakers is in southern China. He believes
that ancestors of the Southeast Asians had been living in the region since 5500
BP, after the retreat of flood waters following the end of the Ice Age some eight
thousand years ago. Solheim also disagrees with linguists regarding the route
taken by the Austronesian speakers from southern China to Taiwan, the Philippines, and then down to Southeast Asia and out into the Pacific. Instead,
he suggests that a trade language in the form of Austronesian developed in
coastal south China, northern Vietnam, Taiwan, and northeast Luzon, and
evolved through ongoing contact among the Nusantao communities. The
notion of interacting communities moving in multiple directions allows for
local variations and adaptations to specific geographic conditions.16
Although Solheims dates are generally regarded as being too early, the
appeal of his model is the idea that the spread of a culture, including a lingua
franca, evolved as a by-product of the trade and communications network
of a large number of different communities in a widely dispersed area. In
the historical period the Malayu language and culture were developed and
sustained in very much the same fashion. Linguistic reconstruction of the

Malayu Antecedents

21

migration of the Austronesian speakers does not emphasize the trade aspect,
but for Solheim trade was the major feature and basis for the creation of this
Nusantao maritime trading and communication network. While Bellwood
explained the spread of the Austronesian migration by the phenomenon of
rank enhancement, Solheim points to the long-standing existence of many
maritime populations who became part of this extensive trade network.
Nusantao culture was not associated with a single ethnic group, but with a
style of life and a trade language comprehensible throughout an interactive
region. This particular aspect of Solheims model is helpful in understanding
the formation of an early network of communities I call the Sea of Malayu.

The Sea of Malayu

The first reference to a Sea of Malayu is from an Arabic document dated
c. 1000, which noted that travelers reaching the Sea of Malayu, were approaching
the area of China.17 Eredia, writing in 1613 from Melaka, also uses the phrase
Sea of Malayu, but he identifies it with that land-enclosed sea between the
mainland of Ujontana [Malay Peninsula] and the Golden Chersonese [Sumatra].18 By privileging land over water, Eredia believed that the Sea of Malayu
referred simply to the Straits of Melaka. For the Malayu, who were shaped by
their orientation to the sea and the riverine environment in which they lived,
stretches of land were viewed as barriers that fortunately could be breached
through short land passages.19 The people were named after a particular river
or stretch of river, stream, or coast. In this maritime world, rivers and seas
formed unities, while land formed the link between bodies of water. Based on
this particular way of viewing waterways and identifying people, the Malayu
would have conceived of their sea as a far larger unity than that proposed by
Eredia. Although the Arabic document is not specific, the general reference to
a Sea of Malayu approaching the area of China is an accurate description of
the extensive network viewed as one sea stretching from India to Vietnam.
The sea itself I have called Malayu after the people most prominently
associated with this particular body of water. But the Sea of Malayu that I
am proposing in this study is a community of settlements conjoined through
extensive and intensive economic and cultural interactions. From the late
seventh century the people of Malayu would have played a role, even a leading role, in such a network. The evidence suggests that there existed a single
continuous sea linking southern India and Sri Lanka to the Bay of Bengal,
Sumatra, the Straits of Melaka, the Malay Peninsula, the Gulf of Siam, the
South China Sea, the Lower Mekong, and central Vietnam. The pivotal point
in the network of Sea of Malayu communities was the Straits of Melaka. In
the days of sailing ships, the straits were conveniently located for traders

22

Chapter 1

at the beginning and end of the seasonal monsoon winds. Between November and February the northeast monsoon winds brought ships from East
Asia, and between June and August traders from India, the Middle East, and
Europe rode the southwest monsoon winds to the straits and to points further
east. In between these two dominant patterns, the winds moved in a clockwise direction, enabling traders from the various parts of Southeast Asia to
reach the major entrepots located in or near the Straits of Melaka. Because
the straits provided protection from the force of the monsoon winds, ports
on both shores of the straits have historically competed for the status as the
leading entrepot in the region.
Evidence for the vitality of these early exchanges is provided by recent
research on the Indo-Pacific bead trade, which has demonstrated that Southeast Asia and India were already important trade partners prior to the Common Era, often regarded as the beginning of Indianization in Southeast Asia.
High-quality Indian carnelian and agate beads dated to the last centuries BCE
have been found in central Thailand in sites such as Ban Don Tha Phet, in
peninsular Thailand at Khao Sam Kaeo, in coastal Vietnamese sites of the Sa
Huynh culture, and in the Tabon caves on Palawan in the Philippines. Brnice
Bellina attributes beads of high quality workmanship and distinctive styles to
Indian artisans fulfilling orders from Southeast Asian elite. By contrast, beads
dating from the early centuries of the first millennium CE are of much lesser
quality and have been traced to Southeast Asian production centers. These
were probably intended for the lower levels of society or for trade with interior groups.20
The sophistication, wealth, and self-confidence that Southeast Asian elites
shared is apparent in discoveries of similar ornaments and prestige goods,
such as Dong Son drums, objects found at Sa Huynh, and bronze knobbed
ware.21 These findings suggest a depth of a common culture and a trade network that persisted into the second millennium CE. Archaeologists date the
Ban Don Tha Phet site to the end of the third or the second century BCE. In
addition to beads, a significant find was bicephalous ear ornaments made of
nephrite (a variety of jade). Such jade ornaments are associated with the Sa
Huynh sites in central Vietnam, a cultural area where the Cham civilization
later emerged.22 It therefore appears likely that in the first millennium BCE
communities between central Vietnam and at the head of the Gulf of Siam
formed part of an exchange network extending from India to China through
the transpeninsular routes. At this site were found bronze ritual vessels and a
carved carnelian lion, both of which have symbolic functions in Indian Buddhism, as well as glass beads and semiprecious stone beads. These finds indicate that there was early Buddhist activity in Thailand and perhaps elsewhere
in Southeast Asia before the Common Era.23

24

Chapter 1

Kuala Selinsing in Perak in the northern Malay Peninsula was another

significant prehistoric site. It is thought to have been occupied from at least
the second century BCE or even earlier, but its contact with India may have
come later. Despite the long occupation of this site, Kuala Selinsing was not a
major port but, as Leong Sau Heng puts it, a feeder point, one of a number
of small local supply centres serving the entrepots and important regional
collecting centres. The recovery of glass and stone beads, some half-finished,
led Leong to conclude that there was a local bead-making industry, an observation substantiated by Peter Francis through glass analysis. Evidence of Indian
influence is limited to a small carnelian seal inscribed with a south Indian
script and a gold ring with an Indianized motif.24
Other early sites were incorporated into the international and regional
trade network of the Sea of Malayu, notably Khao Sam Keo (beginning of
the fourth century CE) and Khuan Luk Pat (Hill of Beads, c. third to sixth
centuryseventh century CE), located in Khlong Thom in Krabi province, the
terminus of a transpeninsular route. The latter was replaced by Kuala Selinsing
as the main producer of beads perhaps from the sixth to the tenth centuries
CE.25 In a recent study, David Bulbeck has also emphasized the importance
of the Andaman Islands in the network of seafaring populations that helped
open the sea lanes for trade between India and Southeast Asia. He notes that
Andamese traditional decorations focus on Sa Huynh Kalanay geometric
decorations that show strong similarities with the pottery designs at Kuala
Selinsing.26
While Chinese sources describe Indianizing kingdoms in Southeast Asia
in the early centuries CE, archaeological studies have yet to yield evidence
for such settlements predating the fifth century. The absence of archaeological records for prefifth-century settlements accords with Monica Smiths
contention that substantive Indian contacts with Southeast Asia only date
from the rise of the Gupta dynasty in India in the fourth century CE.27 One
is therefore faced with a curious situation in which Chinese records describe
Indianizing settlements in the region, while Indian documents merely mention names without any geographic or historical information. Furthermore,
archaeological evidence is limited to Chinese ceramics, which can only offer
limited insights into the local communities.
Early Indian works provide only a generalized reference to Southeast
Asia. In the Buddhist Jataka tales originating before the Common Era, the
term Suvannabhumi (the Gold Country) is an epithet for the lands east of
the Bay of Bengal, meaning Southeast Asia. The epic Ramayana, whose composition would have begun before the Common Era, mentions Suvarnadvipa
(the Gold Islands) to refer to Southeast Asia and later specifically to Sumatra. Of later provenance is the Tamil narrative poem Pattinapalai, composed

Malayu Antecedents

25

in the early centuries CE but not later than the beginning of the third century.
It describes the trade between southern India and Kalagam, usually identified
with Kedah. The Mahaniddesa, believed to contain information from the second and third centuries, mentions Yavadipa, or the island of Java.28
At the beginning of the Common Era, southern India became a major
focus of IndianSoutheast Asian trade. Tamil culture was flourishing, Brahmanic Hinduism was displacing Buddhism, new agricultural lands were
opened, and urban settlements were increasing. All of these developments
provided the basis for a lively and lucrative exchange with Southeast Asia in
the second and third centuries from the southern Indian ports of Arikamedu,
Kayal, and Kamara. Both Mantai in Sri Lanka and Arikamedu in southern
India were the most likely sources of Roman and Persian artifacts from the
subcontinent that moved across the Bay of Bengal, across the transisthmian/
transpeninsular route, to Oc Eo in the Lower Mekong.29
A Greek text titled The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea is a compilation of
knowledge available in the second half of the first century CE. It refers to ships
sailing from the southeast coast of India to Chryse, which is believed to be
Southeast Asia or perhaps even the Malay Peninsula.30 Also mentioned are
land routes of the silk trade, from which Wolters inferred that seaborne commerce between India and Southeast Asia at the time was very limited. Chinese
sources indicate that sometime between the third and fifth centuries CE the
sea route between India and China came to be used more frequently. In 413
the Chinese pilgrim Faxian returned all the way from Sri Lanka to China by
sea, and a few years later Gunavarman, a Kashmiri prince, went to China via
the same route. Under the Song dynasty in China (9601279), Chinese overseas trading activity grew rapidly, particularly to Southeast Asia. The increasing popularity of this all-sea route had important repercussions for some of
the early polities along the Straits of Melaka. Chinese sources mention the
existence of a western Indonesian polity called Ko-ying or Chia-ying in the
first half of the third century CE. Their source for this information came from
an area in the southern Mekong known to the Chinese as Funan.31
Funan, perhaps a Chinese rendering of the local term bnam/phnom
(mountain), consisted of a number of communities with a shared culture,
whose links to one another varied in nature and intensity at different times.32
An earlier suggestion that the inhabitants were Austronesian speakers was
apparently based on circumstantial evidence. It could be argued that the port
of Oc Eo, as an international port on a well-established international trade
route, would have been the temporary home of Austronesian speakers involved
in this trade. Chinese descriptions indicate that there was some Austronesian
presence in Funan and along the coast to the south,33 and an Austronesian
language (Malayu?) could have been a trade lingua franca. Based on recent

26

Chapter 1

archaeological evidence found at Angkor Borei, however, a far more likely

possibility is that most of the people were Mon-Khmer speakers. At its height,
Funan was said to have extended its influence to settlements on the Isthmus
of Kra and the Malay Peninsula.
As active participants in the Sea of Malayu, these areas would have been
part of a family of communities that exchanged goods and ideas and even
shared ambitions. It is no surprise that a powerful ruler of Funan extended his
political influence westward as far as the northern Malay Peninsula, or that an
ambitious Tambralinga ruler intervened in the politics of Angkor (see below).
These are only two striking examples recorded in history, but they would have
been commonplace and part of family politics in the Sea of Malayu. The welldeveloped trade network contributed to an increasing sense of interlinked
political and cultural relationships among the communities. The art historian
Stanley OConnor describes it as a feeling of a neighborhood. How else
would one explain, he asks, the almost parallel development of the monumental Visnu images wearing the long robe in three such widely separated
locations as Dong Si Mahapot, in Prachinburi, at the head of the gulf in eastern Thailand, the Mekong delta sites explored by Louis Malleret, and the peninsula? OConnor is convinced of a family resemblance in the architectural
styles and other features used in the service of Buddhism or Hinduism.34
These early sources thus suggest that there was increasing contact between
India, Southeast Asia, and China by the middle of the first millennium BCE.
The land route was favored until the third century CE, when more travelers
began using the sea route. In this early evidence, perhaps of greatest interest to historians is the role of Buddhism in tracing the early trade contacts
between these three regions. The impact of Buddhism in long-distance maritime trade in the first millennium CE has long been intimated through stories
from the Mahavamsa and the Sasanavamsappadipika, describing Emperor
Asokas decision to send Buddhist missionaries to Suvannabhumi.35 Sona and
Uttara were two of the missionaries sent to Suvannabhumi soon after the
Third Buddhist Council in midthird century BCE. Although there has been
a tendency to view the two as legendary figures, recent studies on the link
between Buddhism and international trade demonstrate that such a mission
may have indeed occurred.
In the early years of the Common Era, Buddhism shifted its focus from
being a pioneer in agricultural expansion to a promoter of commerce. Buddhist emphasis on accumulation of wealth and its approval of interest earned
on investments made it a favored religion among traders. Links between
traders and Buddhist monasteries grew stronger, and Buddhist symbols
were widely used on pottery, terra-cotta seals, and a variety of other objects.
Monastic establishments in India became economic centers and promoted a

Malayu Antecedents

27

Buddhist trade diaspora that extended to Southeast Asia. Different forms of

Buddhism continued to play a significant role in structuring Southeast Asian
beliefs, statecraft, and trade networks well into the early modern period and
beyond. In the first millennium CE, Buddhism provided an alternative to the
Hindu/Brahmanic model and helped to reinforce trading networks in the
region.36 In a recent study, Tansen Sen documents the commercial role of Buddhist monasteries in China as well as India in funding maritime mercantile
enterprises, including overseas trading ventures. Monks provided both physical and spiritual care for the merchants, in return for which the merchants
assisted monks in their travels, brought Buddhist items for their patrons, and
financially contributed to the maintenance of Buddhist institutions.37
The Lower Mekong sites provide further evidence of the link between
Buddhism and trade. Buddha images dating between the third and fifth centuries CE were found in Funan and the Cham areas of southern Vietnam. In
Champa, particularly at Tra Kieu, a major Cham center in central Vietnam,
clay Buddhist votive tablets date from the seventh century. John Guy argues
that because Southeast Asian rulers regarded themselves as part of a religious
world that naturally extended to India, the trade in Buddha imagery would
have been as lively as that in spices, aromatic woods, and other desired products from Southeast Asia.38 In offering new religious ideas as well as artifacts,
Buddhism helped strengthen the common cultural bond among communities already linked by trade.
From the fifth century CE, a rival Vaisnavite trade network developed.
The popularity of both a devotional (bhakti) sect of Vaisnavism and Buddhism would explain why inscriptions and statuary found in pre-Angkorian
sites, in Funan, the Malay Peninsula, and Sumatra are overwhelmingly Vaisnavite or Buddhist. Although Siva lingas are found at these Vaisnavite devotional sites, Pierre-Yves Manguin believes that Siva was regarded as a lesser
divinity. Vaisnavite influence may have accompanied traders from Sogdania
and Bactria in central Asia who settled in Dunsun, somewhere on the Isthmus
of Kra, in the third century CE. Artistic styles and funerary practices dated to
the fifth and seventh centuries reflect the ongoing impact of the Iranian world
on the region.39
Although it is possible to demonstrate contact between India and Southeast Asia as early as the beginning of the first millennium BCE, Smith believes
this was sporadic and initiated by Southeast Asians themselves with their
superior sailing technology. The presence of iron, beads, and a black polish
ceramic known as Rouletted Ware has been cited by many scholars as evidence
of large-scale trade between India and Southeast Asia, but Smith is more cautious. She cites the possibility of local manufacture of iron and beads, and
the possibility of Rouletted Ware being traded much later than the date of

28

Chapter 1

manufacture. There was no compelling reason, she argues, for sustained trading contact because there was little to be gained. Prior to the fourth century
CE, India had little to offer Southeast Asia economically or politically, and
Southeast Asias few requirements could be met in the region itself.
There was, however, a qualitative change in the relationship between the
two areas beginning in the fourth century CE, which is attributed to the rise
and the expansion of the Gupta dynasty in the central Gangetic valley. During the consolidation of power, the Guptas created a political structure and
administrative practices that became a model for other polities in the region.
Among Gupta practices was the use of copper plate to maintain land records
and temple donations, a shift from Buddhism to pre-Buddhist Vedic tradition,
and the revival of Sanskrit as the main language of inscriptions, land grants,
seals, and coins. It is about this time that one begins to find in Southeast
Asia evidence of borrowing of Gupta models in iconography, language, and
religion, which are grafted onto indigenous ideas. Only then, Smith suggests,
should one speak of Indianization to describe the relationship between
India and Southeast Asia.40
  
In assessing the evidence thus far presented, certain ideas have been
advanced. First of all, the prevailing Bellwood-Blust synthesis argues that
the general movement of Austronesian speakers, the ancestors of the Malayu
speakers, was southward from Taiwan through the Philippines, down the
Makassar Straits, then to the west as far as central Vietnam and to the east
through eastern Indonesia and out into the Pacific. Of those that went westward from the Makassar Straits, one group settled in west Borneo and became
the ancestors of a subgroup of Malayo-Polynesian called by linguists MalayoChamic. Sometime in the last few hundred years BCE or at the turn of the
Common Era, there was an emigration of Malayo-Chamic speakers out of
Borneo to the coastal areas of the Malay Peninsula. From here one group went
to east coast Sumatra and became the ancestors of the Malayu speakers, while
another sailed to coastal central Vietnam to form the Chamic speakers. Solheim, on the other hand, attributes the existence of people speaking related
languages and sharing common cultures not to migration but to long social
and economic interaction within a network of trade-linked communities,
which he terms Nusantao.
A second important idea is that although the Nusantao/Malayo-Polynesian speakers settled principally in insular Southeast Asia because of their
maritime orientation, early Indian trade contact with Southeast Asia appears
to have been stronger on the mainland. This suggests that the early Buddhistand Vaisnavite-inspired contact, which was later strengthened by the growing

Malayu Antecedents

29

trade relations with the increasingly powerful polities in the subcontinent

of India, probably used one of a number of transpeninsular/transisthmian
routes across mainland Southeast Asia.

The Transpeninsular/Transisthmian Routes

The early Buddhist and Indo-Pacific bead trade from India and Sri Lanka
between the last half of the first millennium BCE and the first half CE apparently used the transpeninsular route located in the Isthmus of Kra and the
northern portions of the Malay Peninsula. The route continued to be used,
though less frequently in later centuries. From the late seventh century, Arab
and Persian ships trading to Southeast Asia and China departed from different ports on the Persian Gulf with cargoes of cloth, metal work, carpets, iron
ore, and bullion. They could follow two possible routes: The first began in the
ports on the coast of Oman, then went directly across the Indian Ocean to
Quilon in southern Malabar; the other went along the coast from Hormuz to
northern India, and then to southern Malabar. From southern Malabar, ships
could continue coastal sailing around the Bay of Bengal to the eastern shores,
or they could go south to Sri Lanka, known as Sarandib to the Arabs, and
then directly to the Andaman and Nicobar islands before reaching Kalah,
believed by some to be a generalized name for any port on the west coast of
the Isthmus of Kra or the Malay Peninsula. From Kalah there were two possible alternatives: the transpeninsular route to the Gulf of Siam, then to the
Lower Mekong, central Vietnam, and finally China; and the sea route which
went south through the Straits of Melaka to Sumatra, Java, and China.
Those using the all-sea route proceeded southward through the straits,
stopped to replenish their water supplies at Pulau Tioman, an island off Pahang on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, and then crossed the South
China Sea to ports in Champa in central Vietnam. From the Cham areas the
ships sailed northward to Canton in southern China, either through Hanoi or
via the dangerous Paracel reefs. It has been estimated that in the mid-tenth
century the total sailing time between Muscat and Canton, excluding stops,
was 120 days. In China the sale of the cargo and loading of the new shipment
of goods could be completed in time to catch the northeast monsoon winds,
which blow more strongly and with a more consistent tailwind from China
to the Straits of Melaka. By relying on these winds, Arab and Persian traders
could make the round trip once every year.41
Until the technology for open-sea sailing became widely employed in the
first century CE, ships tended to sail within sight of the coastline. But even
when mariners mastered open-sea sailing, ships continued to hug the coast
because of the profits to be made by buying and selling from one port to the

30

Chapter 1

next. An early sea route went from the east coast of India along the shores
of the Bay of Bengal, down present-day peninsular Burma and Thailand, or
the isthmian region, and then southward to the northern part of the Malay
Peninsula. From the Kra Isthmian and northern Malay Peninsular ports, ships
could continue through the Straits of Melaka to the Gulf of Siam, or they
could unload their goods and have them transshipped via overland routes.
Wolters believes that the Straits of Melaka were not normally used by ships
coming from the west in the first and second centuries CE.42
Use of the transpeninsular routes increased in times of political turmoil
in the straits. The shortest was just sixty-five kilometers at the Isthmus of Kra,
but there were others between the Isthmus of Kra and Kedah that could be
crossed with little difficulty. One was from Kedah to Songkhla, and another
from Trang split into three different branches leading to Phattalung, Nakhon
Si Thammarat, and Bandon on the Gulf of Siam. The route from Takuapa on
the west coast led across the isthmus to Chaiya, but because of political circumstances this route may have been abandoned in the mid-eleventh century
for one further south in Kedah.43 At various times the competing powers in
the region used different routes across the Isthmus of Kra and the Malay Peninsula. Paul Wheatley has identified eleven routes stretching from the Isthmus
of Kra to the southern end of the Malay Peninsula.44
Some of the routes were more difficult than others and involved a variety of transport: boats, rafts, carts, pack elephants, horses, and bullocks.
Depending on the season and the route used, crossing the isthmus or the
peninsula could take anywhere from a week to about a month, though individuals without much baggage or cargo could make the journey even faster.
Goods shipped using the Martaban/Moulmein route went by Kokarit, then by
caravan to the Three Pagodas Pass and the Kwai River. The goods were then
reloaded onto boats or rafts, which carried them to ports on the Gulf of Siam.
The Tavoy route along the Kwai River to Kanchanaburi and on to Ayutthaya
was shorter but far more difficult. Because traders had to cross a series of
steep mountains and deep valleys before arriving at the Kwai River, goods
were transported by elephants or porters. Through the centuries, however,
the problems of transport through some formidable landscapes were gradually overcome. On these routes were found post guards, rest houses, and small
temples dedicated to deities. Every means of transport, from porters to pack
animals and bullock carts, could be rented, and foreign traders resident in the
terminal ports served as interpreters and provided information on business,
types of transport, the roads, lodging, and even alternative routes in times of
war.45 It would have been to the benefit of the local authorities on both ends
of the route to maintain the security of these passages to assure the flow of
trade goods to their lands. Evidence from the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Yijing

Malayu Antecedents

31

indicates that Sriwijaya may have become involved in the affairs of Kedah
toward the end of the seventh century, at the time of Sriwijayan expansion.
The eighth century Ligor inscription at Nakhon Si Thammarat confirms this
involvement.46 Both Kedah and Ligor were termini of transpeninsular routes
and were obviously still of sufficient importance to warrant the attention of
the rising Sriwijayan power.
The alternative to the land routes was the all-sea route, which in earlier
centuries also had its problems. Sailing the eight hundred kilometers through
the Straits of Melaka took about a month, and fickle wind conditions would
often cause delays. But the major deterrent to using this route was not so
much the length of the journey as the dangers to seaborne commerce. The
Orang Laut, or sea people, inhabiting the islands and coasts at the southern
entrance to the straits were notorious for preying on passing ships. Even if a
ship survived such attacks, it still had to navigate the treacherous shoals, sandbanks, and submerged islands in the waters to the south of Singapore. For
safety and convenience, traders, diplomats, and other officials in earlier centuries therefore preferred to use the land route. Even during the later period
when the all-sea route was generally favored, any political upheaval in the
Straits of Melaka with the resulting increase in piratical activities forced traders to use the transpeninsular routes.
In the first millennium CE the typical trader sailed between the Red Sea
and China in one long continuous voyage. From the turn of the millennium,
however, there was a change to less costly, shorter trips dividing the long trajectory into segments. According to K. N. Chaudhuri, the first segment was
from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to Gujarat and the Malabar coast, the second was from the Indian coastal provinces to the Indonesian archipelago, and
the third from Southeast Asia to China. This segmentation was accompanied
by the rise of great urban emporia providing neutral ports that provided
merchants with all necessary facilities.47 Leong confirms that most of the
sites in the Malay Peninsula between 1000 BCE and 1000 CE were not major
emporia but small trading settlements serving as collecting centers for special
local products. Notable are the prehistoric sites on the Selangor coast and
in Terengganu located near areas rich in alluvial tin or gold, or along rivers
leading to such areas. In addition to providing local produce, these sites had
the added advantage of being in natural harbors with access to provisions for
revictualing trading ships. There were a few that operated as entrepots, but
most served as redistribution centers for regional trade in the Southeast Asian
area.48
Ships arriving on the Isthmus of Kra or the Malay Peninsula from the
west could unload their goods and reload a new cargo at the same dock, thus
making the entire journey across the Bay of Bengal and back in less than

32

Chapter 1

six months.49 It was in the period of the segmenting of the trade routes that
the eastern termini on the transpeninsular routes, particularly those on the
western shores of the Gulf of Siam, grew prosperous. They profited from
their ideal position as the midpoint of the segmented east-west trade, facing directly opposite the major entrepots in the Lower Mekong and in central Vietnam. While the western termini of the transpeninsular routes may
not have developed into major entrepots, as Leong argues, they proved to be
ideal shelters from the heavy monsoon rains in the Bay of Bengal between
May and October. Ships could anchor in a series of good natural harbors
at Martaban, Ye, Tawai (Tavoy), Mergui/Tenasserim, Kraburi, and Phang
Nga/Phuket. These ports provided storage facilities and were well organized
for the unloading and loading of goods, while the surrounding countryside
offered wood, good drinking water, meat, fruit, and rice to provision the ships
for their onward journeys. Teak was also plentiful for ships in need of repair.
Another attraction was the tin, silver, lead, rubies, sapphires, benzoin, and lac
that were available in the TenasserimIsthmus of Kra area. The Takola and
Ligor inscriptions written in Tamil indicate that the Tamil commercial guilds
were certainly using this transpeninsular crossing regularly, perhaps as part of
the trade route to Oc Eo.50
Though the frequency and importance of the overland routes for international trade are in dispute, there is nevertheless a consensus that the routes
continued to be used. The advances in shipping technology would have most
definitely encouraged a greater use of the sea route, but others may have preferred to continue using the passage across land for other reasons. In addition
to those already advanced, another was to avoid the exactions of powerful
indigenous and foreign port polities on the shores of the straits. The transpeninsular routes would have also had their economic attractions. If Manguin
is correct in assuming that the transpeninsular route was used principally for
regional trade, then the east coast termini on the Gulf of Siam would have
played a role as redistributing centers to areas in mainland Southeast Asia.
A number of Southeast Asian communities came to participate in an economic network extending from northern Sumatra, the Isthmus of Kra, and
the northern Malay Peninsula to the Gulf of Siam, the Lower Mekong, and
central Vietnam.

Southeast Asian Components of the Sea of Malayu

Through archaeological and early historical evidence it is possible to describe
the process by which trade fostered a communal identity linked to a region
that I have called the Sea of Malayu. In the Southeast Asian part of this
sea, the earliest polities are described in Chinese sources. The first is Dunsun,

Malayu Antecedents

33

perhaps a Mon name, meaning Five Cities, which is described as a dependent of Funan with some five hundred families from India. The settlement
had two fo-tu (interpreted as either stupa or Buddhist), and a thousand
Indian Brahmans, who spent their days studying the sacred canon and practicing piety. The people, so the texts report, offered their daughters to these
Brahmans, who therefore remained in the polity. The location of Dunsun is
disputed, but Wheatley is convinced that it was somewhere on the Gulf of
Siam and that it extended across the breadth of the isthmian tract. The evidence he cites is a Chinese description of the polity being situated at an ocean
stepping-stone, where traders come from east and west. Wheatley interprets
the Chinese phrase as a reference to a place where one crosses from one sea to
another, an apt description of a transisthmian/transpeninsular route linking
the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea.51 Michel Jacq-Hergoualch believes
that Dunsun was a short-lived polity serving as a regional transit center for a
trading network between India and civilizations in Cambodia and Vietnam.52
The next important polity mentioned in Chinese sources is Panpan,
which existed at the end of the fourth century CE and sent an embassy to
China in the early fifth century. Various Chinese sources locate Panpan southwest of Lin-yi (in central Vietnam) on a bay with To-ho-lo adjoining it
to the north and Lang-ya-hsiu to the south. To-ho-lo has been identified
as Dvaravati and Lang-ya-hsiu as Langkasuka, thus placing Panpan on the
Isthmus of Kra in the Bay of Bandon. According to the Tang dynastic history,
the people all learn the brahmanical writings and greatly reverence the law
of the Buddha. A later fuller account reflects the coexistence of these two
religions in Panpan, where Buddhist monks and nuns study the canon in ten
monasteries and many Brahmans with royal favor are in search of wealth.
The people live mostly by the water and within wooden palisades. Another
Chinese source mentions that a Brahman called Kaundinya settled in Panpan
(at the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century) before going
to Funan to become its ruler.53 Evidence thus points to the continuance of an
earlier link between the Lower Mekong delta area with the Isthmus of Kra and
the Malay Peninsula.
Panpans northern boundaries could have reached as far as Chumphon
on the Gulf of Siam, and its southern boundaries to perhaps the vicinity of
Songkhla, thus incorporating the region of Sathing Phra and Phatthalung.
But Panpans control was only on the east coast and did not extend to the west
coast of the Isthmus of Kra. Buddhist works linked to the art of Dvaravati
of the seventh and eighth centuries have been found along with a number
of Vaisnavite and Saivite remains from the fifth to the eighth centuries. This
supports Chinese accounts of the coexistence of Buddhism and Hinduism,
a common occurrence in Indianizing communities in Southeast Asia. The

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Chapter 1

archaeological finds, according to Jacq-Hergoualch, are an unquestionable

proof of the economic flowering of the region in this early period through
the medium of international trade, though remains of a purely commercial
nature have not been found. All evidence points to Panpan as the dominant
polity in the isthmian region from the fifth to the eighth centuries CE and
perhaps even longer.54
To the south of Panpan was a polity termed Lang-ya-hsiu (Langyaxiu), a
name generally believed to be a Chinese rendering of the long-lived polity of
Langkasuka. It was founded in the early second century CE, and in the sixth
century it sent four embassies to China. It was closely linked first with Funan
and then with Sriwijaya and was targeted by the Cholas in their general raid
on Sriwijayan territories in 10245. From the seventh to the thirteenth century, it was a port of call for Chinese Buddhist pilgrims on the maritime route
to India. Little is known of its subsequent history, and it is not mentioned by
the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Despite this long history, however,
scholars have long debated its exact location. Chinese mariner charts and
Arab sailing directions place Langkasuka in the vicinity of Patani. Most now
agree with this location, with the center placed some fifteen kilometers to the
south at Yarang, where major archaeological remains have been found.
Langkasuka is described in Chinese sources as an Indianized polity with
a king, officials, royal bodyguards, a royal pavilion, and a main settlement
encircled by walls with double gates and towers. Whenever the king left his
residence, he traveled by elephant shaded by a white parasol and accompanied
by banners, fly whisks, flags, and drums. Its principal products were eaglewood (Aquilaria malaccensis), also known as gaharuwood or aloeswood, and
Barus camphor (Dryobalanops aromatica), found in the east but not the west
coast of the Malay Peninsula. It may have been Langkasukas ability to assure
the supply of these forest aromatics to the world market that guaranteed its
extraordinary staying power in the region.55
Langkasuka was the center of the production of votive clay tablets linked
to Mahayana Buddhist missionary activity perhaps at the beginning of the
sixth century. Only a few sculptures have been found, mainly of buddhas and
bodhisattvas, but two lingas and a Nandi associated with the Hindu god Siva
have been among the artifacts. As in many other sites in the Sea of Malayu,
Buddhism and Brahmanism/Hinduism coexisted. Archaeological and documentary evidence supports the view that Langkasuka was a prosperous polity
in the sixth century, though little is yet known of its later history.56
Chitu, mentioned for the first time during the Chinese Sui dynasty
(581618 CE), is generally believed to have been located in upriver Kelantan. As with Panpan and Langkasuka, Chitu was responsive to Funan and
practiced both Buddhism and Brahmanism. According to a Chinese report,

Malayu Antecedents

35

it is the custom to worship the Buddha but greater respect is paid to the
Brahmans. Chitu must have been sufficiently important to the Chinese to
warrant a visit in 607 by a special mission sent by the emperor to open up
communications with distant lands. When the mission arrived, presumably at the mouth of the Kelantan River, the king of Chitu sent a Brahman at
the head of thirty ocean-going junks to greet the visitors. This reference to
seaworthy ships may indicate Chitus involvement in international maritime
trade and thus account for its reputation in the Chinese court. It offered gold
and Barus camphor as tribute to the Chinese emperor. As a site in upriver
Kelantan, Chitu would have had access to the gold-bearing areas in the interior of Pahang. It is nevertheless puzzling that no archaeological remains have
been found in the interior of the Kelantan River.57
Tambralinga, which extended from the bend of the Bay of Bandon southward to Nakhon Si Thammarat, was another link in the Sea of Malayu. The
Ligor Inscription dated 775 CE is evidence of Sriwijayan influence in Tambralinga, but Angkor later became a major force in the polity. In the beginning
of the eleventh century one of Tambralingas rulers came to the throne of
Angkor as Jayaviravarman (10026). Although Tambralingas direct involvement in Angkorian politics was short-lived, it continued to retain strong linguistic and cultural links with that kingdom. Tambralinga also maintained
ties with Sri Lanka throughout the thirteenth century.58
Sathing Phra, located on the east coast between Songkhla and Nakhon Si
Thammarat, was one of the oldest settlements in the Sea of Malayu. Archaeological evidence indicates that it had been involved in international trade since
the second century and had moats and long-distance canals like those associated with Angkor Borei and Oc Eo in the Lower Mekong. The completion of
two canals linking the east to the west coasts in the sixth century attracted
more international trade and thus the attention of competitors. Sometime
between the mid-ninth and the late thirteenth centuries, it came to acknowledge Indonesian (presumably Sriwijayan) dominance.59 The wealth generated from external trade, and not rice surplus, was the engine for the growth
of Sathing Phra. Using a variety of measures, Jane Allen argues that no flood
plains for wet rice agriculture were possible around Sathing Phra until about
12501300 CE. Most or all of the sites before this time were located on beach
ridge sand, and the tanks found on the sites were not for agricultural use
but to supply the needs of the urban communities. The waterways, initially
believed to have been built as irrigation channels, are now thought to have
served principally as transshipment routes linking the forested interior and
the west coast with the major trade centers on the east coast. The dominance
of tradewares among the inventories of artifacts in Sathing Phra strengthens
the view of trade as being the key to the emergence and prosperity of that

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Chapter 1

polity.60 Sathing Phra resembled a number of other settlements within the Sea
of Malayu and was very likely part of the extensive international trade system
linking it with Angkor Borei and Oc Eo.
On the west coast of the Isthmus of Kra and northern Malay Peninsula,
the most prominent site is in South Kedah, known to the Chinese in the seventh and eighth centuries as Jiecha. It appears in Yijings account of the late
seventh century, where it is portrayed as a frequent stopover for ships coming
from Palembang to await the northeast monsoon to cross the Bay of Bengal. Yet, like Langkasuka, Jiecha is not mentioned in the Tang official dynasty
records. This curious omission does not detract from the value of the site
as an ideal midway point for traders and pilgrims awaiting favorable monsoon winds to take them to their ultimate destinations in China or India and
beyond. Scholars believe that references in Tamil to Kadaram or Kidaram,
and in Sanskrit to Kataha, refer to South Kedah. Although some also suggest
that the Kalah of Arabic sources is Kedah, Wheatley rejects this and prefers
a site somewhere along the Tenasserim coast.61 In examining the various Arab
accounts of Kalah, Alastair Lamb identifies three common features. First of
all, it is located at a place where ships docked to await the shift of monsoon
winds between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Second, it has
access to products of the Malay Peninsula, especially tin, as well as wares from
both east and west. Third, there is no agreement whether the name refers to
a town, an island, a kingdom, or a region. Since these features could apply
equally well to a number of other sites on the west coast, Lamb concludes that
Kalah did not refer to any specific settlement but to a number of settlements
at different times in the past that served the same function.62 Through an
examination of archaeological, literary, and historical sources, Jane Allen has
provided a useful summary of the various names used for the Kedah coast at
different periods: Chia-cha or Chieh-cha and Kolo in the seventh century;
Kataha between the eight and eleventh centuries; Kalah between the ninth
and fourteenth centuries, and Kadaram in the eleventh century.63
The area of South Kedah meets all the requirements listed by Lamb,
including a shifting center. According to Allens geomorphological evidence,
the coastal plain associated with the area only began to form from about
1200 CE. Of the eighty-seven early historical sites Allen listed in south central Kedah in 1988, all were located beside rivers or near the coast and hence
ideally placed for trade. The centers at Kampung Sungai Mas and Pengkalan
Bujang both became landlocked early in their occupation and depended upon
river access to reach the coast. As in Sathing Phra, the dominance of tradewares found in the area of South Kedah suggests that commerce rather than
rice agriculture was the basis for the emergence of these centers. As in Sathing
Phra, it was the overly extensive cultivation of the hills for dry-land cereals

Malayu Antecedents

37

that later led to progradation and the formation of the coastal plains in South
Kedah. The shifting rivers and coastlines on both the east and west coasts of
the Isthmus of Kra and Malay Peninsula forced the major centers to relocate
at various times in their history. This would account for the various names
and locations of the center of a particular polity in different centuries.64
Swidden agriculture was the common form of cultivation in South
Kedah, as is shown by soil analysis that reveals high amounts of wood carbon from the burning of the land preceding swidden planting. The foothills
around Gunung (Mt.) Jerai spreading southward would have been the most
favorable areas for agriculture. Scholars have arrived at a population figure of
less than twenty thousand in South Kedah, based on the amount of land that
would have come under cultivation, the length of time fields are left fallow,
the yield per hectare, average rice consumption for an individual, and adjustment to population density in non-sawah cultivation. The figure of twenty
thousand compares favorably with the famous settlement of Melaka, which
may have had a population of about twenty-five thousand in the fifteenth
century. Relatively low population density is one of the characteristics that
distinguish early Southeast Asian coastal exchange-based polities from interior agriculture-based ones.65
The South Kedah sites may have been settled as early as the fifth century
CE. The well-known inscription attributed to a sea captain named Buddhagupta from Raktamrttika (Land of the Red Earth),66 as well as the inscriptions found at Kampung Sungai Mas, Bukit Meriam, and Cherok Tokun, all
date from the fifth century.67 Ports in South Kedah have produced large numbers of artifacts, suggesting that they would have been thriving ports. In the
sheltered Merbok estuary the port of Pengkalan Bujang contained more than
ten thousand potsherds of Chinese trade ceramics from the southern Song
and the Yuan periods. Also present was Middle Eastern glassware, including
hundreds of small bottles and large quantities of scrap glass. The scrap glass
was imported specifically for the local bead industry. This site, as well as others
in South Kedah, was a major redistribution center for Southeast Asian pottery, beads, forest products, and minerals. The assembly points for such local
products were at the confluences of rivers and along the coast, oftentimes in
proximity to tin mines. Kuala Selinsing was one of the major collecting centers
for South Kedah.68 Both Sungai Mas and Pengkalan Bujang were located on
the coast until the eleventh century; thereafter they relied on rivers to reach
the sea. Geomorphological data suggest that dry-land farming increased considerably at this time, most likely to meet the demands of a rapidly increasing
urban population engaged in international maritime trade.69
A study of the architecture, inscriptions, and statuary found in the various sites in South Kedah has convinced Jacq-Hergoualch that between the

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fifth and eighth centuries Jiecha was not comparable to Panpan or Langkasuka. The rough quality of the manufacture of the inscriptions and the fact
that the craftsmen had no knowledge of the language being reproduced argue
for a local production. Jiecha would have been no more than a chiefdom
that granted foreign merchants the right to erect temples and worship their
religious figures while in port. Archaeological remains indicate the presence
of Buddhist communities involved in international trade,70 which confirms
findings by Himanshu Ray and others.
While ports in South Kedah may not have been comparable to those on
the east coast, they nevertheless prospered as a result of international trade.
George Hourani argues that after the sack of Canton (Guangzhou) by Chinese rebels in 878 CE, direct sailing between the Middle East and Canton
ceased, and Chinese and Arab traders met at Kalah to exchange goods. In the
ninth century, Arab trade in the Indian Ocean reached a peak and proved to
be a boon to the isthmian and peninsular ports. A large amount of Chinese
and Middle Eastern ceramic artifacts were found at the two termini of the
transpeninsular routeKo Kho Khao in the west and Laem Pho in the east.71
The new Arab sailing patterns would have contributed to the rise of Kampung
Sungai Mas as a major ninth-century port in South Kedah. But with the gradual silting of the Muda River, Kampung Sungai Mas was replaced by Kampung
Pengkalan Bujang as the favored site of traders. The latter port flourished
from approximately the end of the eleventh to the beginning of the fourteenth
century. From the fourteenth century, a new channel from the Muda River
flowed to the Straits of Melaka, enabling Kampung Sirih to become a thriving
port, but it too was soon overshadowed by other peninsular harbors.72
The continuity of ports in South Kedah reinforces the idea that this location continued to be regarded as an important stopping-off point in the trade
trajectory from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to China. In time Southeast
Asian products were brought to these sites as part of the international exchange
that occurred while ships awaited the monsoon winds. Both the South Kedah
ports and Sriwijaya offered similar advantages to traders and other travelers,
with one at the northern and the other at the southern entrance to the Straits of
Melaka. South Kedah had a longer tradition and was far better known than the
newly emerging entrepot at Sriwijaya. The late seventh-century Malayu inscriptions found in Sriwijayas territories reflect the political and economic uncertainty of a new polity and the desire to retain the loyalty of its new subjects (see
chapter 2). The straits could support just one major entrepot, and by the end
of the seventh century Sriwijaya absorbed South Kedah. Yijings comments that
Kedah had now become part of Sriwijaya would not have meant the elimination of a rival but its absorption.73 It is likely that Kedah (Jiecha) continued to
operate as an independent port on the perimeter of the Sriwijayan polity.

Malayu Antecedents

39

In the first millennium CE the ports on the Sumatran coast of the Straits
of Melaka appear in Chinese but rarely in Indian documents. One explanation
may be that the southwest monsoon winds that brought traders and other
travelers from India and points west had a natural landfall on the Isthmus of
Kra and the Malay Peninsula. They would have then either chosen to make the
transpeninsular passage or sail directly through the straits with a single stopover at a port in Kalah. The Chinese, on the other hand, would have entered
the southern entrance of the straits and proceeded northward along the coast.
Their interest would have focused on the small ports that served as outlets for
aromatic woods, resins, gold, and tin from the interior of Sumatra. The two
most prominent toponyms appearing in Chinese sources by the middle of the
first millennium CE are Barus and Pulo or Bulo, both of which were located
in northern Sumatra.
Wolters believes that the sixth-century Chinese mention of Barus refers
to a port on east coast Sumatra somewhere between Aceh Head and Diamond
Point, and not to present-day Barus on the west coast.74 From the ninth century onward the extreme north coast of Sumatra contained the chief harbors,
with a few also along the northeast coast.75 Proximity to the much-valued
forest products of camphor and benzoin from the Batak lands in the interior
of northern Sumatra may have been a consideration in the location of these
ports. Arab and Persian ships stopped regularly to obtain camphor at a port
called Ramni, which scholars identify with Lamuri in northern Sumatra.76
The camphor would have come from the interior, probably in the hinterland
of present-day Barus, hence the association of Barus with the east coast port.
Another well-known site was Pulo or Bulo, which is mentioned as a cannibal
area and a center for perfume.77
On both shores at the northern end of the Straits of Melaka and on the
coastline of the Bay of Bandon lived the core of communities of the Sea of
Malayu. This was the midway point of the trade route from India/the Middle
East to China and benefited fully from its location. In addition to serving as a
transit point, the Sea of Malayu provided Southeast Asian products that were
valued in both India/the Middle East and China. From the Isthmus of Kra and
Malay Peninsula, traders proceeded eastward to the Lower Mekong and central Vietnamthe eastern edge of the Sea of Malayubefore finally entering
China.

The Eastern Edge of the Sea of Malayu

In the days when longitude was not yet known and navigators relied almost
entirely on latitudinal readings, ships coming from the west would sail in a
straight line from southern India or Sri Lanka across the Bay of Bengal and

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Chapter 1

make landfall at the Isthmus of Kra or at Kedah.78 Goods were then transported via isthmian and peninsular waterways and land portage routes to the
Gulf of Siam, then on to the Lower Mekong, and finally to central Vietnam
before continuing on the final leg to China. At this eastern end of the Sea
of Malayu were settlements termed the Oc Eo Culture by the Vietnamese
archaeologists, as well as the various Cham unities in central Vietnam comprising river valleys and their corresponding upland areas.
In 1944, Louis Malleret provided the first comprehensive study of Oc
Eo.79 Artifacts found at the site have a distinctive style with strong similarities
to Dong Son and Sa Huynh cultures, which suggests an indigenous development. Moreover, archaeologists interpret the common features of Oc Eos
assemblage with those found at sites on the Chao Phraya and Irrawaddy valleys as evidence of a new settlement pattern of urban centers arising in the
major river valleys in mainland Southeast Asia. Based on these archaeological finds, Himanshu Ray believes there was a prior local sailing network
between the coast of Vietnam and the southern coast of Burma. This network
was then linked to two others, one extending to Orissa and Bengal, and the
other to the Tamil coast in India.80
Excavations at the Oc EoBa Th complex indicate that the earlier trade
site on low-lying ground in Oc Eo was abandoned between the late third and
fourth centuries. In the following two centuries there was renewed activity
in the Oc Eo cultural complex, marked by brick temples and burial sites on
the lower slopes of the Ba Th mountain and on small mounds in the flood
plain of Oc Eo. Oc Eo was crossed by a grid of canals, with the longest extending in a northeast direction to Angkor Borei and southwest to the coast. The
well-known early finds of Roman coins and Indian artifacts in Oc Eo clearly
point to its entrepot role in maritime trade. An inscription dated either 639
or 644 CE describes a practice at a Brahmanical temple where donors were
presented with imported cloth.81 The cloth could very well have been transported from southern India to a port on peninsular Burma and Thailand or
the northern Malay Peninsula, then across the South China Sea to the Lower
Mekong. Other evidence of local manufacture of gold, tin, and bronze ornaments, beads, pottery, and other objects further suggests that Oc Eo may have
gradually developed into an industrial site for the production of goods for
export abroad and to the interior via the extensive canal system linking Oc Eo
to Angkor Borei and beyond.82
Stratigraphic excavation in Angkor Borei provides evidence of the sites
occupation since the fourth century BCE but with intensive occupation
between c. 200 BCE and 200 CE. The city may have peaked in the sixth and
seventh centuries, and although the seat of power moved northward in the
latter century, the city continued to be occupied and only declined sometime

Malayu Antecedents

41

between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. Excavations and aerial photographs have indicated the presence of a network of canals linking Angkor
Borei not only with Oc Eo but also with other sites further north. It appears
likely that Angkor Borei was a central redistribution point of goods flowing to
and from the interior and the coast. One of the canals is believed to have been
used for local transport and communication, as well as to drain the fields.
In fact, the canal system was principally for these functions rather than for
irrigation, which was unnecessary in the well-watered lands of the delta. The
coincidence of dates, material culture, and canal linkages between Oc Eo and
Angkor Borei suggests that they formed part of a larger political and economic system.83 Evidence points to the Lower Mekong as an ancient site of a
thriving culture at the eastern end of the Sea of Malayu.
In the mid-seventh century the Oc Eo site was inexplicably abandoned.
What may have hastened its demise was Chinese direct maritime trade to
Southeast Asia beginning in the fifth century. This led to the emergence of
coastal polities along the Straits of Melaka and greater trade traffic using one
of the Cham settlements in central Vietnam as the intermediary stop closest
to China. Increase in Chinese trade through the Straits of Melaka led to a corresponding decline in those using the transisthmian route, with equally ruinous consequences for Oc Eo. The direct line from the isthmian and peninsular
ports on the western side of the Gulf of Siam to the Lower Mekong was no
longer as attractive as the all-sea route from the straits directly to central Vietnam and on to China. Oc Eos growing attention to manufacturing activity in
the fifth and sixth centuries may have been the result of its declining importance as an international entrepot. The inhabitants in the Lower Mekong were
thus forced to seek another outlet for the import of foreign items and export
of their own manufactured goods. The decision to seek an outlet on the Vietnamese coast was not a novel idea. There is evidence that already in the first
millennium BCE the Lao Bao pass was used to link the Mekong valley to the
South China Sea. Another ancient route in use since Neolithic times was the
Mu Gia pass linking Nakhon Pathom with the northern coast of central Vietnam. It is no coincidence that some of the Cham polities in central Vietnam
emerged about this time, providing a much needed replacement for Oc Eo.84
The family resemblance noted by OConnor contributed to the cooperation between the Lower Mekong and central Vietnam. Chinese envoys
to Funan in the third century CE observed that the Chams and the Funanese cooperated in a raid against the Vietnamese in the Red River delta.85
The appearance in Chinese accounts of polities they called Land Chenla
and Water Chenla replacing Funan did not signal a major break between
one kingdom and another, as had earlier been thought. It reflects instead the
changing economic dynamics of the same communities that now sought to

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Chapter 1

find other outlets for their goods in the settlements along the Gulf of Siam
and in the Cham lands.86
Linguistic evidence indicates that the Chamic speakers may have arrived
in Vietnam some two thousand years ago as part of the migration of Austronesian speakers from the islands.87 The roots of Cham civilization can be
traced back even earlier to the period of the Sa Huynh culture, which arose
in central Vietnam between the middle of the first millennium BCE and the
middle of the first millennium CE and overlapped with the Funan and Cham
civilizations. Vietnamese archaeologists claim there was a direct transition
from late Sa Huynh to an emerging Cham culture around the second century
CE,88 though one scholar advises caution because such a relationship remains
unclear.89 The known sites of the Sa Huynh culture stretch from Hue and
Danang in the north to Sa Huynh near the central Vietnam coastline and
then southward to the Mekong delta. The Sa Huynh burial jars and their associated accessory vessels with specific decorations parallel closely the burial
assemblages found in the Philippines, northern Borneo, and the region of
the Sulawesi Sea.90 Based on the sites and the burial assemblages, the linguist
Graham Thurgood believes that a prior Austronesian-speaking group inhabited this area around 600 BCE, or perhaps even earlier. Extended contact with
Mon-Khmer populations led to major borrowing from the Mon-Khmer language, thus introducing certain linguistic changes to the Cham language.91
Cham village societies were incorporated into the Sea of Malayu network,
which provided the resources and the models for the evolution of Cham religious and political forms. Based on Chinese evidence, scholars have generally
accepted that the first Cham polity was Lin Yi, which was formed in the third
century CE after its successful rebellion against the Han Chinese Rinan commandery. It consisted of a loose alliance of river-based chiefdoms in the five
districts in north central Vietnam that had earlier formed Rinan.92 Lin Yi (if
it indeed was Cham93) and later Cham polities were very much like those in
Funan. They shared a common culture and language, and they entered into
various forms of association with one another without forming a single united
Cham polity. The term nagara Cam (the Cham polity) was in fact applied to
any one of the different states that emerged on the central Vietnamese coast
at different centuries, such as Amaravati, Indrapura, Khautara, Panduranga,
and Vijaya.94 They were all located south of Hue in the three major centers of
Cham population: the Thu Bon valley associated with the well-known sites of
My Son, Tra Kieu, and Dong Duong; Nha Trang where the site of the temple
to the sacred earth goddess Po Nagar is located; and Phan Rang, the southernmost concentration of Cham communities.95
The reason for the importance of the central Vietnamese coast was its
role as a major node in the India/Middle EastChina trade through Southeast

Malayu Antecedents

43

Asia. The Thu Bon valley chiefdoms were the beneficiaries of the trade that
went from the central Vietnamese coast to Hainan and then on to Guanzhou
(Canton). But a further reason for its attraction was the availability in the
Truong Son mountains of gaharuwood, cinnamon, black pepper, and ebony,
goods which were much desired in China.96 But with the collapse of Tang
trade in the mid-eighth century, there was a shift in the location of the major
nodes. Guanzhou was replaced by a port in the Red River delta in northern
Vietnam, and the Thu Bon valley sites lost their advantage to ports further
south in Nha Trang and Phan Rang.97 Although different Cham settlements
arose as favored ports over the centuries, the Cham areas continued to be an
essential part of the east-west trade. In the early centuries before and after the
Common Era, the northern limits of the existing trade networks consisted of
the Sa Huynh culture sites, the riverine polities in the Han commandery in
northern Vietnam (which included Dong Son), and Lin Yi.98
As part of the larger Austronesian expansion, the Chams had far more in
common with the Malayu than with the Austroasiatic populations of mainland Southeast Asia. Similarities are evident in the first known Cham inscription dating from the mid-fourth century found at Tra Kieu in the Thu Bon
valley. The inscription is associated with a well and, as in the seventh-century
Old Malayu inscriptions in Sriwijaya, promises divine rewards for the loyal
and hellish punishment for the disloyal:
Fortune! This is the divine serpent of the king.
Whoever respects him, for him jewels fall from heaven.
Whoever insults him, he will remain for a thousand years in hell,
With seven generations of his family.99

Another common feature was the physical arrangement of the polities. As

in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, the Cham settlements were located along
major river valleys, with the principal site inland from the river mouth. The
valley and the associated upland areas formed a natural unity, and a mutually advantageous relationship was developed between the lowland Chams
and their upland relativeslater known as the Roglai, the Jarai, the Rhade,
the Curuwho also spoke Austronesian languages. The Cham scholar Po
Dharma has even argued that nagara Campa (the Champa polity) included
both Chams and uplanders, a contention supported by Li Tana, who found
that in epigraphic and other historical documents the term urang Champa
(people of nagara Champa) was used to refer to both the lowland Chams and
to the upland groups.100 In return for the delivery of valued forest products
from the interior, the upland groups gained access to such necessities as cloth,
salt, and iron, as well as to foreign prestige items. The special place of the

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Chapter 1

uplanders in Champa is seen in their role as the guardians of the royal treasures and in the inclusion of their major figures among the venerated Cham
ancestors.101
Because the relationships between the various river valley/upland Cham
polities varied according to circumstances, they were as likely to be rivals as
allies. There were some Cham groups that were forced to settle outside the
primary Cham centers. One group went south to the Vietnamese highlands
and became the Northern Roglai, while others took flight after Indrapura was
destroyed by the Vietnamese in 982 and went northward to Guangzhou and
Hainan to become the ancestors of the Tsai speakers of Hainan.102 The decision of one of the groups to go to Guangzhou was most likely influenced by
its familiarity with the Chams. The Cham lands formed the terminus closest
to China (with the exception of Vietnam, which was part of China until the
beginning of the tenth century CE), and therefore would have had far greater
contact with that land than with any group on the international east-west
trade network.
According to Ming dynastic records,103 the southern Cham polity of Vijaya
was invaded by the Vietnamese in February and March 1471, and its king
and many others were taken prisoner.104 The Sejarah Melayu records an incident that is quite probably a reference to Vijayas seizure by the Vietnamese.
A Cham polity referred to as Yak is invaded by Kuchi, a word C. C. Brown
claims is always used on the East Coast of Malaya for Indo-China.105 Through
a treasonous act, Yak is destroyed and the ruler killed. His two sons and their
ministers flee the land, one son going to Aceh and the other to Melaka.106 Perhaps linked to these earlier events is a statement in the Ming chronicles under
the date 1487 that mentions a dynastic struggle between the son of the former
ruler of Vijaya and a son of a deceased chieftain who had earlier supported
the Vietnamese.107 After the seizure of Vijaya in 1471 there was a flight of
Chams to the highlands, Hainan, Guangzhou, Melaka, Aceh, Java, Thailand,
and Cambodia. The flight of Chams to Aceh in the fifteenth century would
have been the second such exodus, the first occurring after the destruction of
Indrapura in 982. The cultural affinity among the polities that formed the Sea
of Malayu would have facilitated movements of groups such as the Chams to
the Malayu areas.108
Their proximity to China made the Cham polities a particularly valuable
link in this common sea. Ming records indicate that in the first half of the fifteenth century Champa was still an important part of the international trade
route between India and China. Its links were particularly strong with Melaka
and Samudera/Pasai, two major ports in the Straits of Melaka where traders
from the Middle East and India stopped before proceeding on to China. In
1438 the Ming records speak of trade and diplomatic ties between Champa

Malayu Antecedents

45

and Samudera, and in 1481 the kingdom of Melaka sent a missive to the Chinese court to report the capture of Champa by Annam (Vietnam) and the
fear that Melakas territories would be next to be invaded. The high regard
the Chinese had for the Chams is clearly shown by the fact that in 1370 the
Chams, the Cholas, Japan, and Java were among the first to be notified of the
accession of the new Ming dynasty.109
The eastern end of the Sea of Malayu was in no way a marginal area.
Funan, Angkor Borei, and the various Cham polities were sites of ancient civilizations that emerged and flourished as a result of international trade. The
close interactions of this eastern edge with the other Sea of Malayu communities enabled them to move seamlessly from one end of the sea to the
other. Cooke and Li have argued that in the late eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries the Water Frontier of ports and settlements stretching between
the Lower Mekong and the Gulf of Siam to the Malay Peninsula continued
to witness the frequent interchange of trade and ideas among many different ethnic groups.110 They have clearly identified a vibrant unified economic
and cultural world that persisted in this area in later centuries. But, as I have
argued, this world existed far earlier and was even more extensive than they
believed. The common features that came to be identified with the participating communities in the Sea of Malayu formed an important antecedent for
the later construction of the bhumi Malayu or the Malayu world.

Conclusion
The story of the antecedents of the Malayu has two possible scenarios,
depending upon whether one accepts the Bellwood-Blust synthesis or the
theories advanced by Solheim. The synthesis has the Austronesian speakers in
Taiwan sometime between 4000 and 3000 BCE, from which place they emigrated southward through the Philippines, down the Makassar Straits, and
then westward as far as the coast of central Vietnam and eastward into the
Pacific between 2500 and 1500 CE. Malayo-Polynesian languages emerged
from Austronesian, and Malayo-Chamic from Malayo-Polynesian. More controversial has been Solheims theory of an extended Nusantao network that
originated on the east coast of Vietnam as early as 8000 BCE. Nusantao,
according to Solheim, was not an ethnolinguistic group but a culture of all the
maritime communities participating in an extensive trade network. Through
interaction between the communities, a common trade language (which he
leaves unnamed) and culture evolved. Solheims division of the maritime
Asian and Pacific region into lobes and his dating may not gain general
approval, but there are aspects of the theory which are appealing. It accords
with the characteristics associated with mandala polities in Southeast Asia,

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Chapter 1

and the process resembles the formation of Malayu civilization that evolved
in and around the Straits of Melaka beginning in the early centuries of the
Common Era.
The arrival in the Straits of Melaka of Malayic speakers (or, in Solheims
view, the participation of a straits community in the Nusantao network)
sometime between c. 500 and c. 100 BCE coincides with the earliest evidence
of Indian contact. Although Indianized polities did not emerge in Southeast
Asia until about the middle of the first millennium CE, the foundations were
laid earlier as a result of Buddhism and its patronage of commerce. The preference for the transpeninsular/transisthmian passages in the trade of India,
Southeast Asia, and China assured the success of ports serving as termini on
these routes. The trade lingua franca in the eastern edge of the northern Sea
of Malayu, and perhaps even in the isthmian area, may have been an Austroasiatic language: Aslian among the Orang Asli along the transpeninsular/
transisthmian routes, and Mon-Khmer among the people in the port polities
on the Gulf of Siam and the South China Sea. A Malayo-Chamic language
from the Austronesian family may have been the dominant medium of communication in the Kalah ports in the western isthmian and peninsular areas.
With the political and economic prominence of Sriwijaya from the seventh
to the eleventh centuries, the Malayu language would have then become the
major lingua franca in the Sea of Malayu.
Buddhisms role in promoting commercial activity between India and
Southeast Asia is evident in the religious statuary, seals, and monuments found
in Southeast Asia. The presence of Indo-Pacific beads in the region is further
proof of ongoing links between these two regions. Although there was some
bead production within Southeast Asia itself, most of the beads recovered in
archaeological sites were manufactured in India. Being literally at the halfway point in a long trade trajectory from India/the Middle East to China, the
Isthmus of Kra and the Malay Peninsula were ideally placed for international
trade. Ships coming from either direction found it necessary to stop in the
vicinity of the Straits of Melaka to await the southwest or northeast monsoon
winds to carry them to their ultimate destinations. In time traders from both
the east and the west restricted their activities to one segment of the route and
made the Straits of Melaka the main point of exchange. Products of Southeast
Asian forests and seas also became part of this trade, and the Malayu became
active suppliers, traders, and long-distance carriers of Southeast Asian goods.
The presence of large numbers of traders in the straits encouraged enterprising leaders to create conditions to facilitate trade between foreign merchants
from both east and west. Although initially there would have been competing
harbors, eventually one emerged as the dominant entrepot while the others
became feeder ports.

Malayu Antecedents

47

The network of communities that made up the Sea of Malayu developed

a common cultural idiom. It was visible in the buildings and artifacts they left
behind, as well as in the shared values that enabled any of their members to
move comfortably from one area in this unified world to another. As testament to the common cultural world of this sea, sources note the easy involvement of the Malayu in Funan, the Angkorians in the Isthmus of Kra, and the
Chams in the Malayu world.111 The overarching unity of the Sea of Malayu
incorporated and transcended any localized identity and became the model
for the Malayu world. Economic interests were a paramount consideration
in this unity, and international trade was the glue that bound the widely dispersed communities together. Over time, continuing interactions forged cultural commonalities that could be identified with the entire network. A lingua franca developed that enriched the local languages, and ideas of religion
and statecraft were shared if not always adopted. What mattered most was
that those who participated in the common sea became regarded as family,
which carried connotations of respect, priority, and loyalty in every aspect of
their relationship. These were the antecedents of the Malayu world, in which
Malayu was not simply an ethnonym but an all-encompassing term to define
and affirm a family of communities.

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Emergence of Malayu

n this chapter I rely on linguistic and archaeological evidence to begin the story of Malayu. Identifying how the
term was used is essential to understanding the shifting
and multiple meanings it has acquired over the centuries. It also enables
one to see how various layers of meaning were imposed and others removed
under differing historical circumstances, most often instigated by changes in
economic opportunities in the Straits of Melaka.
After a brief overview of the early arguments regarding the origins of
the Malayu language and culture, I offer a synthesis of research on Sriwijaya,
now widely if not universally regarded as the birthplace of Malayu culture.
From Sriwijaya and its successor polity, Malayu, evolved the characteristics
that have been identified with Malayu culture. It is little known, however, that
the Malayu polity also encompassed the highlands of Minangkabau, providing the basis for what later emerged as a separate Minangkabau identity. The
Majapahit court epic poem the Desawarnana (also referred to as the Nagarakrtagama), written in 1365, is an important document because it is the first
known source that shows an actual conceptualization of Malayu as a world
in itself. In this work bhumi Jawa, or the world of Java or the Javanese, is
contrasted with bhumi Malayu, the world of Malayu or the Malayu associated with Sumatra. This confirms the existence of communities throughout
Sumatra that shared cultural characteristics sufficiently distinct from those in
Java to warrant a separate identity.
Only after the demise of the centers of Malayu culture in southeast
Sumatra does the story then shift to the Malay Peninsula. The emergence of
Melaka as the dominant Malayu polity in the fifteenth century added a new
layer to Malayu ethnic identity and relegated the Sumatran layer to obscurity.

49

With the conquest of Melaka by the Portuguese in 1511 and the establishment of rival Malayu polities on both sides of the Straits of Melaka, the story
of Malayu once again returns for a brief interlude to Sumatra. For about 150
years thereafter, Aceh was the center of the Malayu world, until Johor in the
late seventeenth century succeeded in shifting the Malayu focus back to the
Malay Peninsula, where it has generally remained to the present time.
The aim of this chapter, then, is to follow the historical evolution of the
term Malayu and to provide a basis for understanding why the Malayu
became the impetus for the ethnicization of other groups in the Straits of
Melaka. Crucial to the story of this process is international trade, which continued to be a major stimulus for change in the region.

Identifying the Malayu

For more than two thousand years the Straits of Melaka was the principal
route through Southeast Asia, and communities located along its shores were
the major beneficiaries of the steady flow of commercial traffic. On the peninsular side, mound and boat burials in the Kelang and Langat River basins
in Selangor dating from the last centuries BCE have revealed assemblages of
local and imported artifacts. They include indigenous iron and bronze socketed tools, beads and pottery from India, and cast bronze bells and kettledrums from Dong Son in northern Vietnam. Inhabitants of these settlements
probably offered tin from nearby alluvial tin deposits and accessible interior
gold in exchange for foreign goods, thus helping to explain the presence of
artifacts that demonstrate their ranked societies. Similar finds are recorded in
two other major sites in the Kinta region of the Perak-Bernam River valleys
and the Upper Pahang-Tembeling River valley.1
The Sumatran side of the straits has three sites dating to the first five
centuries CE and possibly as early as the first century BCE, with artifacts of
both local and foreign manufacture: Air Sugihan, Karang Agung, and a third
upriver from Karang Agung. Their location close to the Musi River would have
placed them strategically on the international trade routes moving through
the Melaka and Bangka Straits on to western Java, Bali, and the spice islands.
Foreign goods penetrated far into the interior of Sumatra, as attested by the
presence of Indian beads, Dong Son artifacts, and tall-necked kendi (spouted
vessels) in the megalithic sites in Pasemah. As in the peninsular sites, such
goods would have been exchanged for forest products and gold. Though little
is yet known about these archaeological complexes in southeast Sumatra, they
supply clear evidence of an area well accustomed to responding quickly to the
new trade opportunities flowing through the Straits of Melaka.2

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Sometime between the fifth and the seventh century CE there was a shift
in the relative importance of the maritime trade networks. Up to the fifth
century China had received goods from the lands to the west, as well as exotic
products from Southeast Asia. They would have come via the Sea of Malayu
network, with its eastern termini at one of the Lower Mekong ports belonging to the Oc Eo culture complex and at some dominant Cham port in central Vietnam. Upheaval in northern China and the resulting shift in political
power to the south encouraged the development of Chinas maritime trade.
In seeking a safer passage for goods that had previously come by land via
central Asia, the kingdoms in southern China began to use a maritime route
employing foreign oceangoing vessels. Although the Chinese had large boats,
they were mainly intended for riverine and lake transport. The principal
vessels carrying goods to and from China were termed by the Chinese kunlun bo or kunlun ships.3 Manguin has shown that some of the features of
the kunlun bo described in a Chinese account from the third century and
another from the eighth century are still maintained by shipbuilders in insular Southeast Asia. It is very likely, therefore, that the people along the Straits
of Melaka, including Sriwijaya and its predecessors, participated as carriers in
their kunlun bo.4
In the seventh century the so-called kunlun ships were coming annually
to Guanzhou and Tonking. The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Yijing, who visited
Sriwijaya and Malayu in the late seventh century, made a distinction between
the kunlun, whom he described as dark and curly-headed, from the fairer
inhabitants of the other countries in Southeast Asia.5 This description appears
to refer to the inhabitants of the islands and more specifically to the Orang
Laut, or sea people. In fifteenth-century Chinese sources, kunlun were hired
to guide Chinese ships through the region and out into the Indian Ocean,
a practice also followed by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.6 While
these tasks were usually performed by the Orang Laut populations, kunlun
was used more generally in the seventh century to refer to the people in the
islands and the inhabitants along the Straits of Melaka, with whom the Chinese had most contact in this early period.
Increasing use of the all-sea route favored the southern ports in the straits
because the southern entrance was the end point of the northeast monsoon,
which provided a powerful tailwind for traders coming from China and elsewhere in East Asia. The landfall somewhere in southeast Sumatra made it a
favored coast and encouraged the rise of settlements that aspired to entrepot
status.7 The early archaeological sites mentioned above are indications that
the inhabitants of this area in Sumatra were familiar with and receptive to the
economic opportunities offered by international commerce.

Emergence of Malayu

51

Trading ships coming from China using the northeast monsoon winds
were blown directly to the coast of southeast Sumatra. One of the earliest to
benefit from this development was the Sumatran port polity known in Chinese sources as Gantoli (Kan to-li). The name appears for the first time in
a Chinese source dated 441 CE and may have encompassed both Palembang
and Jambi. According to Chinese accounts, the Gantoli ruler had a dream in
which he was told by a Buddhist monk: If you send envoys [to China] with
tribute and pay your respectful duty, your land will become rich and happy
and merchants and travelers will multiply a hundredfold.8 Gantoli thus
sent tribute missions and was rewarded with the much-prized patronage of
the Chinese emperor. As a result it became the favored port of ships coming
from China, and in turn attracted regional traders seeking Chinese goods.
It continued to prosper under this arrangement until at least the early sixth
century.9
One of the reasons for the success of Gantoli was its ability to profit from
Chinas insatiable demand for Arabian frankincense and myrrh because of
their styptic and fumigatory qualities. In the fifth and sixth centuries, camphor and benzoin, all grown extensively in the northern half of Sumatra, were
being substituted for and later preferred to the Arabian resins in southern
China.10 Camphor was a highly prized luxury item and so valued in China
that it was placed on a par with gold.11 In addition to their much-vaunted
ability to cure a host of illnesses and shortcomings, these Sumatran oleoresins
were also difficult to obtain, which further contributed to the high prices they
could command.12 Other desired products that attracted the Chinese were
gaharuwood, rattans, tortoiseshells, pearls, and edible seaweeds. Dynastic
weakness in China in the sixth century led to a drop in demand for imported
goods and may have contributed to the demise of Gantoli, which is last mentioned by the Chinese in 563.
In the early seventh century a new toponym, Malayu, appears in an
itinerary of a Chinese emissary sent sometime between 607 and 610 CE by
the Sui emperor to open communications with Southeast Asia. Then in 644
a placed called Malayu dispatched a mission to the Chinese court. Its emergence on the southeast Sumatran coast is no surprise and would have built on
the experience of such predecessors as Gantoli.13 Wolters believes that in the
early seventh century Malayu was based in Jambi and may have controlled
the Palembang area. By the late seventh century, however, the situation was
reversed with Sriwijaya in Palembang now the dominant power. The most
important eyewitness account of the existence of Sriwijaya was Yijing, who
arrived in the city of Sriwijaya in 671 from China on a ship, presumably a
kunlun bo, owned by the ruler. He remained six months to study Sanskrit
grammar and was then sent by the ruler to Malayu, where he spent another

52

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u Archipelago
Ria

Lin

gga

Arc

hip

ela

go

two months. While in Palembang, he commented that it [Malayu] is now

changed into Sribhoga [Sriwijaya] or Bhoga [Wijaya].14
Like Gantoli before it, Sriwijaya became an entrepot dependent upon
the international trade flowing through the Straits of Melaka. Because of the
mangrove swamps on the coast, the center of Sriwijaya was located some distance inland on the Musi River in Palembang. Vital to its success as a polity
was its control over the upriver areas, which form one of the largest river
basins in the archipelago. It is this extensive network of communities linked
by the Musi and its many tributaries that led Wolters to characterize the polity as a paddle culture.15 Through exchange arrangements with the interior
Orang Asli and upriver groups, Sriwijaya was able to provide gold, rattans,
gaharuwood, and oleoresins that were in high demand in the international
marketplace.
Much more is known about Sriwijaya than any of its predecessors because
of the coincidence of Yichings visit and its association with a number of stone
inscriptions. The inscriptions were found at Kedukan Bukit (Palembang, 683
CE), Sabokingking (near Telaga Batu in Palembang, undated), Talang Tuwo
(Palembang, 684 CE), Karang Brahi (upper Batang Hari in Jambi, undated),
Kota Kapur (Bangka, 686 CE), Palas Pasemah (South Lampung, undated),
Karanganyar (Central Lampung, contemporaneous with Palas Pasemah), and
Boom Baru (Palembang, undated). Also found were a number of fragments,
plus numerous stones inscribed with the single word sidda. All these inscriptions, plus another from Ligor written in Sanskrit in 775, use the Pallava script
in a style associated with south India and Sri Lanka in the same period. The
absence of any clear local differentiation in the Sumatran inscriptions may
indicate a recent borrowing,16 and could imply that a previous indigenous or
Indian script had been superseded or that Sriwijaya was in the early stages of
literacy.
The inscriptions fall into two general types: imprecations or oaths and
commemorations of royal gifts and victories. Inscriptions of the first type
containing similar imprecation formulae and almost identical texts were
found at Palas Pasemah, Karanganyar, Karang Brahi, Kota Kapur, and Boom
Baru. The Telaga Batu or Sabokingking inscription is longer and is directed
specifically to royal personages, officials, and various groups within the realm.
As in the first Cham inscription from the fourth century, its central feature
is the threat of supernatural punishment to those who fail to abide by their
oaths.17 Of the second type the oldest and most detailed is the Kedukan Bukit
inscription, which celebrated a victorious expedition that resulted in power
and wealth for Sriwijaya. Coeds believes that the inscription commemorates
the founding of a dynasty because in Indianized Southeast Asia the establishment of a kingdom or a dynasty was often accompanied by magical prac-

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tices. The founder underwent a ceremony known as siddhiyatra, a voyage or

a pilgrimage from which one returns endowed with magical powers. Coeds
cites the following phrases from the Kedukan Bukit inscription as evidence
that a new dynasty was being founded: His Majesty boarded a ship to go in
search of magic powers and Sriwijaya, endowed with magic powers. The
discovery of the inscription at the foot of Bukit Siguntang, the sacred hill of
the Sriwijaya rulers, reinforces Coeds argument that the dynasty was following the well-documented practice of kings of the mountain in Southeast
Asia.18 A new reading of the inscription in 1986 by Boechari suggests that an
army had left Binanga, conquered the enemy at the site where the inscription was found, and there established a new center that became Sriwijaya.19
This interpretation has not found wide acceptance, but the Kedukan Bukit
inscription itself demonstrates that communities were competing with one
another in response to the new economic opportunities presented by direct
Chinese involvement in the maritime trade to Southeast Asia.
The Sabokingking (Telaga Batu) inscription, whose twenty-eight lines
makes it the longest of all the extant Sriwijayan inscriptions, begins with a
curse against a number of individuals, ranging from princes to shippers and
washermen of the ruler. The list is not comprehensive, and the occupations are those that could pose a danger to the ruler: princes who could lead
rebellions in the realm, shippers who could be subject to foreign influence,
or washermen who had access to the rulers person. In order to assure their
loyalty, the oath was administered in a ceremony involving the drinking of
the water that had been poured over the inscription containing the imprecation. There is also a reference to the use of military force. Five inscribed stone
fragments dating from the late seventh and early eighth centuries recount
victories in battles and the shedding of much blood. Such force was necessary
against the elite groups who may have been less intimidated than the commoners by sacred oaths.20
The location of the inscriptions at Karang Brahi in the upper Batang
Hari, Kota Kapur in the southwest corner of Bangka, Palas Pasemah in southern Lampung, and Ligor in the vicinity of Nakhon Sithammarat in southern
Thailand is important. It suggests that they were placed carefully at strategic crossroads. The upper Batang Hari was one of the major interior trading centers, where goods from the Minangkabau highlands could be traded
for external goods going upriver. The headlands of the Musi, the major river
in Palembang, do not link up with the Minangkabau highlands, unlike the
upper Batang Hari River in Jambi. For this reason Karang Brahi may have
been essential for the protection of the land route between PalembangJambi and the Minangkabau highlands. Kota Kapur was ideally placed on the
Bangka Straits where it could monitor ships moving between Palembang and

Emergence of Malayu

55

Jambi to the Lampungs and West Java.21 Palas Pasemah was a collecting and
redistribution center for products from both the Lampungs and West Java,
while Ligor, also known by the toponym Tambralinga, was for centuries an
important east coast terminus in the transisthmian trade route. Even with
the limited number of inscriptions emanating from Sriwijaya, the nature and
placement of these royal commands inscribed in stone demonstrate the presence of an ambitious polity in the late seventh century that sought to control
the important markets in the western archipelago.
Sriwijayas involvement beyond the Straits of Melaka can be inferred by
discovery of Old Malayu inscriptions in Java and the Philippines. The desire to
emulate Sriwijaya is evident in the manner in which ambitious rulers in Java
used Old Malayu to consolidate their positions. On the north coast of central Java, the inscriptions invoke the gods of different regions, while another
found at Candi Sewu in the Kedu Plains to the south simply calls on the
spirit of Tandrum Luah, the protector spirit of Sriwijaya.22 A ninth-century
inscription in Sanskrit and Old Malayu from Sojomerto in central Java mentions a dapunta Selendra.23 Dapunta is the title used in the inscriptions for
Sriwijaya rulers, and the Old Malayu used in this particular text could possibly stem from the coastal Javanese version of the language.24 This suggests
that Sriwijayas influence had come via the northern Javanese ports and that
its prestige had encouraged other rulers to adopt the Sriwijayan titulature.
Another Old Malayu inscription written in Pallava script and dated 942 CE
was found near Bogor in west Java. Although it refers to the restoration of a
Sundanese ruler by the order of a Javanese lord, it is written in Old Malayu.25
From a close study of the language of these inscriptions, de Casparis is convinced that the use of Old Malay in Java reflects direct or indirect influence
from Sriwijaya.26
The discovery of an Old Malayu inscription at Laguna in Bulakan province in the northern Philippines makes it the most distant evidence of Sriwijayan influence thus far found. It is a copperplate inscription dated 900 CE
using a mix of languages to record the clearing of an individuals debt. The
main language is Old Malayu (though not identical to that found in Sumatra or Java), ceremonial forms of address are in Old Javanese, and technical
terms are in Sanskrit with simplified spelling and local affixes. The place
names in the inscription are all located on rivers and coasts with access to the
South China Sea and the outside world. The Laguna inscription is the first
indication that Old Malayu had developed a vocabulary to deal with matters
of debt and class distinction.27 The ability of the language to express such
concepts is unsurprising since it evolved in Sriwijaya, where a list of occupations recorded in the Sabokingking inscription suggests a well-differentiated
society.

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Arab and Persian sources reinforce epigraphic evidence indicating the

presence of an important polity somewhere in Sumatra or Java. About 916 CE
Abu Zayd compiled an account based on his own readings and on interviews
with people who had sailed to the east. He refers to the Maharaja, the king
of Zabag, whose possessions are principally at Sriwijaya.28 In a story repeated
in later Arabic sources, he describes a daily ritual in which the Maharaja has a
gold ingot thrown into a small lagoon adjoining the palace. Only at low tide
can one see the vast accumulation of gold in the pool. At the death of the
Maharaja, the gold is recovered, melted down, and distributed to the princes
and the royal family, among men, women and children equally, and to the
officers and eunuchs according to their rank and prerogatives of their offices.
What remains is then given to the poor and unfortunate.29
Masudi, an Arab writing in 943, repeats this story and adds that the
empire of the Maharaja comprises not only Sriwijaya but also Ramni and
Kalah. It is noteworthy that of all the areas responsive to Sriwijaya, Ramni,
and Kalah are the two places that merit special mention. Kalah, as noted
in the previous chapter, was one of the names used by traders coming from
the west to refer to any of a number of ports along the northwest isthmian
and peninsular coastline. It was an important landfall for traders who took
the transisthmian/transpeninsular route leading to ports on the Gulf of Siam.
The Ramni of Arabic accounts appears to be the Polu [Po-lu] of Chinese
sources and refers to a large area stretching across northern Sumatra to Barus
on the west coast, with its principal port between Aceh Head and Diamond
Point. In the New History of the Tang (completed in 1034 but based on much
earlier materials), Sriwijaya is referred to as a double kingdom with one center at Ramni in the north and another at Sriwijaya in the south.30
Masudi offers a formulaic description of Sriwijayas wealth and power by
reporting from a reliable source that when a cock in that country crows at
sunrise, others answer in a wave through contiguous villages extending outward for more than six hundred kilometers.31 One major reason for Sriwijayas
prosperity, according to the Arab geographer Idrisi, writing in the mid-twelfth
century, is the benefits of trade. When both China and India are beset with
turmoil, he writes, the inhabitants of China carried their trade to Zabaj and
to the islands which belonged to it; and entered into relations with the inhabitants because of their honesty, their extreme friendliness, their courtesy and
the flexibility of their commerce. For these reasons, he continues, the island
of Zabag is highly populated and well frequented by foreigners.32 Considerable
quantities of ceramics found at ninth- and tenth-century sites at Palembang
and upriver in the Musi River basin are evidence of strong Chinese trade to
Sriwijaya, much of it spurred by the establishment of the Song dynasty in the
tenth century.33 In an attempt to become a maritime power, Song China had

Emergence of Malayu

57

begun to create a navy consisting of seaworthy hybrid vessels that combined

some of the elements of the kunlun bo and the Chinese river craft.34 Sriwijaya
was the principal beneficiary of this new maritime initiative, as comments by
Arab geographers on the wealth and power of its rulers readily attest.
In addition to Sriwijayas reputation as a successful entrepot, it was also
renowned as a center of Buddhist learning. There were more than a thousand
Buddhist monks studying there when Yijing arrived in Palembang in the second half of the seventh century, and he noted that one could attend religious
lectures and read original Buddhist scriptures. For this reason he advised all
Chinese monks to spend a year or two studying in Sriwijaya before proceeding to India.35 Although by the end of the seventh century Yijing affirmed the
dominance in Southeast Asia of one of the Hinayana sects, the Talang Tuwo
inscription dated 684 CE marked the introduction of Mahayana Buddhism
to Sriwijaya and is the oldest document in Southeast Asia that mentions or
infers the presence of Mahayana Buddhism. The inscription proclaims the
rulers bodhisattva status and his concern for the salvation of all beings. It
also emphasizes the importance of the ruler and his realm as the center of
a form of Tantric Mahayana Buddhism.36 The Sabokingking (Telaga Batu)
inscription, dated approximately the same time as the Kota Kapur inscription
(686 CE), mentions a Tantric rite, the tantramala, which is believed to be a
secret formula leading to Final Liberation.37 This Tantric form of Mahayana
Buddhism continued to be favored by the Malayu courts that moved to Jambi,
then to upriver Batang Hari, and finally into the Minangkabau highlands.
Excavations in Palembang have uncovered a large Buddha image and
many Buddhist artifacts, reinforcing Yijings depiction of Sriwijaya as an
important Buddhist center. The Sejarah Malayus account of the appearance
of the ancestors of the Malay rulers on Bukit (Mt.) Siguntang may contain
remnants of a Buddhist tale. In the story, three brothers descend from the
heavens onto Bukit Siguntang, whose summit is bathed in light from the
grains and stems of the rice stalks that had been transformed to gold and the
leaves to silver. Since bodhisattvas are frequently depicted in their refulgent
splendor, it has been suggested that the tale commemorates the bodhisattva
status of the rulers of Sriwijaya.38 This view is reasonable since the Talang
Tuwo inscription unequivocally refers to the Sriwijaya ruler as a bodhisattva
whose concern is the welfare of all beings.39
In the years 10245 the Cholas of southern India attacked and destroyed
Sriwijayas ports on both sides of the Straits of Melaka. Neither the reason for
the attack nor the timing of it can be determined by the sources, although
trade rivalry may have been one possible cause. The destruction of the Sriwijaya center in Palembang led to the rise in the importance of Zhanbei (Chanpei, Jambi), which first appears in Chinese sources in 840.40 It sent tributary

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missions to Tang China in 853 and 871 and to Sung China in 1079 and 1088.41
Whether Jambi and Malayu were the same polity is unclear. The restoration of
the power of Jambi/Malayu would have continued the tradition of southeastern Sumatran ports responding to shifts in international trade. Palembang
again became a trading port of note frequented by Chinese traders in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but both Zhou Zufei (1178) and Zhao Rugua
(1225) call the polity Sanfoqi instead of Shihlifoshih, the previous rendering of Sriwijaya.42
By the thirteenth century the Jambi-Palembang area was clearly subservient to Java, and the Pamalayu43 expedition sent from east Java in 1275 is
evidence of the reversal of their long-standing relationship. Some believe that
the intent of the Pamalayu expedition was punitive, while others view it as an
act of an overlord seeking to protect a vassal state from threats of a Mongol
invasion.44 While the motivation for the launching of the Pamalayu expedition may never be known, subsequent events indicate that the ruler of Malayu
may have sought to escape further Javanese attacks by moving the royal residence, and hence the center of the polity, from the coast to the interior. But
the move did not prove a deterrent to the ambitious Javanese. In 1286 Kertanagara, the Javanese ruler of Singasari, ordered the placing of religious statues
at Dharmasraya, Malayus capital in the vicinity of Padang Roco in the upper
reaches of the Batang Hari River.45 In addition to commemorating this royal
largesse, the inscription states that all the inhabitants of Malayu (referring to
the inhabitants of Dharmasraya)brahmans, ksatriyas, vaisas, and sudras
and especially the king, Srimat Tribhuwanaraja Mauliwarmadewa, rejoiced
at the presentation of the gifts. The placement of religious images at Dharmasraya continued an earlier Sriwijayan tradition of distributing sacred inscribed
documents on stone at crucial locations. Dharmasraya was in the transition
zone between the downriver center and a new interior one that was beginning
to develop in the highlands of Minangkabau.46 For nonliterate communities,
these religious statues and the royal inscription were visible signs of the power
of the ruler and his supernatural sanction.
The archaeological evidence supports the view that Malayu consisted of a
center on the coast and another in the interior. The main center of the kingdom, defined by the presence of the ruler, moved upstream from Muara Jambi
to Dharmasraya sometime prior to 1286. It was followed by another move to
a place whose name ended with vita or cita, and finally to Suruaso in the
Minangkabau highlands. The second center was located somewhere downstream
and served as the entrepot for international trade. It is from this center that
two Muslim traders appeared in the Chinese court in 1281 as Malayu envoys.47
The ethnic identity of the inhabitants of Sriwijaya cannot be determined
with available sources. Only after the emergence of Malayu as Sriwijayas

Emergence of Malayu

59

successor can one suggest that the inhabitants may have adopted the prestigious identity of their polity and hence were called orang Malayu, or the
people of (the polity) Malayu. Initially, therefore, Malayu identity was most
likely polity-based, and the characteristics of this identity were derived from
the nature of the polity itself. Increasingly, however, the term Malayu was
no longer used exclusively to identify subjects of a polity but to distinguish
specific cultural practices and the language associated with the populations of
the Musi and Batang Hari river basins. Nevertheless, the emergence in history
of a group that can be identified as Malayu should not be regarded as fixing
this ethnicity forever in time. The story of the Malayu is an ancient one, but it
is not a story of the ancient Malayu.

Development of Malayu Culture in Southeast Sumatra

Only limited numbers of inscriptions, scattered references in Chinese dynastic records, a few travelers accounts from the Middle East, India, and China,
some archaeological finds, and a few linguistic studies are available to reconstruct aspects of the Malayu culture that evolved in southeast Sumatra in the
first 1500 years CE. From such divergent approaches but complementary evidence emerges a clearer picture of the society. Studying stone inscriptions
reveals attitudes toward governance and the political and social organization
of the polity, Chinese and Arabic documents contain material on international exchange of goods and ideas, archaeology provides information on the
material and religious culture, and linguistics demonstrates how the Malayu
language evolved to become the medium of communication and a basis for
group identity.
Linguists believe that the Malayic languages arose in western Borneo,
based on their geographic spread in the interior, their variations that are not
due to contact-induced change, and their sometimes conservative character.48
According to Robert Blust, the Malayu language was emerging by the beginning of the first century CE.49 It was sufficiently developed by the late seventh century to be used as the language of the Sriwijayan inscriptions. While
Malayu may have been an official language, there is an intriguing theory that
the undeciphered opening sentences in the Kota Kapur and Karang Berahi
inscriptions belong to another local language related to Malayu.50 Blust and
Benjamin share the view that in the Malay Peninsula too there is evidence of
a pre-Malayic Austronesian language beneath a Malayic continuum.51 What
this suggests is that there were other languages spoken by communities that
formed part of the Sriwijaya polity, and that Malayu may have been the lingua
franca, or at least the language of government.

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The first major center of Sriwijaya was not on the coast, as one would
have expected of an entrepot, but some distance up the Musi River.52 The
reason is that the shores of east coast Sumatra are dominated by mangrove
swamps, which provide valuable resources for the Orang Laut populations
but are not suitable for residential communities. When the Malayic-speaking
immigrants from west Borneo arrived in southeast Sumatra, they settled along
the Musi and the Batang Hari rivers and their tributaries and even penetrated
into the highland interior.53 The location of the major settlements was at the
juncture of tributaries and land routes, with similar-structured smaller communities providing the feeder points for the main port city.54 In this riverine
environment evolved the earliest version of the Malayu language and culture.
While most agree that Malayu culture (as differentiated from language)
developed in southeast Sumatra, the linguist Jim Collins has argued that western Borneo was not only the linguistic but the cultural origin of Malayu. He
bases his argument on archaeological finds of Indian carnelian beads and
Dong Son drums from the fourth century CE, and silver and gold Buddha
images in Sambas from the eighth (or, as Miksic suggests, perhaps ninth or
tenth) century.55 However, another linguist, Alexander Adelaar, contends that
coastal Borneo only received Malayu culture after its development in southeast Sumatra.56 This latter view is strengthened by Blusts recent linguistic
study, which demonstrates that the retention of ancient Malayu words in the
languages of southeast Borneo could only have been derived through trade
contact with the southeast Sumatran polity of Sriwijaya in the period between
670 and 800 CE.57 These dates coincide with the period of the politys expansion as documented by the contents and strategic placements of Sriwijayas
limited but informative inscriptions. Recent archaeological investigations
undertaken in the Palembang area have also unearthed numerous sherds and
other artifacts that leave little doubt that Palembang was the site of Sriwijaya.58
In short, the evidence provided by most linguists and prehistorians supports
the view that the Malayu cultural homeland began in southeast Sumatra with
Sriwijaya as its principal center between the seventh and eleventh centuries.
Wolters provided one of the most innovative uses of the sources in tapping Chinese materia medica to advance our understanding of the rise of
Sriwijaya and the development of features that came to be identified with
Malayu culture. From a study of Chinese pharmacopoeia, he identified rattans, aromatic gaharuwood, pine resins, benzoin, and camphor as products
most likely obtained from Sumatra. How such products were brought to
market could only be convincingly explained by the involvement of huntinggathering communities in the interior using an intricate network of rivers,
tributaries, and linking land passages to bring the goods downstream to the

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entrepot. Finally, it was the sea peoples intimate knowledge of the treacherous waters at the southern entrance of the Straits of Melaka and their prowess
at sea that assured the safety of foreign ships trading at the entrepot.59 Earlier
studies depict Sriwijaya as an empire created and maintained by force. Such
a view is now generally rejected because the nature of the seascape and landscape would have limited the efficacy of any punitive expedition. The major
Sumatran rivers flow from the interior highlands to the east coast through
heavy forests. Along the banks of these rivers and their many tributaries lived
scattered communities, who used these waterways and the short land passages
connecting them as their principal access to the outside world. Until the recent
past, the Malayu lived by fishing, some farming, collecting of jungle products,
and trade. At or near the edges of the thick jungles were dispersed communities (officially termed Suku Terasing, Isolated Ethnic Groups, by the current
Indonesian government), who were collectors of forest products and were
the major suppliers of rattan, aromatic woods, and resins. The lower reaches
of the rivers, the coasts, and the many islands off southeast Sumatra formed
another part of the Sriwijayan landscape and were home to the Orang Laut
(sea people). They collected sea products for the China market and used their
navigational skills and familiarity with seas around the southern entrance of
the straits to bring passing traders to Sriwijaya and to harass those from rival
ports. The Orang Laut formed the bulk of the Sriwijayan fleet and provided
vital information on the movement of ships through the Straits of Melaka.
Faced with this type of natural and human environment in Sriwijaya, the
use of force would have been limited because recalcitrant subjects could simply disappear into the impenetrable forests or escape to the many islands off
the coast until the punitive expedition left. In such a polity, force would not
be a primary instrument in achieving a convergence of interests among the
constituent parts. Even though the inscriptions refer to military expeditions,
much bloodshed, and even an expedition of twenty thousand men, the threat
of the imprecation or water oath would probably have been equally if not
more effective in retaining the loyalty of the ordinary people.60 Collectively,
the inscriptions reveal the practice of Perfection Path Mahayana Buddhism,
which teaches that magical powers from mantras and yantras can be used to
defeat enemies and to reach Enlightenment.61
The royal word, boosted by additional supernatural power, was therefore an important feature of early polities.62 Through the judicious placement
of religious symbols and royal inscriptions containing fearsome oaths (royal
words), the threat of supernatural punishment of disloyal subjects was available as a last resort when gentle persuasion failed. The Karang Berahi and the
Kota Kapur inscriptions threaten the use of force to punish those disloyal,
along with their families and clans.63 Perhaps for this reason, the Kota Kapur

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inscription mentions inscribing the curse on stone at the time of a military

expedition against the land of Java (bhumi jawa).64 The sacred powers of the
ruler became associated with Sriwijaya and its successors and became regarded
as a feature of Malayu culture.
By rejecting the idea of a Sriwijaya empire, recent scholarship has
revealed a polity that was in effect a network of kin groups that functioned
like a family unit. In the Sabokingking (Telaga Batu) inscription is a long
list of functionaries and occupations: princes, landlords, army leaders, local
magnates, confidants, royal confidants, judges, surveyors of groups of workmen, surveyors of low castes, cutlers, ministers of princely status, regular and
irregular troops, administrators, clerks, architects, naval captains, merchants,
royal washermen, and royal slaves. With a few exceptions the names in the
inscription are said to be grandiose Sanskrit titles drawn from the administrative vocabulary of the imperial Guptas.65 This view is consonant with
Smiths contention that India had very little to offer Southeast Asia until the
rise of the Gupta dynasty in the beginning of the fourth century.66 Most titles
are mentioned only once, whereas the Malayu terms datu and huluntuhan
are repeated often. Datu is commonly used in all of the early inscriptions
of Sriwijaya, and huluntuhan is referred to seven times in the Sabokingking
inscription.67
The term datu stems from the protoMalayo-Polynesian term referring to a lineage or clan official. From this original gloss, Malayo-Polynesian
languages have given the word other related meanings of chief, priest, noble,
and ancestor. The association of leaders with the ability to effect supernatural
sanction is a cultural feature that extends back into the Austronesian past.68
Among the Malayu on the Malay Peninsula the concept was retained in the
expression timpa daulat, or struck by the forces of sovereignty, with the
Arabic-derived daulat very likely replacing an indigenous term. In a famous
episode from the Hikayat Hang Tuah,69 a faithful retainer of the ruler of
Melaka commits treason (derhaka, a Sanskrit term) against the ruler and is
killed. So heinous is his crime that the spot where his dead body was hung
remained without a single blade of grass.70 Equally graphic is the story from
the Hikayat Siak where the nobleman commits regicide and in the process
is wounded on the foot by the rulers keris. Grass grows in the wound that
refuses to heal for four years, with the nobleman not being able to live or die
but continuing to suffer because of his treasonous act.71 While modern commentators have regarded such tales as simply attempts by the ruling classes to
keep their subjects loyal, the belief in sacred punishment is part of an ancient
tradition that would have been understood even without such reminders.
The Sriwijayan datu and later Malayu rulers were believed to be imbued
with sacred powers, and any object, utterance, or representation of these

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sacred beings became sacrosanct. The royal word contained in inscriptions

and letters was regarded as particularly potent. Through oath-giving ceremonies and the erecting of inscriptions that emphasized the supernatural
sanctions associated with the royal person, the sacred origins of the rulers
were reinforced. Not only the contents but also the medium that conveyed the
royal word became sacred by association. This is evident in the earliest extant
Malayu document dating to the second half of the fourteenth century, which
is a law code mainly consisting of fines. It was found in Kerinci, Sumatra,
and is written in a local Sumatran script.72 The survival of the manuscript is
explained by the fact that it was regarded as a sacred heirloom by the whole
group and was only brought out perhaps once or twice a generation.73 The
source of the law code, most probably from authorities linked to a Malayu
ruler, would have made it an object of reverence by the people. In a similar
vein, the Pasemah people in interior Sumatra in the early nineteenth century were recorded to have consumed the seals of contracts made between
their leaders and Stamford Raffles. They believed that by ingesting these seals,
potent with sacred powers of the signatories, they were gaining a form of an
internal amulet.74
The association of the datu with fertility is also among his supernatural attributes. Many early Southeast Asian societies believed that there was a
direct correlation between the conduct of the chief/ruler and the fecundity
or barrenness of the land and the people. By citing crop failures or natural
disasters afflicting a society, a chronicler may not simply be reporting the state
of affairs but also leveling serious criticism against the ruler. A good monarch,
on the other hand, is praised through references to the fertility of the land, the
animals, and the people.75
In the Kota Kapur inscription, the word datu is used to mean the power
of majesty and those possessed of or invested with such power. The residence
of the Sriwijayan ruler is therefore known as kadatuan, a place containing
the datu in both its spiritual and corporeal manifestations. Those who are
installed by the ruler of Sriwijaya with the power of datu then become
datu. Their importance is evident in the Kota Kapur and the Sabokingking
inscriptions, where the families and clan of the datu share their fate in being
punished for disobedience or rewarded for loyalty.76 Sriwijaya was therefore
governed by a network of family members of the datu, from the ruler down to
those invested with the title. This idea is contained in the prominence of the
Malayu term huluntuhan, which means slaves or subjects (hulun) and lords
(tuhan).77 From its literal meaning as the lords subjects or slaves, huluntuhan
has been interpreted as empire (de Casparis), rulers family or retainers
(Kulke), and a geographic entity or collectivity of people (Christie).78

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In a study of all the extant inscriptions linked to Sriwijaya, Jan Christie identified about a dozen terms referring to the political arrangement of
the realm, six of which are Old Malayu words. These terms and glosses are
punta hiyang79 (a religious term used by the ruler), datu (chief of a group or
a smaller political entity subordinate to Sriwijaya), kadatuan (the rulers palace), parddatwan (group or place under the control of a datu), wanua (community, settled territory), and huluntuhan (lords slaves/subjects). The last
term appears most frequently and prominently in the inscriptions to refer to
Sriwijaya as an entity. Other terms borrowed from Sanskrit for the territorial
extent of the polity are bhumi (land, country) and mandala (literally circle,
but used to refer to a political unit ranging from territory, province, country
to surrounding district and neighboring states.)80
The titles and the administrative divisions suggest that the ruler relied on
his position as datu to employ his huluntuhan network to govern the polity.
This would account for the translation of huluntuhan as empire81 and for
its reference to both a geographic entity and a distinctive body of people. The
equating of huluntuhan with the whole of Sriwijaya in the Sabokingking (Telaga Batu) inscription suggests that the sum total of these networks, headed
by the ruler as religious and lineage head of the whole, was the essence of the
Malayu polity.82 This interpretation accords with Joyce Whites observation
that descriptions of political hierarchy in Southeast Asia do not conform to
the flexible social systems described by ethnographers, which are associated
with alliance-focused political entities.83 Hierarchy, as in the case of Sriwijaya,
tended to be more prescriptive than real, forcing scholars to examine more
critically the terms actually used to describe the system. While economic
self-interest may have been an important factor in establishing a relationship
among the various units in Sriwijaya, loyalty to the datus family proved an
effective means of maintaining these ties through the vicissitudes of the marketplace. Belonging to a relationship that was perceived as a kinship group
was desirable, not simply for material benefits but also for the protection it
provided.
Based on these terms and the list of occupations found in the Sabokingking (Telaga Batu) inscription, Kulke has reconstructed what he believes
to have been the physical and social organization of Sriwijaya. The kedatuan
where the datu and his household resided formed the core or the center of
the polity. It contained the royal residence, the womens quarters, the treasury, and the sacred sanctuary for Sriwijayas tutelary deity. The kedatuan
was located within the vanua, or a semiurban area, which also incorporated
the residences of the various occupations mentioned in the inscription. Also
forming part of the vanua were the villages, the markets, and a Buddhist

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monastery (vihara), which would have been the home of the thousand Buddhist monks that Yijing noted in his visit to Sriwijaya in the late seventh century. Kedatuan and vanua, the only Malayu terms found in the inscriptions
for a territorial space, together made up the city of Sriwijaya.
Linked to the vanua by special roads were the samaryyada, a Sanskrit
term referring to the neighborhood surrounding the city of Sriwijaya and
under the control of a Sriwijayan datu and his huluntuhan. Beyond the
samaryyada were lands conceptualized as concentric circles bearing the Sanskrit terms of mandala and bhumi. Mandala refers to the autonomous or
semiautonomous polities at the periphery governed by two different types of
datu. The more powerful and hence more independent of the mandala polities were led by datu who were recognized (sanyasa) by the ruler, indicating
that they retained their own people in positions of authority. These mandala
were replicas of the political/familial arrangement at the center. Less powerful mandala were governed by datu who had been raised to (samyarddhi)
that status by the ruler of Sriwijaya and thus become part of his huluntuhan.
Bhumi is glossed as earth, soil, realm, and country, and is mentioned
twice in one inscription in the phrase people in the land (bhumi) under the
order/command of the kedatuan. Bhumi Srivijaya was one way of referring
to the whole polity and was equivalent to bhumi Jawa and bhumi Mataram.84
In this analysis, Sriwijaya and other early polities in the archipelago
comprised a network of relationships with varying degrees of control exercised from the center. Those mandala with greater independence and located
in the areas farthest from the center were therefore provided an option to
detach themselves from the core. Although there is insufficient information
to describe the functioning of the Sriwijaya mandala, some understanding
may be gained from a general discussion of the mandala concept as applied
to early Southeast Asian polities. In this concept, political control was exercised through the occasional oath-giving ceremonies and the bestowing of
royal favors and blessings in exchange for tribute in the form of goods and
services. It was a system that relied on persuasion and acknowledgment of
mutual benefits rather than on force, though the threat of supernatural sanction was always a potential royal weapon. The relationship between the center
and the periphery is often explained through an analogy with the beam of
an upturned lamp. When cast on a flat surface, the beam is most intense at
the center and becomes progressively weaker toward the edges. In a similar
fashion, a mandala politys influence is strongest in the areas closest to the
center and weakest at the periphery. To carry the analogy a step further, if two
lamps are placed close to each other, their beams overlap at the edges, just as
the authority of two competing centers may overlap at their peripheries.85
These borderlands thus form dynamic areas where shifts in allegiances most

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frequently occur to challenge the established political arrangements. Based on

the reconstruction above of its geopolitical space, Sriwijaya probably operated
in accordance with the model of a Southeast Asian mandala polity.
Despite the appearance in the inscriptions of a highly structured political
system, Sriwijaya was likely governed in a much more decentralized fashion.
Officialdom was essentially a patrimonial staff.86 The presence of the tuhan
(lord and family head) in the kedatuan identified the spiritual center of the
realm, while physical proximity to the tuhan determined the status hierarchy
of his hulun (subjects or kinfolk). The phrase people inside the land under
the order of the kedatuan (uran di dalana bhumi ajaa kadatuanku)87
suggests that the bhumi itself only comes into existence when it has come
under the order of the ruler. The Sriwijayan datu was an essential ingredient in defining the polity, and it was the datus huluntuhan, or relatives and
retainers, who governed and linked the distant parts of the polity to the center. For this reason the term huluntuhan has been glossed as polity and even
empire, making the ruler and his family a synecdoche of the polity.
In sum, the mandala political arrangement was admirably suited to the
dispersed and independent communities that made up Sriwijaya. Implicit is
the idea that governance would be by consensus since neither the ruler nor
the community would enter into a relationship unless it was one of mutual
benefit. Force was rarely contemplated, and when it was employed it usually proved ineffective against a highly mobile population operating in their
familiar habitats. The port polities acted as gatekeepers along the major
artery of a river basin, thus controlling the flow of goods. Moreover, in some
cases the downriver polities produced local goods, such as metal tools, salt
fish, woven cloth, and jewelry to entice the interior to trade their products
downstream.88 Strategic collecting posts at important crossroads of river and
land routes in the interior constituted vital nodes in Sriwijaya/Malayus distribution network. The realm did not consist of contiguous territories within
clearly demarcated boundaries, but of communities scattered in the rivers,
jungles, and seasanywhere in the region that agreed to submit to the spiritual powers of the ruler. It was people, not the lands or seas they inhabited,
that determined the extent of the realm. Even those who were not regarded
as subjects felt the impact of this prestigious kingdom. Local folklore in the
highlands of southern Sumatra preserve tales of charismatic leaders arriving
from the outside bringing a new cultural order to fill the vacuum left with the
demise of Sriwijaya.89
By the time of the decline of Sriwijaya/Malayu in the fourteenth century,
there were certain features which came to be associated with a Malayu polity: (1) an entrepot state involved in maritime international commerce; (2) a
ruler endowed with sacred attributes and powers; (3) governance based on

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kinship ties; (4) a mixed population with specific and mutually advantageous
roles in the economy; and (5) a realm whose extent was determined not by
territory but by shifting locations of its subjects. This was a legacy bequeathed
by Sriwijaya/Malayu between the seventh and the fourteenth centuries. As
subsequent Malayu kingdoms continued to practice and refine the conventions established by Sriwijaya/Malayu, these features as well as behavioral
patterns associated with these courts were increasingly identified as forming
Malayu culture.

The Malayu on the Malay Peninsula

According to a Malayu tradition found in the Sejarah Melayu, a prince and his
followers migrated from Palembang (the site of Sriwijaya) to the Malay Peninsula sometime toward the end of the fourteenth century.90 Most of the stories
in this text are about individuals and events from the semilegendary Melaka
kingdom (c. 14001511) and may have originated in this period. When the
Portuguese conquered Melaka in 1511, the Portuguese apothecary Tom Pires
collected many of the traditions of Melaka in order to reconstruct something
of its past. Local documents were studied for an understanding of the Malayu
foe and for an assessment of the trade possibilities for the Portuguese in the
region. The outcome was the Suma Oriental, written in Melaka between 1512
and 1515, which describes some of the same episodes as those in the Sejarah
Melayu but often in greater detail.91 Unlike these two documents, the Ming
dynastic history, the Ming Shi-lu, is noted for the brevity of its comments
dealing with Melaka. It is nevertheless an invaluable contemporary record of
the early years of the Melaka kingdom.92 These three documents provide a far
more detailed (though still limited) account of a Malayu polity than is available for Sriwijaya/Malayu.
The supernatural ruler who descended on Bukit Siguntang in Palembang
is called Sri Tri Buana in the Sejarah Melayu and Permaisura in the Suma Oriental. It is the latter name that is mentioned in an entry dated 3 October 1405
in the Ming Shi-lu, where a Bai-li-mi-su-la is said to be the native ruler of
the country of Melaka.93 Both names for the founder of Melaka underscore the
non-Muslim origin of the Palembang prince.94 Though the outlines of the
story of the Palembang princes peregrinations are structurally similar in
the Suma Oriental and the Sejarah Melayu, the latter text has obviously been
written for the pleasure and edification of the Melaka court. While the Suma
Oriental describes the movement as a flight to escape Majapahits wrath,95 the
Sejarah Melayu explains it as a planned visit.
In the Sejarah Melayu Sri Tri Buana encounters a singa, a strange type of
lion associated with ancient times, while on a visit to the island of Temasek.

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Interpreting this as a sign, he settles in Temasek and renames it Singapura,

or the City of the Singa. Sri Tri Buana remains in Singapore until his death
and is succeeded by his son. Singapura becomes a great city, attracting many
foreigners, but its fame is short-lived because it is attacked and destroyed by
Majapahit. The destruction of Singapore is implicitly attributed to injustices
committed by the ruler against his faithful subjects, thereby incurring the
punishment of the Almighty.96
In Tome Pires Suma Oriental, the reason for the abandonment of Singapore is an attack not by Majapahit but by the Siamese. The Sejarah Melayu
mentions that Melaka, but not Singapore, was attacked by the Siamese from
Sharun-nuwi (New City), which was the name the Persians gave the city
of Ayutthaya. Both Singapore and Melaka may have been attacked or at least
threatened by the Siamese. Founded in 1351, Ayutthaya had developed into
a major entrepot in the region. The rapid rise of any rival entrepot would
have been viewed as a threat to Ayutthayas own ambitions. According to the
episode in the Suma Oriental, the Permaisure (Sri Tri Buana) kills the Siamese
governor in Singapore and takes control of the city. This incurs the wrath of
the Siamese, who then send a large expedition and expel the Palembang people from the island.97 The thriving northeastern Sumatran coastal polity of
Pasai may also have suffered an attack by the Siamese. In the Sejarah Melayu,
the ruler of Samudera/Pasai is seized by the ruler of Sharun-nuwi and forced
to tend the palace fowls.98 Evidence of Siamese incursions in the Malayu world
is corroborated in the Ming Shi-lu under the date 20 November 1407:
The kings of the two countries of Samudera and Melaka also sent people to
complain that Siam had been overbearing and that it had sent troops to take
away their seals and title patents which they had received from the Court.
They also noted that the people of their countries were scared and unable to
live in peace.99

In the Ming Shi-lu, Melaka is mentioned for the first time as a port that was
visited in 1403 by the eunuch Yin Qing at the orders of the Ming emperor.
China had never heard of Melaka until informed about its existence by some
Muslim traders from south India. These merchants were apparently eager to
see the development of an entrepot in the Straits of Melaka, which was much
more convenient than the port at Ayutthaya for traders coming from the
west. Convinced by these merchants that Melaka was a commercial success,
the Ming emperor dispatched a sizeable delegation to establish relations with
the new polity. On 11 November 1405, Melaka was granted an inscription
composed by the emperor himself to be placed on Melakas state mountain
(present-day Bukit Cina). Only three other nations were given such a signal

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honor by the emperor: Japan in 1406, Brunei in 1408, and Cochin in 1416.
Chinas desire to find a convenient trade center in the straits and a safe passage
to India coincided with Melakas own hopes of becoming a major entrepot.
This convergence of interests enabled Melaka to weather the initial serious
threats to its existence from Ayutthaya and Majapahit. By the time China
abandoned the policy of state trading in 1435, Melaka had already become
well-established as a major emporium in the region.100
Melaka became the entrepot of choice for traders from the east, particularly the Chinese. The Chinese emperors had given their special favor to
Melaka to encourage it to maintain peace in the straits and thereby assure
the safety of Chinese traders. It was for this very same reason that Sriwijaya/
Malayu had become a favored coast for the Chinese.101 Pasai, on the other
hand, appears to have been frequented mostly by Muslim traders from the
west. Were it not for the interest shown in Melaka by the Ming emperor of
China, there would have been little hope for its survival against attacks by
both Ayutthaya and Majapahit. Melaka grew prosperous and powerful, and
by the second half of the fifteenth century it had extended its influence over
much of the Malay Peninsula, the east coast of Sumatra, and the many adjacent islands that were home to the Orang Laut. Melakas economic success
could be measured by the fact that it had not one but four syahbandar, the
official appointed to handle all matters dealing with foreign commerce at the
port. One was assigned solely to the Gujarati since they regularly were the
most numerous merchants in the port; another to those from southern India
(benua Keling), Bengal, Pegu, and Pasai; a third to traders from Java, Maluku
(i.e., northern Maluku), Banda, Palembang, Tanjong Pura (Borneo), and the
people from Luzon (Luoes); and finally a syahbandar to the Chinese (including those from southern China), people from Ryukyu, and the Chams.102
One of the major reasons for Melakas success was the special allegiance
given to Melakas rulers by the Orang Laut (see chapter 6). There were many
Orang Laut groups who were regarded as Melakas subjects. On the east coast
of Sumatra from Arcat southward to Rokan, Rupat, and Bengkalis (Purim)
the Orang Laut populations served Melaka as rowers or fighting men. South
of Bengkalis were the larger polities of Siak, Kampar, and Indragiri, whose
rulers were related to the Melaka royal family and could therefore be relied
upon to contribute their boats and fighting men (many of whom would have
been Orang Laut) to Melakas fleets. But perhaps the source of the greatest
Orang Laut strength for Melaka came from the islands of Lingga, whose ruler,
according to Tom Pires, was likened to a king of the Orang Laut with their
forty lanchars, or native boats, and four to five thousand men.103 Unmentioned by Pires were the islands of Riau, which were as heavily populated with
Orang Laut as Lingga. The special relationship between the Malayu and the

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Orang Laut assured the success of the Malayu polities from the seventh to the
mid-eighteenth century.
Melakas rapid rise and stunning success made it an economic and cultural model for other polities in maritime Southeast Asia. The styles and ideas
emanating from Melaka became de rigueur among the elite in courts as distant as Ternate, and the Malayu language emerged as a trade and diplomatic
lingua franca for the region. After Melakas rulers embraced Islam in the midfifteenth century, the court sought to rival Pasai as a center of Islamic learning. It began to promote the religion through sponsorship of Islamic scholars
and translations of Islamic treatises into the Malayu language. In the rapidly
expanding Islamic world of Southeast Asia, Melaka became known as a patron
of Islam. Melakan court practice, behavior, dress, language, and religion were
emulated by other polities, thereby adding to the corpus of activities and artifacts that could be selected by certain populations at specific periods in history to become the basis of a Malayu identity.
There were two essential components that defined the Malayu polity in
Melaka and became the basis of the ethnicized Malayu from the fifteenth to
the late eighteenth century. The first was the ruler, who was attributed with
a superior descent (asal) through a genealogy that combined both a supernatural origin and a fictive lineage extending back to the prophet Solomon
(Sulaiman). Such an illustrious descent was necessary to justify and legitimize the rulers position as the mediator and primus inter pares of leaders
of kinship networks. The second vital component was the alliance of kinship networks. Scholarship has tended to focus on the ruler as the linchpin of
Malayu society, with all meaning derived from association with the ruler. As
a result, little attention has been given to the clues available in Malay sources
that suggest that the alliance of kinship networks may initially have been the
more important of the two in determining the shape and viability of a Malayu
polity.
According to the Sejarah Melayu, the ancestor of the Malayu rulers
appears miraculously in Palembang on the summit of the sacred hill, Bukit
Siguntang, and is welcomed by the pre-existing community. A covenant of
mutual dependency and trust is then made between the ancestral head of
the community and the ancestor of the rulers, representing the ideal relationship for all times.104 For the Malayu on the Malay Peninsula, this is the
myth of the ethnic polity based on the supernatural descent of the ancestor of the Melaka royal house. One could argue that the covenant or social
contract described in the Sejarah Melayu simply reflects the attitude of the
ruling classes, but Malayu society places great emphasis on consensus. Even
in the Sejarah Melayu the nature of the relationship between the ruler and the
people is characterized by mutual respect and convergence of interests.

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This depiction is not at variance with what is known from other historical evidence. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Dutch East India
Company (VOC) envoys to the Malayu courts remarked on the fact that the
official letters were read aloud in court and heard by an assembled crowd that
gathered to observe the entire proceedings. Tales composed or translated by
court poets and scribes were often recited for the pleasure not only of the
court but also of the ordinary people who gathered for the occasion. Neither
physical nor cultural barriers were erected to alienate the ruler from his subjects, and even the production of literary works was often the result of mutual
borrowing between court and village. In daily life the distinction between the
ruler and subject was never marked. Western observers often commented that
except for size, there was little to distinguish the palace of a local Malayu
ruler from the dwelling of his subjects. Perhaps for this reason, status differences were affirmed through sumptuary laws.
While the external manifestations of kingship were evident to the people,
more important was the internalized belief in the superior descent of the ruling family that established difference and accounted for the rulers daulat,
the supernatural forces that surrounded majesty. Nevertheless, there was a
mutual dependency that characterized the relationship between the ruler and
the Malayu people. Through good deeds performed for the ruler, the people
would not only acquire a good reputation (nama) but would also be rewarded
by the ruler with robes of honor and titles, both of which were imbued
with the spiritual potency of kingship.105 Royal letters were received with special ceremony because they had come in contact with and thus contained the
supernatural powers associated with kingship. The Malayu were not coerced
to perform service to the ruler but did so willingly with the assurance that they
would be more than compensated by a good reputation and the reciprocal royal
gifts consisting of objects imbued with the protective powers of majesty.
Genealogy is particularly important in Malayo-Polynesian societies
because it is the primary determinant of royal succession and rank. The selection of marriage partners, however, can be based either on a principle of
descent or one of alliance.106 A close analysis of the early seventeenth-century
Raffles 18 and the late eighteenth-century Shellabear recensions of the
Sejarah Malayu reveals a shift in emphasis from alliance to descent,107 which
corresponds to the political changes in the Malayu world. Beginning in the
late eighteenth but culminating in the nineteenth century, colonial rule was
gradually imposed on the Malayu world by the Dutch and the English. Conflict between the two European powers was forestalled by the 1824 AngloDutch Treaty, which divided this world into an English and a Dutch sphere
of influence. Then began the process by which both colonial governments
sought to assure stability in their spheres by relying on those families with

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greatest legitimate right to govern. Legitimacy was determined by genealogy, and therefore families were compelled to undertake the writing and
recopying108 of texts to advance their case with the Europeans.109 The Shellabear recension was written in the Bugis-Malayu court of Riau, as were two
of the major Malayu texts of the nineteenth century: the Salasilah Malayu dan
Bugis and the Tuhfat al-Nafis. At the same time the Minangkabau-Malayu of
Siak also entered the fray with their version of events that is known today as
the Hikayat Siak.110 Under these circumstances, the newly written or re-edited
Malayu histories stressed descent and illustrious origin (asal) in recounting
the genealogy of their royal patrons.
While the position of a ruler with superior descent was a necessary part
of the Malayu polity, of even greater importance was the alliance of kinship
networks which constituted the polity itself. Such networks were facilitated
by the practice of tracing a line through both the males and females, making
it almost inevitable that there would be an overlap of kin at the edges. As
in the mandala polity model, the edges are the site of contestation between
families. There is a Malay saying that captures both the sense of an expanding kinship network as well as the potential for conflict at the margins: Bagai
kabung (nau) dalam belukar melepaskan pucuk masing-masing (Like sugar
palms in secondary forest, each putting out shoots), which naturally touch
each other and may set up friction.111 To minimize such conflicts, there may
be a tendency to re-center the peripheral members or third cousins by marrying them. In a random search of pupu (grade, degree of relationship) in
some fifty-seven Malay texts compiled in the Australian National Universitys
Malay Concordance Project, relationships are listed only as far as tiga pupu
(third cousins).112 Third cousins seems to be the most common limit of egos
immediate family, and therefore it becomes imperative to marry third cousins to prevent their leaving the family and becoming outsiders. But each individual within such core family units would have his or her own network of
kin, contributing to the proliferation of kinship networks.
The emphasis on the alliance principle in marriage among the Malayu
before the nineteenth century helped to extend the family. Because of the
importance of the family network, other means were employed besides marriage to expand membership. One of the most common ways was through
fictive genealogy in order to insert a powerful historical figure as an ancestor. Such a fictive ancestor not only fulfilled the useful function as the bearer
of culture, but also enabled ambitious families to legitimize their claims to
a share of the political or economic resources controlled by that particular
ancestors direct kin group.113
Another means of expanding the kinship group was through lactation,
or mothers milk. In the Raffles 18 Sejarah Melayu, a newborn child of the

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ruler of Campa is nursed with the milk of the wives of his various subject raja
(kings or chiefs) and ministers.114 The practice of having a child nursed by a
lactating woman other than the birth mother appears to have been common
enough to have warranted a comment in the early seventeenth-century work
from Aceh, the Taj al-Salatin. Parents are told to be circumspect in selecting
a milk mother since the child would absorb her character.115 The belief in
the power of milk is also captured in the Salasilah Melayu dan Bugis, where
the milk of Engku Raja Fatimah is described as being so powerful that a child
nursed at her breast acquired special fortune (bertuah).116 The close bond of
the milk mother and the child is made evident in an episode in the Hikayat
Hang Tuah. When slander causes the ruler of Melaka to banish Hang Tuah, the
latter flees to Indrapura. To regain the favor of the ruler, Hang Tuah attempts
to convince Tun Teja, the daughter of the ruler of Indrapura, to become the
ruler of Melakas bride. He therefore succeeds in being adopted by Tun Tejas
milk mother as the best means of gaining privileged access to the family.117
The strength of the relationship between the child and the milk mother motivated a Jambi ruler to act instantly to assure the release of his childrens former wet nurses detained in Melaka.118
The significance of lactation relationships is clearly established in Islam.
Among the most popular of Islamic scholars among the Malays was the Sufi
philosopher al-Ghazzali (10581111). His Ihya Ulum al-Din would certainly
have been known in religious circles in the Malayu lands and the information
disseminated to the rest of the population. In the twelfth book of his work
Kitab Adab al-Nikah (Book on the Etiquette of Marriage), al-Ghazzali lists a
number of legal restrictions on prospective brides, one of which is a woman
who had been nursed by the same mother as the intended groom. The reason
is that in Islam the sharing of a mothers milk is considered to have established a sibling blood relationship.119 A pronouncement by such an eminent
and popular Islamic scholar in the Malayu world would have encouraged the
use of lactation as another strategic means of creating an extended kinship
network. Equally important would have been the examples from Mughal
India, a Muslim kingdom that was one of the most illustrious in the world in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Because the act of feeding the divine
royal child was of such great importance, milk mothers had to be eventempered, spiritually-minded nurses. Multiple milk mothers created close
links between the royal family and the noble families of the wet nurses.120
In the Malayu world, too, outsiders could be incorporated into the family
through lactation relationships.
Bonds created through mothers milk greatly enhanced the opportunity
to create larger and more effective kinship units. A child provides the family
with an opportunity to advance its fortunes by eventually marrying him or

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her to another kin group. A milk relationship, on the other hand, can reach
out to an even larger group of families through the practice of inviting the
women of useful families to share in the nursing of the child. The practice
of bilateral kinship and Islam made every child highly treasured among the
Malayu. Through blood or milk relationships, both the male and female child
could provide two different sources of recruitment to the kinship group.
The sibling relationship created between those who had suckled at the same
breast was regarded to be as strong as those of blood siblings. In speaking
of his foster brother (i.e., milk brother) Aziz, the Mughal emperor Akbar
(15421605) is reputed to have said, Between me and Aziz is a river of milk
that I cannot cross.121 This practice contributed to the strengthening of kinship groups and frequent overlapping of kin networks because of the relatively
limited population among the Malayu until late in the twentieth century.
The adoption (mengangkat) of children was yet another method employed
to incorporate outsiders into the family. In the Raffles 18 version of the Sejarah
Malayu, the queen of Bintan is brought news of the coming of a Raja from
Bukit Siguntang, who is descended from Raja Iskandar Dzulkarnain. At first
she contemplates marrying the wandering prince from Palembang, but when
she discovers how young he is, she decides instead to adopt him and make
him her successor.122 This episode demonstrates the fine distinction between
a relationship established by marriage and one by adoption. While a marriage
relationship is most desirable, a relationship through adoption can be almost
as useful. In this case the queen of Bintan is assured of a link to the superior
descent of the Palembang prince, while the latter gains the support of the
powerful Orang Laut fleets of Bintan.
Perhaps the most famous case of adoption involved Raja Kecil, who
claimed to be the posthumous son of the Johor ruler assassinated by his nobles
in 1699.123 According to the Malayu versions, Raja Kecil is brought as a young
man to the Pagaruyung court in Minangkabau, where he is adopted by the
Putri Jamilan, the mother of the Pagaruyung ruler. He is an outsider, assumed
scion of the Johor royal family, but through adoption he becomes a full-fledged
Minangkabau and even enjoys the privilege of undergoing the Minangkabau
royal installation. It is Raja Kecils absorption into the Minangkabau royal
family that provides the essential key to his ability to arouse support among
the Minangkabau in the eastern rantau (areas settled by Minangkabau outside their place of origin in the highlands of central Sumatra). Raja Kecils
special qualities are emphasized by the Putri Jamilan during the installation
ceremony, when she explains:
If you are of the descent (asal) of my brother in Johor, from the genealogy
of Sultan Iskandar Zulkarnain, ancestor and the seed of Nushirwan Adil, the

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issue of Sulaiman, the Prophet of Allah, May Peace be upon Him, then nothing more is required. The Minangkabau heirloom (pesaka) Si Bujang [i.e.,
Raja Kecil] himself will be more than adequate.124

The special qualities attributed to Raja Kecil are also emphasized in the contemporary VOC sources.125
Other well-known examples of adoption are found in the Hikayat Hang
Tuah. The Bendahara observes the skills of five young men of sakai (Orang
Laut) origins and brings them to Melaka, where they are adopted by the Bendaharas wife.126 When Hang Tuah is banished by the ruler of Melaka, he goes
to Indrapura, where he is adopted by the milk mother of the Indrapura princess.127 He is later restored to his former position, and his son is then adopted
by the ruler of Melaka.128 Another striking case comes from the Raffles 18
recension of the Sejarah Melayu. When the commander of the Portuguese
forces arrives in Melaka, he is adopted by the Bendahara and given robes of
honor.129 The practice of adoption was not uncommon and was an effective
method of neutralizing potential threats from outsiders and incorporating
them into the family. There are many examples in Jambi and Palembang in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries where the rulers of these kingdoms
adopted the Dutch head of the VOC trading post in order to assure his support as a member of the rulers family.130
The examples cited above highlight certain features in the practice of
adoption in the Malayu world. First of all, adoption occurs not at birth but
later in life when the individuals character has already been determined. For
this reason there is a cautionary note in the Hikayat Bayan Budiman advising parents to adopt a child of good breeding whose deeds would stand close
scrutiny.131 Secondly, the adoptive parents belong to the elite of Malay society,
and thirdly, the individuals adopted are clearly outsiders whose incorporation would be beneficial to the group. Through adoption a group not only
increases its membership but also benefits from the infusion of fresh blood
and talent. Nevertheless, an ambivalence toward the practice is captured in
the Malayu saying quoted above about the sugar palm. Adoption raises both
the prospects of extending the limits of the group but also the specter of conflict resulting from the overlap of families at the edges.
Sibling relationshipswhether established through blood, milk, or adoptionform the core and the strongest bonds within a kinship group. The
depth of this relationship is captured in the Salasilah Melayu dan Bugis, which
speaks of the very close ties among the five Bugis brothers, who were primarily responsible for establishing Bugis presence in the Malay world in the eighteenth century. According to the Salasilah, written by the descendants of these
Bugis brothers, siblings are said to love one another from an early age, shar-

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ing sickness and happiness, helping one another in times of trouble without
hesitation.132 More distant relationships up to third cousins (tiga pupu) may
not enjoy the same depth of loyalty and devotion as siblings, but they nevertheless were respected as family members. When the ruler of Rokan in east
coast Sumatra visited Melaka, he was treated with great distinction because
his wife was a relative of the Melaka ruler. On another occasion the Sejarah
Melayu explains that the Sri Nara di Raja constantly invited Raja Kasim to
his house and set food before him, for Raja Kasim was his cousin.133 In trade
and business transactions, greater trust was placed in family members than in
outsiders, thus encouraging foreign traders to seek a local bride or common
law wife. Through such arrangements, the trader gained the trust of the community and a permanent agent to facilitate the exchange of goods.134 A further
advantage in becoming part of a family was the understanding that any debt
incurred could be shared and inherited by kinfolk.135
The varied ways in which the kinship group can be extended speaks volumes about the importance of family in the organization and effective functioning of society. In the Malayu world and elsewhere in precolonial Southeast
Asia, the kinship group formed the principal building block of a polity. It was
the shifting of alliances among kinship groups that accounted for the volatility and paradoxically the strength of polities. The strongest was the one that
was most successful in adjusting to change and rearranging kinship alliances.
In the Malayu world the arena of greatest flux was at the margins, where individuals were presented with a number of options due to the overlapping of
kin groups established through blood, milk, and adoption.
Melaka was similar to Sriwijaya in its reliance on family networks as the
foundation of the Malayu polity. Although Sriwijayan sources do not reveal
how such bonds were forged, Malayu documents from the Malay Peninsula
provide strong evidence of families extending and strengthening their power
through the manipulation of relationships of marriage, milk mothers, and
judicious adoption of individuals with special abilities. By the time of the
Portuguese conquest of Malayu Melaka in 1511, the political, economic, and
social features associated with the kingdom of Melaka became synonymous
with Malayu.

Conclusion: Ethnicization of the Malayu

The Malayic speakers from west Borneo who settled in southeast Sumatra
sometime in the first century CE entered into a familiar environment. As
in their homeland, there were substantial rivers flowing from the highlands
through jungle interiors out to sea. The Borneo immigrants settled along the
banks of these rivers and their tributaries and created a form of government

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77

that suited the landscape. With an inhospitable swampy coastline, the people
preferred to live inland along the banks of the rivers. The thick jungles along
the rivers and the absence of sufficient cleared flatlands not subject to flooding dictated the type of settlement and government the immigrants came to
develop. A concentration of population in large permanent structures such as
those found in wet-rice agricultural societies was impractical or impossible
in such a landscape. Instead, small communities of houseboats or houses on
stilts built over water and on land were established on the few flat, cleared
areas on a river or tributary. Communication between communities was by
boat using the numerous waterways and the short land passages linking them,
or by small trails left by elephants or cleared at regular intervals linking neighboring hamlets. The characterization of Sriwijaya as a paddle culture captures the inhabitants reliance on the waterways for much of their activity.
The nature of such a polity can only be inferred by an analysis of the following administrative units mentioned in the inscriptions: kedatuan, vanua,
samaryyada, mandala, and bhumi. Despite its apparently well-defined structure, Sriwijaya was far less imperial and centrally organized than earlier thought.
A rulers perceived spiritual efficacy was a decisive factor in attracting followers. For this reason early rulers took pains to acquire and demonstrate great
spiritual prowess, even embracing Tantric forms of Buddhism. The dispatch
of religious statues to Malayu in 1286 by Kertanagara, the ruler of Singosari
in east Java, could be viewed as a sign of favor through the transferral of sakti
or sacred power.136 What is more likely, however, is that it represented a direct
challenge to the authority of the Malayu ruler because it offered an alternative
spiritual source of power and hence another lord to whom allegiance could
be given.
Princes with titles of datu occupied positions of authority in the kedatuan, vanua, and samaryyada. It may have been one of these royal scions,
serving as governor in Palembang in the late fourteenth century, who is mentioned in the Sejarah Melayu and the Suma Oriental leading his followers
in search of a new homeland. The reason for this decision may have simply
been the well-established Austronesian practice of enhancing ones status by
being founder of a new settlement. The story of the peregrinations of this
group led by a prince from Palembang and its eventual founding of Melaka is
well known. Equally significant is that it was this immigrant community that
introduced the culture of Sriwijaya/Malayu to the Malay Peninsula. Although
there would have been some Malayic speakers who settled earlier along the
southern coasts of the peninsula, the Sriwijaya/Malayu civilization that was
brought to Melaka in the late fourteenth century evolved in southeast Sumatra. Prior to the founding of Melaka, most of the population on the peninsula
would have been speaking an Austroasiatic language and would have a cul-

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ture more akin to the mainland civilizations to the north. The arrival of the
immigrants from Palembang thus opened a new phase in the history of the
peninsula.
Having been founded by the Malayu from Palembang, Melaka embraced
all the features associated with its illustrious predecessor. From the midfifteenth to the late eighteenth century, Southeast Asia saw an unprecedented
rise in the volume and intensity of foreign trade. Muslim traders from the
rich Islamic civilizations in central Asia and India were joined by a surge of
Chinese merchants freed from official constraints and, for a brief time in the
early decades of the seventeenth century, by state-sponsored Japanese traders.
In addition, Europeans appeared for the first time in the sixteenth century
and became a potent economic force in the region. The scale and intensity of
trade moving through Southeast Asia provided vast economic opportunities
for the local populations, particularly for the Malayu, who straddled both
shores of the Straits of Melaka. In searching for economic advantage in the
highly competitive market environment of the straits, the Malayu sought to
increase their effectiveness by expanding their family or kinfolk.
Various strategies were employed to incorporate outsiders into the family. The most obvious was through marriage, which greatly extended the kinship group because the Malayu followed bilateral kinship practices that trace
relationships through both the male and female line. Another effective strategy was to establish relationships through milk mothers, in which all children
nursed by the same mother were considered to be siblings. In the sources it
appears that this was more a custom among the high-born, though there is no
reason why it could not have also been practiced among the common people.
Often the child of a ruler or an influential individual would be nursed by a
mother or mothers from an ambitious family seeking to promote its interests. In times of weakness rulers could also seek to strengthen their position
through milk relationships with powerful families. Because of this practice,
which established a sibling relationship among those sharing the same milk
mother, families had to search further afield for marriage partners. This cast
the kinship net onto an ever larger circle. The third significant strategy for
increasing the boundaries of the family was through adoption. A family could
preserve its precious supply of men and women for other relationships by
using adoption as a way to incorporate an outsider acknowledged to possess
special skills and spiritual prowess of great use to the family.
By means of these strategies, Malayu families or kinship groups were
extensive and reached beyond simply one settlement or even one kingdom.
Although Malayu polities are ideally depicted in texts as being ruler-centered,
the presence of effective strategies to extend family networks suggests that
some of these families must have exercised considerable authority in the

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79

Malayu world. The families of the Bendahara and the Laksamana were two
prominent kinship groups that emerge clearly in Malayu texts and contemporary VOC archival documents in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The closest equivalent political structure was that in Sulu in the southern
Philippines, where the sultan was in every way the primus inter pares among
the chiefs or datu.137 What distinguished the Sulu sultan from the datu, both
of whom were in effect heads of kinship groups, was the array of legitimizing
ritual and religious ceremonials surrounding the ruler and made particularly
potent with the introduction of Islam.138
A similar arrangement prevailed in the Malayu areas, with a Malayu
kingdom consisting of a sultan with many of his kin residing close to the royal
residence, and other family networks headed by powerful officials or chiefs
with their constituencies scattered throughout the Malayu world. Because of
the relative equality in power of the sultan and his officials and chiefs, any
major decision was subject to the process of discussion (bicara) and consensus (mufakat). Political leadership, as in Sulu, was not linked to territorial
units but to people belonging to an alliance of extended families.
The sultans mediating role was respected among the powerful families
because, according to the Sejarah Melayu, it is the custom of Malay subjects
never to commit treason.139 While most commentators have rightly interpreted this passage as emphasizing the elevated status of the ruler, the purpose
may have been to strengthen the rulers role as a mediating force among the
powerful families. The text itself is a narrative of the most prominent families
in the Melaka kingdom. In one episode the Bendahara and the Laksamana
refuse to allow the grandmother of the Melaka sultan to approach her ailing grandson because they distrust her intentions. When she accuses them of
treason, they reply that for once they would be disloyal to protect the ruler.140
This tale has an ambivalent message: if heads of powerful families can protect
rulers, they can just as easily dethrone them. Evidence from indigenous texts
and contemporary VOC sources demonstrates the central place of family networks in the functioning of Malayu kingdoms.141 Each of these families had
its own network of alliances, and it was the ongoing desire to advance the
interests of the group that provided the dynamism and fluidity of Malayu
polities.
The boundaries of these Malayu polities were never stable because they
expanded or contracted in accordance with the movements of their subjects. Pockets of settlements scattered through the landscape and seascape
constituted the polity, not any fixed contiguous territorial border. It is striking that in both the Sejarah Melayu and the Hikayat Hang Tuah the ethnic
term Malayu is only used when confronted by a distinct other, such as the
Javanese, Siamese, or the Portuguese. In all other cases where all Malayu are

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involved, individuals are associated with a place, such as men of Melaka or

men of Johor.142 There was a clear recognition of a unique Malayu culture,
though what is distinctive about the Malayu can only be found in remarks
about dress and conduct, which modern commentators on ethnicity would
have dismissed as soft boundaries or simply contents rather than real
boundaries of a group.143 In the Sejarah Melayu, differences with the Javanese
provide the opportunity to declare the attributes of the Malayu, such as the
game sapu-sapu ringan, a distinctive keris worn in the front, and sago and
kangkong as favorite foods.144
The idea of a sacred center was never a feature of Malayu polities, and both
Malayu and contemporary Dutch sources cite examples of kingdoms and settlements utterly destroyed, only to be resurrected in a relatively short space of
time either on the same site or another. Yet what held the polity together and
enabled it to function effectively were the powerful families linked through
blood, milk, and adoption. Their desire to emphasize the sacred origins and
superior descent of the ruler was motivated by a practical consideration. Only
a ruler of such stature would be acceptable by the families as the mediator in
their affairs.
By the late eighteenth century the Shellabear recension of the Sejarah
Melayu already reflected the growing emphasis on the descent principle in the
selection of royal partners. It was a subtle reminder that the institution of the
ruler was beginning to displace powerful families as the focus of loyalty and as
a source of meaning in Malayu polities. Ideas of Malayuness were now being
formed in reference to kingship, a state of affairs which was maintained and
promoted by both the colonial and independent governments in Malay(si)a
until well into the twentieth century.
The dominance of Sriwijaya/Malayu in the Sea of Malayu between the
late seventh and early fourteenth centuries, and of Melaka in the fifteenth
and early sixteenth centuries, established a shared language, institutions, and
cultural norms among scattered communities in Sumatra, parts of Java, and
in such distant areas as southeastern Borneo and the northern Philippines.
The growing economic and political influence of the Malayu in turn led to
the ethnicization of other ethnic communities in the vicinity of the Straits of
Melaka seeking to emulate or rival the achievements of their Malayu neighbor. One such community was the Minangkabau, who created a distinctive
identity to demonstrate their separation from a previously shared Malayu
ethnic identity.

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Chapter 3

Ethnicization of
the Minangkabau

he Majapahit Javanese in the fourteenth century referred

collectively to areas in Sumatra as bhumi Malayu, in
contrast to bhumi Jawa. In time, however, some areas
decided to emphasize a separate ethnic identity from the Malayu in order to
maximize economic and political advantage.1 Among these new ethnic affiliations bound by a perceived common culture were the Minangkabau. The
Minangkabau have been a popular source of study because of their matrilineal
social organization and practice of merantau, where young Minangkabau men
leave the homeland to seek knowledge and fortune abroad.2 While matrilineality and the merantau are regarded by many today as the primary elements
constituting the boundaries of Minangkabau ethnicity, in earlier centuries
the most effective and recognizable marker was the ruler of Pagaruyung.3
Minangkabau ethnicity itself is relatively recent. It arose out of a Malayu
ethnic identity based on the Malayu polity that underwent adaptation in the
highlands of central Sumatra in the fourteenth century. Even by the late eighteenth century, the distinction between Malayu and Minangkabau was not
apparent. In his History of Sumatra (1783), Marsden writes:

Menangkabau being the principal sovereignty of the island, which formerly

comprehended the whole, and still receives a shadow of homage from the
most powerful of the other kingdoms, which have sprung up from its ruins,
would seem to claim a right to precedence in description. . . . They [the
Minangkabau] are distinguished from the other inhabitants of this island
by the appellation of Orang Malayo, or Malays, which, however, they have
in common with those of the coast of the Peninsula, and of many other
islands.4

82

Contained in this description is a reference to the historical relationship

between Malayu and Minangkabau. When Adityawarmans Malayu polity was
succeeded by one that emphasized its Minangkabau identity, observers such
as Marsden could be forgiven for believing that it was the Minangkabau, not
the Malayu, that had exercised sovereignty over the whole of Sumatra. Yet he
continued to be influenced by earlier traditions of a bhumi Malayu by calling the inhabitants of the Minangkabau kingdom people of Malayu (Orang
Malayo).
Essential to this process of ethnic formation is the remembrance of some
meaningful event in the groups history, which is harnessed for the needs of
the present community. As Kapferer has argued, no tradition is constructed
or invented and discontinuous with history.5 For the Minangkabau, history
was present in the monuments and natural objects that dotted the landscape
in southeast and central Sumatra, and in the oral and written traditions preserved in the courts and villages. The attribution of such monuments and
objects to magical beings was consonant with their belief in the extraordinary
feats of their ancestors as told in their kaba or stories.6 These relics of the
past formed the basis of a history identified with the Malayu. This chapter
seeks to explain how and why a separate Minangkabau ethnicity arose from
that of the Malayu, and how ethnic boundaries were erected to enforce this
difference. As with the other ethnic communities in the Straits of Melaka, it
was international trade that proved the decisive element in the formation of
Minangkabau ethnicity.

Documenting the Minangkabau Past

The first mention of the name Minangkabau is in the 1365 Majapahit court
poem, the Desawarnana (or Nagarakrtagama) composed by Mpu Prapanca.7
By determining the location of a sequence of names in Sumatra mentioned
by Prapanca, Westenenk believes that Manankabwa refers to an area in the
Padang highlands along the banks of the Selo and Sinamar Rivers, which
today forms the heartland of the Minangkabau.8 In the late fourteenth century, however, the Javanese saw it as part of bhumi Malayu, which referred
to lands settled by inhabitants that had once acknowledged or continued to
acknowledge the datu and kedatuan of Sriwijaya and Malayu.
The account of Sriwijaya/Malayus shifting centers has been treated in
the previous chapter, but it is necessary to reiterate certain aspects of the story
that are essential in explaining the creation of a separate Minangkabau ethnic
identity. In the late thirteenth century, the center of the Malayu polity moved
inland to Dharmasraya in the upper reaches of the Batang Hari River in Jambi.
Dharmasraya was located in a gold-exporting region and at a vital transition

Ethnicization of the Minangkabau

83

zone where traders from the highlands and lowlands met. In 1275 the Pamalayu expedition embarked from Tuban in east Java to Sumatra for reasons
that are still in dispute among scholars. But the true purpose of the expedition
was probably to extend Javas dominance over the Sumatran polity. This was
clearly the intention of Kertanagara, ruler of Singosari in east Java, when he
sent a group of images with an inscription dated 1286 to Dharmasraya. While
the ostensible purpose of the inscription was to commemorate the arrival and
establishment of statues of the Tantric bodhisattva Amoghapasa with his thirteen followers,9 the accompanying religious figures would have represented
Kertanagaras spiritual pretensions over Malayu. It was a message that would
not have been lost among the local inhabitants accustomed to such permanent reminders of the rulers sacred powers in the form of inscriptions and
statuary scattered through the landscape.
Sometime in the 1340s Adityawarman, raised in Majapahit in east Java
of mixed Javanese and Sumatran parentage, was sent to govern Dharmasraya, presumably because of his links to Malayu and because of the economic
importance of this gold-bearing region.10 Wolters suggests that Adityawarman
was the same person as the Malayu ruler of Jambi known as Maharaja Prabhu,
and he reaffirms an earlier view that there were two parts of Malayu. He
believes that Maharaja Prabhu moved inland to become the ruler of Malayu
in the Minangkabau highlands, while coastal Malayu came to be associated
with Palembang.11 When the Amoghapasa statue was sent by Kertanagara,
the reigning monarch in Malayu was Tribhuwanaraja Mauliwarmadewa. He
was succeeded by Akarendrawarman, who was ruling in 1316, and then by
Adityawarman in 1346 or 1347. Adityawarman also held the title of Maulimaniwarmadewa, which indicates close links to Tribhuwanaraja. De Casparis
makes an interesting observation that the Kubur (or Kubu) Raja inscription
lists Adityawarman as the son of Adwayawarmadewa, but the succession
was not from father to son. In keeping with Minangkabau matrilineal laws
of succession, Adityawarmans predecessor may have been his mamak, or his
mothers brother.12 Majapahit held Adityawarman in great regard, confirming
him on his throne and bestowing upon him a title reserved only for the most
esteemed rulers.13
The first evidence of a new Malayu center in the Minangkabau highlands
is an inscription dated 1347 placed on the back of the Amoghapasa statue,
originally sent by Kertanagara to Dharmasraya in 1286.14 The image was
taken to Malayupura by Adityawarman, who bore a title that Krom believes
is an attempt at a synthesis of the royal titles traditionally employed in Sriwijaya Malayu. The inscription referred to Adityawarman as maharajadiraja,
the great king of kings, an epithet not of a vassal but of an independent
lord. It further describes him as a reincarnation of Amoghapasa, endowed

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with the bodhisattvas powers and virtues. By equating Adityawarman with

Amoghapasa, the inscription proclaims the protective powers of the Tantric
bodhisattva over the newly located polity.15 For the same reason and in the
Sriwijaya tradition of apotropaic stones, a nearly fifteen-foot (4.41 meter)tall statue of the Tantric Buddhist Bhairawa was erected in Suruaso near the
village of Sungai Langsat. So sacred was the image that water collected in the
cavities of the statue was believed to have curative properties.16
This Buddhist Bhairawa was a spiritual boundary marker protecting the
frontiers of Adityawarmans Malayu from the Javanese and all other dangerous
forces.17 Adityawarmans decision to leave behind the base of the statue with
Kertanagaras inscription was a symbolic severing of the spiritual dominance
of Java. Equally significant was the transporting of the Amoghapasa image to
Suruaso, thus legitimizing and protecting Adityawarmans new center. While
a compelling reason for the move was to flee the political and spiritual threat
of the Javanese ruler, the site was ideally located to control the major gold,
camphor, and benzoin routes running through the highlands.18
There is an interesting statement toward the end of the inscription, which
focuses not on Adityawarman or Amoghapasa, but on a certain Dewa Tuhan
Parapatih. He is described as the governor (patih) whose speech accords with
the truth; and whose fame is achieved through conquest of enemy lords, the
deflecting of the arrows of jealous gods, assuring the well-being of Malayupura, being capable in all matters, and being radiant through a great many
virtues.19 Krom speculates that he may have been a family relation, either the
father or the maternal uncle (mamak), of Adityawarmans spouse.20 There is
a tradition among the Minangkabau that a marriage was contracted between
Adityawarman and the youngest sister of Parapatih nan Sabatang, one of the
two legendary lawgivers in Minangkabau folklore. The reason given is that
Adityawarman found a natural ally with the other lawgiver, Datuk Ketemanggungan, who advocated a more aristocratic form of government. To avoid
conflict in his new kingdom, Adityawarman sought reconciliation with
the Datuk Parapatih nan Sabatang, who supported the democratic ideal in
Minangkabau society.21
There is nothing in Adityawarmans inscription that provides any clue
as to the identity of the Dewa Tuhan, but it would have been a politically
astute move by any ruler to gain the support among the local inhabitants in
the highlands by marrying into an influential family. In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, when the records are more revealing, marriages between
people of high birth in Palembang and Jambi with members of interior communities, including the Minangkabau, were common.22
Based on the location of the thirty known inscriptions issued by Adityawarman dating from 1347 to 1375, the polity may have extended from the

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85

banks of the Sinamar River, where Buo is located, to the Selo River, the site of
Pagaruyung and Suruaso.23 If one accepts de Casparis view that Indonesian
languages do not usually distinguish between the name of the kingdom, its
capital, and its royal residence,24 then the name of the polity becomes clear.
Adityawarmans first inscription in 1347 refers to the settlement as Malayupura, or the city of (the) Malayu, thus indicating that the polity itself was
known as Malayu. In the same inscription he is given titles traditionally used
in Sriwijaya and Malayu.25 His last inscription dated 1375 adds the further title
of Kanakamedinindra (Lord of the Golden Earth), which Kern believes is synonymous with Suvarnadvipa (Golden Island), the ancient name for Sumatra.26
Adityawarman thus regarded himself as part of the continuum of Sriwijaya and
Malayu rulers whose centers had moved from the coast to the upper Batang
Hari River and finally to the Minangkabau highlands. For this reason it was only
appropriate that he assume the title of Kanakamedinindra, Lord of Sumatra.
In accordance with Sriwijaya and Malayu traditions, Adityawarman, as
datu of Malayu, sought to attract and maintain the allegiance of his subjects through the demonstration of spiritual prowess. Throughout his reign,
images were created to emphasize his supernatural qualities. The 1347 inscription mentions a Tantric Buddhist ceremony performed at the re-erection of
the Amoghapasa statue at its new location in Suruaso, and commemorates
Adityawarmans initiation as the Tantric Siva-Buddhist deity Bhairawa. He is
described holding a knife in the right hand, a skull in his left, and standing
on a man folded backward in sacrificial position surrounded by eight large
human skulls. Enthroned on a pile of corpses and engulfed in the swirling
smoke of human sacrifice, he drinks the blood of his victims while laughing
diabolically.27 The large imposing statue of the Bhairawa found near the village of Sungai Langsat in Suruaso may have been regarded as a representative of Adityawarman and an awe-inspiring reminder of the rulers claims to
supernatural powers. Finally, in the Kuburajo I inscription, Adityawarman is
referred to as kalpataru, the wish-granting tree, where oaths and curses and
the granting of wishes are made.28
The languages and scripts used in the Suruaso I inscription are worth noting. The words on the left side of the inscription are in Sanskrit and written
in a variant of Old Javanese script with, according to Krom, Sumatran idiosyncrasies. This is the script most commonly associated with Adityawarmans
inscriptions. On the right side, the same message is written using the South
Indian Grantha script, which raises the possibility that there was a strong Indian
presence in the highlands.29 A ninth-century inscription found at Takuapa on
the northern Malay Peninsula mentions the presence of members of the Manikkiramam, a Tamil merchant guild. After the Chola invasion of Sriwijaya territories in 10245, Tamil economic activity in the western archipelago increased

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considerably. Archaeological and paleographic evidence from Lobo Tua in

Barus and Kota Cina in northeast Sumatra indicates the prominence of Tamil
merchants in the gold, camphor, and benzoin trade.30 With the South Indians
involved in the gold trade, there is a strong likelihood that they would have
established a settlement in Malayupura. Adityawarmans lands were located
in the heart of the gold-producing area in the adjacent regions of the valley
and hills of the Selo River and the valley and hills of the Sinamar and Sumpur
Rivers. A community of South Indian traders is also thought to have resided
at Pariangan.31 Krom may very well have been right in assuming that Adityawarmans inscription was intended for the south Indians living in his lands.
South Indian traders, as well as Indian ideas, could have also come to
Malayupura overland from the north via Padang Lawas. Padang Lawas was
a major ceremonial center of the Panai polity and was located at a strategic
position of converging trade routes. The conjunction of religious and commercial centers is a common phenomenon in the ancient world, where the
deities are summoned to protect the enterprise of traders. South of Padang
Lawas is a string of temples between Tapanuli and Minangkabau, which
formed the first part of a well-traveled route. It led from the camphor and
benzoin forests in the region around Lake Toba in northern Sumatra, to Rao
in Minangkabau, then on to the upper reaches of the Jambi River, and finally
out to the Straits of Melaka through the entrepot in Jambi or Palembang.32 The
temples and statuary found in Padang Lawas reveal that they were occupied
by adherents of Vajrayana Tantric Buddhism, of Siva, and of a Siva-Buddhist
syncretism. At one of the temples is a torso of a queen believed to be consecrated as a Bhairawi. Among the other finds was a rare image of Heruka, a
seldom-depicted deity of Tantric Vajrayana Buddhism, wearing a necklace of
human skulls with flaming hair and a headdress containing the bodhisattva
Aksobhya. These finds are generally believed to date from the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, although some would prefer a longer range from the
eleventh to the fourteenth centuries.33
Evidence of the presence of Tantric Buddhism and the Bhairawa cult in
Padang Lawas demonstrates a strong cultural affinity with Adityawarmans
Malayu. Such affinity would have also been strengthened through influences
arriving from the south. Scholars have shown that Javanese influence on the
art, language, and writing style of the southern part of Sumatra gradually
increased in the beginning of the tenth century and extended as far north as
Padang Lawas.34 Panai had been sufficiently important in the eleventh century
to have become one of the mandala polities of Sriwijaya attacked by the Cholas. By the fourteenth century, Panai would have developed into a powerful
independent entity, and perhaps even a rival to Adityawarmans Malayu. For
this reason the archaeologist Satyawati Suleiman believes that the placement

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87

of Adityawarmans inscription at Lubuk Layang in the Pasaman district, on

the boundary between his polity of Malayu and the Padang Lawas complex,
was intended to protect his borders against invasion.35 Though both Panai
and Malayu shared the same historical heritage via Sriwijaya and Malayu, in
the fourteenth century they came to regard each other as rivals. In seeking
economic and political advantage, each would have attempted to emphasize
difference rather than commonality. As a result, Panai came to focus on its
Batak aspects to distinguish itself from the Malayu polity (see chapter 5).
After Adityawarmans last inscription, there is nothing more about Malayupura or the court he established in central Sumatra. What is clear, however,
is the continuing importance of Tantric Buddhism in the highlands. In several
of his inscriptions, the yuvaraja or crown prince is called Ananggawarman
and referred to as Hevajra, another form of Heruka.36 With the disappearance
of Adityawarman and Ananggawarman from any further historical documentation, the name Malayu as a political entity also ends. Malayu remains,
however, as the general appellation for a people who lived in areas formerly
under the Malayu polity and who acknowledged a common Malayu civilization based on a shared language and history. The expansive Malayu identity
became a spur to others to resist its encroachment and to further their own
interests by creating new identities and ethnicities. This process of ethnicization of groups owes much to the intrusive Malayu ethnicity found primarily
in and around the Straits of Melaka.

Minangkabau Ethnicity
There is a major gap in the historical picture in the Minangkabau highlands
between the last date of Adityawarmans inscription in 1375 and Tom Pires
Suma Oriental, written sometime between 1513 and 1515. By the latter date,
Minangkabau is the name given to the kings who rule in the highlands and to
the people who originally come from there. The creation of a separate identity
from the Malayu would have entailed emphasizing some important features
of the group that would serve as ethnic boundaries. Today the two features
that are usually associated with Minangkabau society are matrilineality and
the merantau. It is useful to begin here because these aspects were also important in the past and can clarify the brief and scattered comments that are
made intelligible only by an understanding of these two features. Nevertheless, as I argue in the following section, the Pagaruyung court as kedatuan may
have been the most significant factor defining Minangkabau ethnicity from
the period after the death of Adityawarman. From available evidence, it was
certainly the major component of Minangkabau ethnic identity between the
sixteenth and the early nineteenth centuries.

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In describing the Minangkabau matrilineal system, commentators often

begin with the well-known though variant traditions concerning the two
Minangkabau lawgivers, Datuk Ketemanggungan and Datuk Parapatih nan
Sabatang. The former brought the Adat Ketemanggungan, customary laws
associated with patrilineality, the royal family, and a code demanding retaliation, whereas the latter lawgiver introduced the Adat Parapatih, customary
laws that emphasize matrilineality, the village community, and a code encouraging reparation. The distinction is represented by the phratries Koto-Piliang,
which follows the Adat Ketemanggungan, and Bodi-Caniago, which adheres to
the Adat Parapatih. It has been suggested that the lawgiver Datuk Ketemanggungan may be a reference retained in folk memory of Adityawarman when
he established his kedatuan in Pagaruyung. Those practicing Adat Parapatih
tend to explain that theirs was the indigenous conception onto which was
grafted the new ideas brought by the later institution of kingship represented
by the Adat Ketemanggungan.
But the explanation is not universally accepted, and there is evidence that
too much has been made of the distinction between these two forms of adat. As
shown above, Adityawarmans succession was governed by matrilineal principles, a royal practice continued in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.37
Anthropologists have also increasingly come to acknowledge the prominent
role that patrilineality has always played in Minangkabau. In 1951 de Josselin
de Jong tentatively suggested that many facts in Sumatran social structure
appear to point in one and the same direction, viz. that Minangkabau should not
be considered as a matrilineal island in the midst of surrounding patrilineally
organized societies, but the various Sumatran social systems may prove to be
based on a double-unilateral organization, which assumed a patrilineal stress
in the Aceh and Batak territories and a matrilineal stress in Minangkabau.38
This observation is confirmed in Minangkabau tradition, where both
matrilineal and patrilineal tendencies are evident in the story of the two lawgivers and the division of the society into phratries. The greater emphasis on
matrilineality may have been a conscious decision by the Minangkabau sometime between the late fourteenth and the early sixteenth century to underscore their difference with their immediate neighbors, the Malayu and the
Batak, who lay greater stress on patrilineal principles. The growing presence
of Islam in Sumatra after the late thirteenth century may have also contributed to the increasing patrilineal tendency on the island. Islam, however, was a
relatively new phenomenon in the Minangkabau interior. The early sixteenthcentury Suma Oriental mentions that of three Minangkabau kings, only one
had become Muslim some fifteen years before.39
The merantau was another aspect selected by later Minangkabau society
to establish an ethnic boundary with the Malayu and reaffirm its distinctive

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89

identity. The root word rantau generally means reaches of a river or shoreline. In Minangkabau usage it has come to mean abroad, wherever Minangkabau came to settle outside the darek, or heartland of the Minangkabau in
the interior highlands.40 Overpopulation, conflicts, new economic opportunities, and the emphasis on precedence in determining social hierarchy were
all contributory factors in the movements of people.41 Political and economic
events in the Malay-Indonesian archipelago between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries contributed further to the phenomenon of voluntary and
forced movements of people. For the Minangkabau, the dominant type of
merantau up to the early nineteenth century was village segmentation caused
by overpopulation and shortage of agricultural land.42 It has been argued that
the institution of the merantau is essential to the survival of matrilineality
because it serves to release excess population and thereby preserve matrilineal
principles in the inheritance of land in the darek.43 In the rantau, however,
matrilineal practices are weakened through contact with patrilineal societies
and the absence of crucial elements that support matriliny.
Movements of people between communities and the adoption of new
identities are commonplace. Among the Minangkabau, there are kampueng
(villages) with names such as Malayu (Malay) and Mandailing (a Batak district), which reflect an earlier in-migration of Malay and Batak and their
absorption into Minangkabau society.44 Until the seventeenth century, the
area of Rau and Lubuk-Sikaping to the north of the Minangkabau heartland
was inhabited almost exclusively by Batak, but in later centuries they were
either displaced by Minangkabau or absorbed into Minangkabau society.45
The flow in the opposite direction was particularly evident between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries as the Minangkabau moved down the rivers to the east coast and settled among the downriver populations.46
Intermarriage between Minangkabau men and local women in the rantau
resulted in the children adopting the adat or customary laws of their mothers,
thus modifying Minangkabau traditions. Even when Minangkabau women
married their own people in the rantau, the absence of close male relatives
made it difficult to implement matrilineal practices.47 It has been argued that
the inability of Minangkabau families on the Malay Peninsula to replicate the
elements necessary to maintain a matrilineal structure led to greater emphasis
on region and ethnicity, rather than matrilineality, as the basis of their identity.48 But it is difficult to generalize about the rantau phenomenon because
of its complexity and variability due to adaptation to local conditions.49 What
is evident, however, is that the rantau, in keeping with the dynamism of borderlands, was the site of ethnic re-evaluation and movements in and out of
ethnicities based on comparative advantage. Such decisions were often more

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frequent and meaningful at the lower levels of identity, where people identified with a local community.
Until perhaps the late fifteenth century, issues of identity arose principally
if not exclusively on a local level. But the situation changed dramatically when
the rantau inhabitants were confronted increasingly by self-confident and
aggressive Malayu groups along the coast. To safeguard their interests against
the coastal Malayu, the rantau communities created a larger and hence more
competitive identity of Minangkabau. The ethnicization of Minangkabau
was possible because of the great reverence paid to the Minangkabau rulers
of Pagaruyung. The first two Minangkabau kings appear to have had their
courts in Tanah Datar in the darek, and the third at an unspecified site but
with a possible jurisdiction over the coastal region.50 In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, no matter where the particular court of a Minangkabau
ruler in the highlands, the missives were always from the emperor of the
Minangkabau at Pagaruyung.51 The existence of a court at Pagaruyung that
retained the aura of the spiritual powers associated with Adityawarman made
the new Minangkabau identity a credible and increasingly effective one. In the
middle of the seventeenth century the Pagaruyung court proved to be a major
source of inspiration and motivation for Minangkabau everywhere. By this
time the Minangkabau highlands were no longer regarded as Malayu, since
that identity had now been firmly appropriated by the coastal kingdoms.
Pires informative account of the Minangkabau in his Suma Oriental
can be compared to what is known of the past to see the changes that had
occurred. According to Pires, the Minangkabau lands in the early sixteenth
century included the interior highlands of central Sumatra where the kings
lived; the east coast areas from Arcat (between Aru and Rokan) to Jambi;
and the western coastal port cities of Panchur (Barus), Tiku, and Pariaman.
He then writes that the lands of Indragiri, Siak, and Arcat are all part of the
land of the Minangkabau but all the people are Malayu.52 Later he qualifies
that statement by stating that, though the area from Arcat to Jambi is called
Minangkabau, it is more properly the interior.53 In making this distinction,
Pires was repeating the Minangkabau formulation of the land (darek) and
the sea/coast (rantau). The coast was part of the Minangkabau rantau, but
the inhabitants were Malayu because of their earlier association with the polities called Malayu and the cultures they developed. At the time Pires made
these statements, however, there was no longer a Malayu political entity on
the east coast of Sumatra, and the former heartland of the Malayu in Palembang and Jambi was now governed by patih appointed by a Javanese ruler.
The people of the land of Jambi, he observed, are already more like the
Palembangs and Javanese than Malays.54

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Early hints of Javanese imperial designs on Malayu had become a reality by the early sixteenth century. The move of the Malayu capital to Dharmasraya in upriver Jambi in the mid-thirteenth century and then into the
Minangkabau highland in the fourteenth century was likely caused by the
well-justified fear of the Javanese. Pires noted that by the early sixteenth century both Palembang and Jambi were ruled by representatives of the Sultan
of Demak. The Javanization of Jambi and Palembang meant that by the early
sixteenth century the former core of the Malayu polities was being absorbed
into bhumi Jawa.
Alienation between the Javanizing downriver courts of Palembang and
Jambi and the upriver Minangkabau is evident in an incident recorded by the
Dutch in the seventeenth century. The Jambi ruler had such high regard for
Javanese attire and language that he demanded that anyone from the interior
appearing in his court be dressed in a Javanese manner.55 The decision to
emphasize ethnic difference was not received well by the Minangkabau. The
Dutch in 1632 noted that some Minangkabau planters preferred to take their
pepper to the west coast, where the inhabitants were their own people, instead
of to the Javanized polities of Jambi and Palembang.56 For both economic and
cultural reasons, therefore, the Minangkabau often chose to avoid the Javanesecentered downriver courts in Palembang and Jambi by transferring their
goods to other river systems leading to the Straits of Melaka.57 The Siak and
particularly the Indragiri Rivers benefited from the diversion of Minangkabau
traders from Palembang and Jambi.
Minangkabau settlements in the eastern rantau and the darek also traded
with the growing western rantau focused on the west coast Sumatran ports.
This development would explain why Pires remarked that the west coast ports
of Panchur [Barus], Tico, and Priaman, are the key to the land of Menangkabau, both because they are all related, and because they possess the sea
coast, so that the Gujaratees come there every year and do a great trade; and
all the merchandise is gathered together in these kingdoms and they do their
trade with the said Gujaratees.58 An important component of this trade was
gold. To safeguard the gold brought from the interior to the west coast ports,
the Minangkabau rulers created a system of security along the gold routes, the
most important of which was that from Tanah Datar to Pariaman under the
protection of the Tuan Gadang of Batipuh.59
The west coast became a favored rantau area for the relatively large interior Minangkabau population, and specific ports were associated with certain
communities in the darek. By the seventeenth century, Padang had emerged
as the leading port on the west coast because of its proximity to the Minangkabau darek. Most of the inhabitants along the west coast were either immigrants from the darek or descendants of immigrants, and they came to identify

Ethnicization of the Minangkabau

93

themselves as Minangkabau. Survivors of a Spanish ship wrecked at MukoMuko on the southwest coast of Sumatra in 1561 described the treachery of
the local inhabitants whom they called Minangkabau.60 Minangkabau ethnicity was becoming a prominent form of self-identity in the rantau through
increasing contact with those regarded as different. The distinction made by
Europeans in the sixteenth century between Malayu and Minangkabau indicates that the latter ethnicity was becoming more commonly acknowledged.
One particularly important area of the Minangkabau rantau was the Malay
Peninsula. Some carved standing stones in the Negri Sembilan highlands on
the Malay Peninsula are believed to date to an early migration of pre-Islamic
Minangkabau to the area because of the similarity with some west Sumatran
prototypes. Benjamin postulates that one of the earliest Malayu settlements
in Pahang on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula predates the founding of
Melaka (c. early fifteenth century) and constituted a population of Malayu
intermarrying with Orang Asli and earlier peoples of a west Sumatran (presumably Minangkabau) origin.61 In the early sixteenth century, Minangkabau
settlements in Naning and Rembau in the vicinity of the city of Melaka are
noted in the Suma Oriental. The Dutch in Melaka in 1645 expressed concern
that the lack of rice and salt among the three thousand forest Minangkabau
(oerwoede manicabers) in seven Minangkabau settlements, including Naning,
Rembau, and Tampin, would lead to a raid on Melaka for slaves to sell in
Pahang.62
Minangkabau on the Malay Peninsula and in the rantau generally had
multiple allegiances. They selected heads among their own people, acknowledged the authority of their host ruler, and heeded the royal words of their
Minangkabau lord in the highlands of central Sumatra. This pragmatic attitude is captured in a saying retained among the Minangkabau of Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia:
The Raja rules in the world (Raja menobat didalam alam);
The Penghulu rules in the district (Penghulu menobat didalam luak);
The Lembaga rules in the clan (Lembaga menobat linkungannya);
The elder rules the people (Ibu bapak menobat pada anak buahnya);
The individual rules in the home (Orang banyak menobat didalam
terataknya).63

The continuing obeisance to the Pagaruyung ruler sustained a sense of belonging to one ethnic community. The Dutch themselves unwittingly reinforced
this perception by treating the scattered Minangkabau communities as one.
In one example the Dutch demanded that the Perak sultan surrender some of

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his Minangkabau subjects in recompense for the crimes committed against

Dutch subjects in Melaka by the Minangkabau from Naning and Rembau.64
Economic factors would have been the primary motivation in the merantau to the Malay Peninsula. An Englishman who visited Johor with a Dutch
expedition in 16001 noted that the rulers relied on Minangkabau brought
from Sumatra to prospect for gold in their lands.65 Much of the gold in Sumatra
came from the Minangkabau highlands, so the Minangkabau were believed to
possess great skills in gold mining. This Englishmans comment also implies
that there were close links between Minangkabau and Johor in the early seventeenth century. There appears to have been no difficulty in finding sufficient
workers because the empty lands of the Malay Peninsula were an attraction.
In 1613 Eredia observed that in the districts surrounding Melaka, the greater
part of the country is uninhabited and deserted, except in the district of Nany
[Naning] which is occupied by Monancabos [Minangkabau].66
In the late seventeenth century the appeal to the Minangkabau world
(alam67) to rally support in the rantau became more frequent. In the increasingly competitive commercial world of the Straits of Melaka, any comparative
advantage would have been sought. By seeking a community of those who
were linked by their obeisance to their Pagaruyung lord, a potentially large
and powerful economic and political force could be assembled. The substantial populations in the Minangkabau highland were noted in 1684 by the Portuguese mestizo Tomas Dias, the first European to reach the Minangkabau
darek. Though his figures may be inflated, they suggest a substantial population in the interior of central Sumatra. He reported that there were some 300
rajas or heads of settlements, and that Air Tiris had a population of 10,000,
of whom 500 were traders. At the court of the ruler of Pagaruyung lived some
8,000 people. A Dutch report in 1696 confirms the presence of large populations in the interior. Pagaruyung had 1,000 people; Suruaso 4,000; Padang
Ganting 10,000; and Sungai Tarab (or Padang Tarab) 1,000.68
When the Minangkabau began to merantau, they settled in many of the
sparsely populated coastal areas on both sides of the Straits of Melaka. This
spread had already been noted by Pires in the early sixteenth century, and
the process continued in subsequent centuries. While the Minangkabau did
merantau to different parts of the archipelago, the phenomenon was different in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula because of (1) the proximity of
these two areas to the homeland of the Minangkabau and (2) their relatively
large migrant numbers compared to the host communities. The large concentrations of Minangkabau on lands bordering the Straits of Melaka made
them a potential source of either danger or opportunity for ambitious local
leaders.

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Role of Pagaruyung Rulers in the Ethnicization of the Minangkabau

While the social construction of Minangkabauness has shifted over time
in accordance with the particular needs of the community, the first documented attempt to establish a unique Minangkabau ethnic identity occurred
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But the inspiration came from
events that occurred several centuries earlier with the establishment of Adityawarmans Malayu in the Minangkabau highlands. The relative isolation of
Adityawarmans polity and its diminishing influence in international trade
would have strengthened local interests and identity and prepared the ground
for a distinct ethnic identity. The actual process leading to the ethnicization
of the Minangkabau, however, occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries as a result of the convergence of the economic interests of the VOC
and the widespread and intense devotion to the sacred Pagaruyung ruler.
Evolution of the idea of what it meant to be Minangkabau was shaped to
a great extent by contacts with other ethnolinguistic groups. The confrontation between Minangkabau and other communities in coastal and interior
Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula contributed to a growing sense of a separate Minangkabau identity. In addition to the Malayu on the coasts and the
Orang Asli/Suku Terasing communities in the interior, there was increasing
contact with the Batak, who were moving southward from their homeland
in northern Sumatra.69 Crucial to the strengthening of a distinctive Minangkabau ethnicity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were the rulers
in Pagaruyung. They retained the mystique and fearsome spiritual reputation
associated with Adityawarman. By the mid-seventeenth century the name
Pagaruyung came into general use for the royal settlement, even though Pagaruyung was only one of a number of royal sites used by the rulers. Until the
dissolution of the monarchy around 1833, it also became an accepted practice
among the Europeans to refer to the rulers of Pagaruyung as the Emperors
of Minangkabau.
The alam Minangkabau was beginning to take form, with Pagaruyung
as its core and the rantau as its periphery. As with the concept of bhumi
Malayu in the days of the Sriwijaya/Malayu polity, alam Minangkabau came
to mean all those who obeyed the royal words of the ruler. Sometime in the
late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the Minangkabau were forced
to acknowledge the overlordship of Aceh. When they rose in rebellion against
some of the Aceh governors in their lands, the VOC saw the opportunity to
break Acehs monopoly in the gold and pepper trade. Responding to Minangkabau appeals for assistance, the VOC dispatched a series of military expeditions between 1665 and 1667 that effectively removed Acehnese presence
from the west coast.70 The Dutch authorities believed then that the best way

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to preserve the allegiance of the coast was to make the ruler of Pagaruyung,
or the Emperor of Minangkabau, the sovereign lord over these communities, purely for forms sake (voor de leus). As a result, the Pagaruyung ruler
also entered into treaties with these communities and formally appointed the
Dutch commander at Padang as his regent (stadthouder).71
Letters from the Minangkabau courts to the Dutch were always sent from
Pagaruyung by the maharajadiraja, or the great king of kings, an Indianized
title used by Adityawarman and his successors.72 In these letters the rulers
interchangeably styled themselves Raja Pagaruyung or Keizer Minangkabau, or both. Despite Minangkabau traditions associating the name Pagaruyung with early kingship,73 it is not mentioned in Adityawarmans inscriptions.
After a thronal dispute in the 1680s, two separate courts were established,
one at Pagaruyung and the other at Suruaso. Nevertheless, rulers of both
courts, including the queen mothers known as Putri Jamilan, continued to
title themselves Raja Pagaruyung or Keizer Minangkabau in their letters
to the Dutch.74
The first mission sent by the VOC to the Pagaruyung court in 1668
clearly reveals the immediate impact of the bold Dutch initiative to manipulate the royal family in order to maintain control.75 Little did they realize that
their plan to acknowledge the Pagaruyung ruler as overlord over all the various Minangkabau settlements on the west coast and central Sumatran highlands would have such immense consequences for the history of the area. The
mission brought a letter dated 9 October 1668 addressed to Sultan Ahmad
Syah, Iskandar Zul-Karnain, Emperor of the renowned gold-rich Minangkabau from Jacob Pits, Chief Officer of the Companys important trade along
this coast [west coast Sumatra] and regent for your Majesty over all his coastal
lands from Kotawan [?] to the south and Baros to the north of Padang. Pits
even styled himself the bintara raja, or royal herald, of the Minangkabau ruler
and asked the latters mediation in bringing peace in the highlands so that
gold could once again flow to the coast.76
In amazed disbelief, the Pagaruyung ruler asked the envoys whether it
was definitely so that the Lord Governor-General of Batavia with pure intentions had conquered the coastal lands on my behalf and presented them to
me. The envoys assured him that these lands were reverting to him as part
of his ancient heritage, and that they would be governed and protected by
the Honorable Company in his name and with his authority.77 The Dutch
were obviously aware of the awe with which the coastal Minangkabau viewed
the distant, rarely visited, and hence mysterious court. They saw this as an
excellent opportunity to use this reputation to facilitate Pagaruyungs control not only over the gold trade, but over the whole west coast of Sumatra.
Camphor, benzoin, pepper, and gold were the valuable products that came

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from the interior highlands of Sumatra and flowed to the coastal towns. In
the eyes of the VOC authorities, the prize was well worth the charade being
played out between themselves and the Pagaruyung court. Yet when the ruler
sent a mission to Padang in 1690 to request that the Dutch commander collect
the tribute due Pagaruyung from the west coast settlements, his request was
politely refused. The Dutch reasoned that the authority of the ruler, whose
palace was barely distinguishable from the miserable huts of his poor subjects, had long been in decline so that the veneration shown him by the west
coast inhabitants was more of a spiritual than a secular nature.78
Little time was wasted by the Pagaruyung ruler in exercising his new
authority. Just prior to returning to the coast, members of the mission were
summoned to court, where the ruler asked that the royal letter (seuteumi)
be delivered to his regent, the Dutch commander in Padang. The appointing of regents to govern in the most important territories of the kingdom
was an Acehnese practice readily adopted by the Pagaruyung ruler. Another
was the use of royal letters known as sarakata (or tarakata) and seuteumi
(or seuteumi). In seventeenth-century Aceh, the sarakata was an edict sent by
the ruler without the royal seal and had to be observed until it was formally
retracted. The seuteumi was the more important document, which carried
the royal seal and was intended to be a permanent royal mandate.79 These
seals were conveyed by the rulers officials throughout the land and demanded
immediate obedience.80
The Dutch at Padang translated seuteumi as mandement brief (letter of
mandate) and sarakata as bevel brief (letter of command), and regarded them
as harmless pretensions. They would have been amused by a letter from the
Pagaruyung ruler that described the Dutch commander in Padang as the
protector of my subjects and the contributor to my greatness, who will wash
away the blackness with which I have so long been smeared.81 In enlisting the
aid of the Dutch to protect his subjects, the Pagaruyung ruler emphasized his
function as the guardian of the interests of all those who acknowledged his
authority as the great king of kings of the Minangkabau. This claim that the
Dutch were protectors of the rulers subjects added yet another weapon to an
already formidable arsenal of supernatural sanctions for which the court of
Pagaruyung was widely known. The VOC was greatly feared because it not
only removed Acehnese control over the Minangkabau areas, but in 1667 it
also defeated the Makassar kingdom of Gowa in southwest Sulawesi, which
hitherto had been considered practically invincible.82 From the late 1660s
onward the letters from Pagaruyung began to flow to the rantau along the
rivers and the coasts of Sumatra, but also to the Malay Peninsula and beyond.
The extent of alam Minangkabau could thus be determined by those who
responded to these letters.

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According to Jane Drakard, these letters were formulaic with a precise

structure. The first part began with an account of the divine origins of the
Pagaruyung rulers at the time of Creation; the second described the geographic reach, the quality, and the manner of the transmission of the royal
message; the third provided the signs of the God-given powers of the rulers;
and the final section contained the threat of supernatural sanction against
those who failed to heed the royal commands. In an analysis of the letters,
Drakard explains the significance of the language of space. In one surat cap
(seal-bearing letters), the large royal seal of Pagaruyung is surrounded by the
nine smaller seals of Aceh, Pariaman, Indrapura, Sungai Paguh, Palembang,
Jambi, Siak, Rokan, and Banten, entities (except for Sungai Paguh) on both
the east and west coasts of Sumatra. The conception, then, is of a core represented by Pagaruyung, encircled by nine kingdoms serving as gateways (bab)
leading into the Minangkabau alam.83 The depiction is precisely that which
characterized the political layout of the Sriwijaya/Malayu polity.
Acknowledging Pagaruyungs surat cap was an important demonstration
of identification with Minangkabau. In every letter sent from the Pagaruyung
rulers, the language of greatness of the surat cap is centered on the description
of regalia. Drakard argues that the efficacy of such description lay in a general
familiarity with oral traditions that associated each item of the regalia with
supernatural powers.84 In the ceremonial apology that precedes the famous
Minangkabau Kaba Cindua Mato, the reciter asks forgiveness of the two
semidivine protagonists of the tale and disclaims responsibility for repeating
other peoples stories.85 Implicit in this practice is the belief in the power
of the word, particularly when associated with spiritually potent individuals. Through these extraordinary powers claimed by the Pagaruyung rulers,
peace would be restored, justice re-established, and protection provided for
all their subjects. The justice promised would emanate from God through his
disciples represented on earth by the descendants of Iskandar Zul-Karnain,
which included the Pagaruyung rulers.86 At a time when there was great disruption and movements of people in the region because of new economic and
political pressures, Pagaruyungs message had tremendous appeal.
But the themes and motifs do not simply reflect Pagaruyungs sacred powers; they also reassert a claim to traditions of sacred descent from Bukit Siguntang.87 In the 1612 version of the Sejarah Melayu favored by Melaka, Johor,
and other Malay courts on the Malay Peninsula, the eldest of the princes from
Bukit Siguntang is taken by the Minangkabau of Andalas (an ancient name for
Sumatra) and given the title Sang Sapurba. The second prince becomes ruler
of Tanjung Pura, and the youngest is made king of Palembang with the title of
Sri Tri Buana. The youngest travels to the islands and eventually settles on the
Malay Peninsula to become the founder of the Melaka dynasty. The story then

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proceeds to recount the fortunes of this family while completely omitting

any further mention of the other two brothers.88 There is, however, another
popular version of the Sejarah Melayu, a hybrid text known as the Shellabear recension, which gives paramountcy to the prince who became ruler of
Minangkabau. In this version Sang Sapurba, the prince who becomes ruler in
Minangkabau, is depicted as the father of Sri Tri Buana, thus demonstrating the
primacy of the Minangkabau royal house over the Malayu Melaka dynasty.89
The process of unraveling Minangkabau ethnicity from that of the
Malayu was not yet complete by the late eighteenth century, which may
explain why European observers continued to regard the Minangkabau and
the Malayu as one. William Marsden, who wrote the first detailed account of
Sumatra in a European language in 1783, explained that the name Malayu
referred not only to those on Sumatra but those living on the opposite coast
of the Straits of Melaka and on the numerous surrounding islands, as well as
to every Mussulman [Muslim] speaking the Malayan as his proper language,
and either belonging to, or claiming descent from, the ancient kingdom of
Menangkabau; wherever the place of his residence may be.90 Later Dutch
and English commentators reinforced the view of Minangkabau as the cradle
of Malayu civilization, which then spread to the Malay Peninsula and elsewhere in the archipelago.91
While external observers continued to equate the Minangkabau with the
Malayu, a separate identity was already well on its way by the second half of the
seventeenth century. The sense of being Minangkabau was being strengthened
by the activities of the rulers of Pagaruyung and was being spread through its
royal missives and emissaries. A clue to their efficacy lies in the reputation
of Pagaruyung rulers as repositories of extraordinary sacral powers and as
mother/father figures to all Minangkabau (anak Minangkabau).92 Such powers were believed to be conveyed by Pagaruyungs letters and by messengers
described as sons of the Pagaruyung ruler. On the west coast of Sumatra
these royal princes were able to raise armies and even pose a military threat to
communities.93 Further afield in the upper reaches of rivers in the interior and
the downstream areas of east Sumatra such royal personages had to rely on
the credence of the Minangkabau communities for their support. The exceptional success of such messengers in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries is testimony to the real influence exerted by the Pagaruyung court
and to its success in forming a distinctive Minangkabau identity.

Pagaruyung Emissaries in the Ethnicization Process

In 1677 the Minangkabau settlements of Rembau, Sungai Ujong, and Naning
(then under the VOC) requested and received a ruler called Raja Ibrahim from

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the Minangkabau court. He claimed many of the attributes of the Pagaruyung

ruler and used his special role as a messenger to assemble the Minangkabau
in the rantau to evict the Dutch from Melaka. His efforts to form a Minangkabau alliance with the ruler of Kuantan, a Minangkabau polity in upriver
Indragiri, proved unsuccessful. He therefore turned to Islam as a rallying force
to gain support from the Bugis and Makassar settlers living in Kelang. But the
threat ended abruptly with his assassination by a Bugis in 1678.94 Although
the threat from Raja Ibrahim was short-lived, it was an important precursor
of future developments. It demonstrated that a Minangkabau ethnicity was
not sufficiently strong in the late seventeenth century to provide the basis for
a common cause, but it was being considered by Minangkabau leaders.
The Minangkabau on the Malay Peninsula continued to reaffirm their
Minangkabau ethnic identity in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by acknowledging the rulers of Pagaruyung as their overlord. When in
1758 the Sultan Johor decided to transfer to the Dutch his sovereign authority over the Minangkabau settlements of Rembau, Sungai Ujong, Johol, and
Naning, the leaders of these four communities requested that the sultan seek
a lord from Pagaruyung to be their principal head. The communities therefore received a royal representative from Pagaruyung, who assumed the title
of Yang Dipertuan Besar. Since Dutch approval was required, it was agreed
that the Yang Dipertuan Besar would produce his teromba (a song of origin or genealogy) for the Dutch authorities at Melaka. The teromba was to
present in a correct and unimpeachable manner the genealogical tree of the
house of Minangkabau, and his [the Yang Dipertuan Besars] own connection
therewith.95
In later years disputes over the succession to this newly created office
proved so disruptive to the tin trade that the Dutch governor in Melaka considered seeking yet another Minangkabau prince from Pagaruyung to become
the next ruler. Whether such a request was ever made is not known, but a
paramount lord over these four areas, known collectively as Rembau, was
appointed in 1785. According to local oral tradition, a certain prince known
as Raja Melewar was actually brought from Pagaruyung to become ruler in
the late eighteenth century.96 In 1828 a Raja Labu was sent from Pagaruyung
to govern in Rembau, and the links between Pagaruyung and the Minangkabau settlements on the Malay Peninsula only ended with the demise of the
monarchy around 1833.97
One of the most spectacular examples of these royal messengers was
Raja Kecil. The historical and legendary accounts of his life provide a glimpse
into the role of Pagaruyung in the ethnicization of the Minangkabau. On
4 December 1717, Raja Kecil first appears in the VOC letters as a messenger of
the ruler of Pagaruyung sent to avenge the assassination in 1699 of the Johor

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ruler, Sultan Mahmud, by his nobles. The letter requested that the Dutch
provide the royal emissary with whatever he lacked, whether guns, gunpowder, or lead.98 This was the beginning of a remarkable career that included
the conquest of the Johor kingdom and the eventual establishment of a new
dynasty and kingdom at Siak in east coast Sumatra.99 The Raja Kecil episode
as depicted in both oral and written traditions encapsulates the complexity
of the Minangkabau-Malayu relationship and the eventual formation of two
separate identities.
According to the Hikayat Siak,100 Raja Kecil is portrayed as the son of
Sultan Mahmud of Johor. He is conceived when his mother, a secondary wife
of the ruler of Johor, is ordered by the latter to swallow his semen which had
been ejaculated onto a mat. The rulers deviant ways and cruelty lead to his
death at the hands of his nobles. Soon thereafter Raja Kecil is born and taken
away from the Johor court to Muar and eventually to Pagaruyung. Here the
Raja Pagaruyung entrusts Raja Kecils upbringing to his mother, the Putri
Jamilan, who expresses great love for the fatherless child (terlalu kasihan aku
akan dia, kerana tiada bapaknya) and raises him as her adopted child.101 As a
child he exhibits certain qualities that demonstrate his royal origins.
When Raja Kecil is thirteen, he asks the Putri Jamilan for permission to
go abroad to seek knowledge (mencari ilmu). He spends some time in the
service of the Palembang ruler and then returns to Pagaruyung. On his return
the Raja Pagaruyung and the Putri Jamilan ask why he had spent such a long
time abroad (Mengapa engkau lama di laut?), to which he replies, to observe
the customs of other people (menengok cupak gantang orang), or literally to
observe the measures of other people. It is interesting that the metaphor is
one dealing with measurements used in trade, reinforcing other evidence that
points to the prominent role of Pagaruyung rulers in promoting trade and
hence the well-being of their Minangkabau subjects in the rantau.
Although Raja Kecil appears ambivalent about his future plans, the Putri
Jamilan interprets his true desire. She advises him to go abroad again, this
time to Siak, and to seize Johor and avenge the death of his father. He is then
installed by the Pagaruyung ruler with the sacred Minangkabau regalia. The
special drum of sovereignty made of the skins of lice102 is sounded, and Raja
Kecil stands against a stake made of the hardwood teras wound around with
stinging nettle vines. He is then provided with a letter containing the royal
seal, which called upon all Minangkabau to accompany him on his mission
or to provide him with twenty rials. Those who refuse are threatened with
punishment by the bisa kawi, the supernatural force associated with Pagaruyung kingship. With support from the Minangkabau and the Orang Laut,
or sea people, he defeats the usurper on the throne of Johor and becomes the
ruler. But his time on the Johor throne is short, and he is forced to abandon

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his claim and establish a new kingdom called Siak on the Sumatran side of the
Straits of Melaka.103
While the contemporary documentary evidence from the VOC archives
provides a detailed picture of Raja Kecils activities as an adult, the story of
his conception, birth, childhood, and early adulthood is from the Hikayat
Siak, an indigenous court chronicle containing many local oral traditions. An
important process appears to be unfolding in the story: the division of the
Minangkabau-Malayu identity to form two separate ethnic groups reinforced
by specific ethnic markers. For many in the Malayu world, the reputation of the
Pagaruyung court as the guardian of the community and dispenser of justice
was widely known. That the son of an assassinated ruler was secretly brought
to the safe haven in Pagaruyung would have been understood and considered
appropriate. In Pagaruyung, Raja Kecil exhibits special supernatural qualities
because he is of royal Johor blood. But the tale makes it abundantly clear that
despite his origins, Raja Kecil had been adopted as an anak Minangkabau
(i.e., a Minangkabau child/subject). He is depicted as a fatherless child who is
raised by the queen mother, Putri Jamilan, as her own.104 By becoming mother
to the fatherless child, the Putri Jamilan provides Raja Kecil with the matrilineal link that establishes his position in Minangkabau society.
As a young man, Raja Kecil asks permission to go abroad to seek knowledge (mencari ilmu), a clear reference to the merantau. When he returns, both
the Raja Pagaruyung and the Putri Jamilan ask why he had spent such a long
time at sea, but later he is advised to return to the sea to Siak and Johor.105
The word sea was used to refer to the rantau. In a letter from Pagaruyung
written in the Malayu language and included in an eighteenth-century Johor
text, the Minangkabau in the rantau are referred to as Minangkabau who are
at sea (Minangkabau yang dilaut).106 The final act in the transformation of
Raja Kecil to a Minangkabau occurs when he is installed with the Pagaruyung
regalia.
According to early eighteenth-century Dutch reports, thousands of
Minangkabau complied with the letter brought by Raja Kecil from Pagaruyung seeking their assistance. Among Johors subjects, only the Orang Laut
appeared to have believed Raja Kecils claim to be the son of the murdered
Johor ruler. There was confusion among the Johor Malayu because some
were convinced that he was a Minangkabau. He had gained the support of
the Minangkabau settlers in Siak, and his possession of a letter from the Pagaruyung ruler clearly identified him with the alam Minangkabau.107 This reaction among the Johor Malayu clearly demonstrates that by the second decade
of the eighteenth century, there were clear ethnic markers distinguishing the
Malayu from the Minangkabau. The fount of this distinctive Minangkabau
ethnic identity was Pagaruyung.

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When the VOC became involved in the affairs of west Sumatra because of
its desire to monopolize the trade in gold and pepper, it unwittingly brought
into existence, or possibly resuscitated, Pagaruyungs claim as sovereign lord
of Minangkabau. A contender to the throne of Jambi claimed in 1694 that
the original owner[s] (doorsponkelyk eygenaar) of the Jambi kingdom were
Sultan Ingalaga [of Jambi] and Sultan Abdul Jalil [of Pagaruyung], with the
entire Minangkabau kingdom (ryk) also belonging to the latter. The letter
describes Sultan Abdul Jalil as the ruler of the island of Andalas (Sumatra).
The Minangkabau claims to suzerainty were not rejected by such local Malayu
kingdoms as Jambi because the Pagaruyung ruler was viewed as a protective
parent seeking only the welfare of his or her children by re-establishing safe
passage or peace in the zone between the highlands and the coast.108 Even
when the Emperor of Minangkabau installed a new sultan in the upriver
areas of Jambi as a rival to the downstream kingdom, the ostensible reason
was to provide a lord who could offer protection to the local Minangkabau
inhabitants.109
The VOC authorities regarded Pagaruyungs claims as pretentious and
unsubstantiated, yet they continued to refer to the rulers as emperors. Since
it was the practice for letters to be read aloud within hearing of many gathered at the edges of an open court, the impact of a Pagaruyung ruler being
addressed by the VOC as emperor must have caused tremendous pride.
Moreover, the Malayu term used for emperor would have been maharajadiraja, a title infused with the supernatural powers attributed to the legendary
Adityawarman. Little wonder, then, that the missives and emissaries sent from
Pagaruyung were received with such great respect and its royal commands so
faithfully obeyed. On rare occasions in the Minangkabau highlands and the
west coast settlements not far from the Pagaruyung courts, commands were
implemented through force. In more distant regions in the eastern rantau, on
the other hand, compliance was obtained through the threat of supernatural
punishment in the form of the bisa kawi.
For approximately two centuries, from the late 1660s until 1833, Pagaruyung provided the locus for Minangkabau identity. Its realm was the alam,
a world consisting of those on Sumatra and beyond who acknowledged
and obeyed the missives and emissaries sent from Pagaruyung. Regarded as
pusaka, or sacred heirlooms, these emissaries of Pagaruyung embodied the
spiritual powers of the court and helped to give shape to the Minangkabau
alam. Princes purporting to be from Pagaruyung were eagerly sought as rulers
by Minangkabau communities on Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, not only
to win prestige but also to benefit from their special protective powers. Until
the dissolution of the monarchy in the early nineteenth century, the belief
in an alam Minangkabau with Pagaruyung as its center was well established.

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Assurance of effective mediation and protection by Pagaruyung in any disturbance in the alam, as well as access to the Minangkabau-dominated gold
and pepper trade, made the choice of Minangkabau ethnicity an increasingly
appealing proposition.

Conclusion
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Minangkabau were noted in
the VOC reports as being responsible for a number of disturbances in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. The Dutch attributed many of these outbreaks
to Minangkabau adventurers who claimed to be emissaries of Pagaruyung.
The fact that the Minangkabau communities outside Pagaruyung readily
accepted these claims reveals the great credence given to the reputed sacred
powers of the Minangkabau court. A body of oral traditions helped to reinforce this belief, which was undoubtedly stimulated by the presence in the
central Sumatran highlands of ancient inscriptions and statues associated
with Adityawarman. The list of sacred objects associated with the Pagaruyung
ruler and included in every preamble of their letters grew from as few as three
or four in some seventeenth-century letters to as many as thirty-seven by the
nineteenth century.110 The idea of sacred kingship was retained, but the manner in which it was conveyed was greatly elaborated.
In the second half of the seventeenth century, the VOC decided to use
Pagaruyung to assure the smooth functioning of the gold and pepper trade.
Any treaty it signed with a Minangkabau coastal settlement had to be legitimized by the Pagaruyung ruler. Such an arrangement was typical of the
VOC, which found it easier and more convenient to deal with one overlord
rather than a host of smaller lords. The ruler of Pagaruyung was thus supported in his pretension as the great king of kings, but with a difference. He
was the great king of kings not over all other kings of Sumatra and beyond
as was the claim made by Malayu rulers, but only over the Minangkabau.
The Dutch addressed him as the Emperor of Minangkabau, and any who
acknowledged his authority by submitting to his letters and obeying his royal
messengers became by the very act of submission a Minangkabau. Therefore,
all areas where Minangkabau resided in the darek and the rantau constituted
the alam Minangkabau,111 thus challenging and displacing areas once listed as
part of bhumi Malayu.
The Pagaruyung rulers began exercising their newly found power beginning in 1668. To their great satisfaction, their letters and emissaries were greeted
with reverence and submission among those who had begun to emigrate
from the heartland toward both coasts. The changing political and economic
context in the Straits of Melaka explains the readiness of the Minangkabau to

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comply with the demands from a distant and hitherto quiescent court. Since
the late fifteenth century the name Malayu and things Malayu had been appropriated by the kingdom of Melaka and later by its self-styled successors Aceh
and Johor. Along the coasts it was quite common to assume Malayu ethnicity
in order to participate in the economic and political success of these Malayu
kingdoms between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. Those who emigrated from the highlands of central Sumatra to the coasts were confronted
with a large and economically influential ethnic group, the Malayu. They also
had the opportunity to associate themselves with the growing influence of
Pagaruyung and the new Minangkabau ethnic identity. As was often the case
in the Straits of Melaka, the inhabitants made choices according to their best
interests and moved easily between these two ethnicities. What Pagaruyung
provided was another option, one that became increasingly attractive as the
numbers of Minangkabau in the rantau grew larger and strengthened their
influence in the downstream polities.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many chose to be Minangkabau for a variety of reasons. Family links to the Minangkabau darek were
one factor, but perhaps of greater importance were the benefits of being associated with the Pagaruyung court. The Pagaruyung rulers became the basis
for the construction of a Minangkabau ethnicity, and aspects of matrilineality and even the rantau were selected as cultural discontinuities to form
the ethnic boundaries with the Malayu. Helping to strengthen Minangkabau
ethnic consciousness was the gold and pepper trade in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries conducted by people originating from the Minangkabau
darek. Pagaruyung not only offered protection of the trade routes but also
mediation in disputes and even princes to govern areas acknowledging its
authority.
In these two centuries many examples are cited in the VOC records of
Minangkabau communities in the upper reaches of east coast Sumatran rivers
falling prey to rapacious downriver Malay kingdoms. For these communities
the intervention of Pagaruyung was particularly welcome and a good reason
for becoming or remaining Minangkabau.112 Becoming Minangkabau essentially meant heeding the wishes of the rulers of Pagaruyung, a minor requirement for membership in an ethnicity that could assure economic advantage
and protection.
The prestige of Pagaruyung remained high among the Minangkabau
communities in the rantau, and when the members of the court were scattered following a failed rebellion against the Dutch in 1833, one of the princes
was invited to become ruler in Kuantan.113 The destruction of Pagaruyung
brought an end to the activities of the royal family, but by then Minangkabau
identity had been firmly implanted in the minds of the local populations.

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In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Pagaruyung court was no
longer relevant in establishing the boundaries of Minangkabau ethnic identity. The changing political and economic contexts had now given this role to
matrilineality and the merantau.
Though the Minangkabau had been part of the Malayu polity in the
fourteenth century and therefore within bhumi Malayu, their identification
with the latter had lessened in subsequent centuries. The Minangkabau came
to erect ethnic boundaries to distinguish themselves from the Malayu. In the
early sixteenth century, Tom Pires clearly wrote about the Minangkabau and
the Malayu as two separate groups. This distinction was given even greater
credence in the region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries because of
the prominent role played by Pagaruyung in the ethnicization of the Minangkabau. Although certain external observers continued to see the Minangkabau
as Malayu, the people in the darek and the rantau increasingly saw themselves
as part of the alam Minangkabau defined by Pagaruyung and its rulers. The
economic and political situation along the Straits of Melaka that had resulted
in the ethnicization of the Minangkabau had an equally significant impact on
ethnic identity in Aceh.

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Chapter 4

From Malayu to Aceh

or political reasons, histories written by the Malayu states

of the Malay Peninsula and by the Dutch and British colonial administrators have encouraged the view that Aceh
always had a unique entity with stronger links to lands above the winds
than to those below the winds.1 A closer examination of the sources reveals,
however, that in Acehs period of greatness in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries it was very much an integral part of alam Malayu.2 It assumed the
mantle of Malayu leadership after the conquest of Malayu Melaka by the Portuguese in 1511. Although Johor at the southern end of the peninsula was
eventually chosen as the site for the refugee royal family from Melaka, for
much of the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries Johor was
on the defensive against invasions from both the Portuguese and the Acehnese. Unable to sustain international trade, Johor could not maintain its claim
to be the standard-bearer of Malayu culture and identity. This role came to
be assumed instead by Aceh, thus reverting to the earlier association of the
Malayu with Sumatra.
Following in the traditions of its predecessors Pasai and Melaka, Aceh
became the leading Malayu entrepot in the Straits of Melaka and the center of
Malayu culture.3 But it was Acehs successful integration of Islam into society
that represented its most significant bequest to the Malayu world. Through
its thriving international trade with Islamic kingdoms in India and central
Asia, Aceh came to adopt many features associated with these polities. Its literature, court practices, style of governance, distinctive version of the Malayu
language, and the prominent role of Islamic leaders in government provided
a new image and model for Malayu kingdoms.
The establishment in Aceh of a Malayu identity based on Islam was promoted by two Malayu texts written in the Acehnese court: the Taj al-Salatin

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and the Hikayat Aceh. The Taj al-Salatin, a Mirror of Kings, was written in
1603 by Bukhari al-Jauhari and relies heavily on Persian sources. Instead of
engaging in philosophical discussions or definitions of concepts, the text offers
explanations through stories based on the tales of the prophets and on Islamic
myths and histories. This narrative technique, popular and widely used in
the archipelago, was effective in providing models of good Muslim behavior
for rulers, ministers, and ordinary people. The Taj enabled Aceh to create a
model of Muslim Malayu kingship in the seventeenth century, which reached
its pinnacle under Sultan Iskandar Muda (160736). The rulers daulat or sovereignty plays a major role in this text. While a just (adil) society is the ideal,
it is never promoted at the expense of the rulers daulat. Order represented by
the ruler, no matter how evil, is preferable to rulerless chaos. It was also the
message contained in the Sejarah Melayu, the Malayu text that emerged from
the fifteenth-century Melaka court. The pragmatic view of kingship in the Taj
reflected the situation at the time of writing in Aceh, which had witnessed the
assassinations of five rulers and the deposing of another.4 The attitude of the
Taj was appropriate for the type of Malayu kingship that began to emerge in
Aceh in the early seventeenth century.
The second text, possibly by Syams al-Din, is the Hikayat Aceh, written in
the Aceh court sometime after 1612.5 It is a paean of praise to Sultan Iskandar
Muda, and draws upon Malayu, Mughal, and Persian traditions to describe
his supernatural origins and his direct descent from the legendary Islamic
hero Iskandar Zulkarnain.6 The crowning touch was the depiction of Iskandar Muda as a Sufi ruler in-dwelt by God.7 In both the Hikayat Aceh and the
Taj al-Salatin, Islam has a major presence. The customs, the activities of the
court, the officialdom, and the ceremonies of the kingdom reflect the strong
influence of the Islamic kingdoms of central Asia and India. As leader of alam
Malayu, Aceh promoted and strengthened Islam in the society and thus made
it a crucial component of Malayu ethnic identity.
When Johor displaced Aceh as the leader of alam Malayu in the late seventeenth century, Aceh began to promote its own distinctive identity based
on texts written in the Acehnese language. The interior, agriculture, the local
leaders (uleebalang), local religious officials, and the Acehnese language of
the interior were all privileged. They were clearly meaningful boundaries that
separated the new Acehnese identity from the former Malayu one based on
the coasts, international trade, the powerful Sufi religious teachers at court,
and the Malayu language of Pasai and the coastal polities. These new emphases
underscored Acehs rejection of the Malayu label and its proclamation of a new
identity and status in the archipelago. Acehs subsequent history of resistance
to the Dutch and the overwhelming influence of Snouck Hurgronjes study
of the Acehnese in the late nineteenth century have obscured Acehs earlier

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Malayu heritage.8 But for almost two hundred years an Aceh dominated by international commerce conducted by port polities along the northeastern Sumatran coast provided the foundations for Acehs leadership in alam Malayu.

The Northeastern Coast of Sumatra

The northeastern coast of Sumatra is clearly included in the Desawarnanas
(1365) list of lands that make up bhumi Malayu. Ports were established
along this coast in response to international traders using the transisthmian/
transpeninsular routes and later the all-water route through the Straits of
Melaka. The earliest known account of this coast is from a third-century
Chinese document that speaks of cannibals in a land called either Pulo or
Bulo. If, as is likely, this is a reference to the Batak who live in the interior of
north Sumatra, then it may explain the importance of ports along the northeastern coast of Sumatra. Two of the most desired products from Southeast
Asia in the early centuries of the Common Era were camphor and benzoin,
which were gathered from the forests in the Batak lands. In later centuries
the pepper trade also contributed to the continuing importance of northern
Sumatran ports in international trade. Another of the sites called Ramni
was visited regularly by Arabic and Persian ships, and is generally believed to
be Lamuri.9
With the growth and dominance of Sriwijaya and Malayu between the
late seventh to the fourteenth centuries, the northeastern Sumatran ports
became secondary centers feeding the leading entrepots in Palembang and
Jambi. The withdrawal of the Malayu court to the upper reaches of the
Batang Hari River in Jambi in the late thirteenth century, and further into the
Minangkabau uplands in the mid-fourteenth century, created an opportunity
for an ambitious port to replace the Malayu polity as a major entrepot in
the Straits of Melaka. For the Chinese, Arab, Persian, and Indian traders, the
northeastern Sumatran coast was an ideal site for an entrepot. It was a sheltered coast located within the protective waters of the straits, and it was close
to the highly valued camphor and benzoin that grew in the interior forests of
northern Sumatra.
Scholars have attempted to piece together the history of this coast from
the scattered references of foreign merchants, pilgrims, and visitors. The
reconstruction, however, has been very much shaped by discussion of the
location of sites. Even on the rare occasion when a toponym can be positively
identified, usually little else is known about it. Fortunately, the historical picture becomes more detailed after the arrival of the first Portuguese to Melaka
in 1509. Of considerable value is the oft-cited Portuguese work of the early
sixteenth century, the Suma Oriental by Tom Pires, a compendium of the

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areas in Asia and the Middle East with which the Portuguese had contact.
Pires lists the various ports in the northeast coast of Sumatra from the north
to the south, with useful economic and some political information about each
of them. In more recent times the Portuguese historian Alves has combed
the Portuguese archives and reconstructed the history of Pasai.10 In an earlier
study he describes the struggle for power in the Pasai court between the factions representing the agricultural interior and the coastal trading ports.11 An
equally noteworthy aspect in the history of the northeast coastal areas is the
close familial relationship among the elite. This would explain the not uncommon occurrence of rulers of Pasai being chosen from neighboring polities. In
the history of the northeast coast, therefore, two significant themes can be
identified: the rivalry between the coast and interior, and the close relationship of the elite families in the northeastern coastal polities. These themes
continue in Aceh, which absorbed Pasai in the early sixteenth century.
To speak of a rivalry between the coasts and the interior is only meaningful in terms of which of the two would be regarded as the primary focus of
the kingdom. In practical terms there was close cooperation between the collectors and producers in the interior and the middlemen and merchants on
the coast. In earlier centuries the coast was privileged because of the growth of
international trade beginning in the early centuries of the Common Era. It is
believed that Sriwijayas success in substituting Southeast Asian aromatics for
the frankincense and myrrh from the Hadramaut in the China trade sparked
a major economic boom.12 Acquiring forest products required binding relationships between the interior collectors and the coastal traders. Ideas of royal
power may have been elaborated and new oaths of allegiance developed in
order to provide economic arrangements with legitimation and spiritual
sanction. The relationship continued when demand for forest products began
to decline and was replaced in the fifteenth century by the new cash crop,
pepper. Labor for the clearing of land and for the planting and rearing of this
labor-intensive crop would have been obtained through similar arrangements
with the pepper-producing interior communities.
Unlike the relatively small hunting-gathering communities in the immediate hinterland of southeast Sumatra who lived mainly in or near the rain
forests, the interior Batak populations of northern Sumatra were relatively
large in relation to the coastal communities. The strength of the interior was
always a major factor in northeastern Sumatran court politics, as is evident in
Alves account of the history of Pasai. When pepper replaced forest products
as the major export commodity, the interior became of even greater importance to the coast. Pires noted that the Pasai ruler had to handle affairs with
the interior with some delicacy to assure a steady supply of pepper.13 But it
was not until the late eighteenth century that the agricultural interior became

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economically and culturally the center of Aceh. Prior to that time the continuing pre-eminence of Acehs coastal culture reaffirmed Acehs position as a
leading Malayu polity.
A second theme that emerges from the history of the northeast coast is
the close links between the elite groups in the various port polities. Because
of the nature of early foreign sources, where lists of toponyms each followed
by short descriptions is the norm, one can be forgiven for believing that
the coastline was littered with small, independent polities with an existence
separate from their neighbors. Despite the tendency among early Portuguese
chroniclers to characterize local politics as being riddled with coups and
countercoups involving a ruler, a regent, and external allies,14 the reality was
far less dramatic. In Pasai, leadership was obviously seized and held by men
of prowess, whatever and wherever their origin.15 Within a space of about
seventy-five years and nine rulers, four of the latter are clearly recognizable
as outsiders: one from Aru, another from Pidi, a third from Pidada, and the
last from Oman. Aru, Pidi, and Pidada were neighboring ports, and the willingness of Pasai to accept a prince from these places to become its ruler was
based on marriage ties that had created a single family. Pasais rise, therefore,
may not have been due to any inherent superiority to its neighbors, but to an
agreement by neighboring polities who were bound together through marriage. The ease and frequency with which leaders from the other ports were
raised to be rulers in Pasai appear to confirm this view. Pasai itself was later
absorbed by Aceh in a political scenario typical of this coast.
Pasai emerged as an important entrepot not only because it could supply
forest products, but also because it became a major producer of pepper grown
in the interior. By the early sixteenth century, Pires reports that Pasai produced
some eight to ten thousand bahar of pepper (Piper nigrum, Linn.) annually.16
Pepper was introduced to Southeast Asia from India as early as perhaps the
beginning of the Common Era and was grown alongside the indigenous pepper varieties. In Sumatra the earliest date for pepper cultivation is either the
fourteenth or the fifteenth century, with Pasai listed as a major pepper-growing
area. One of the attractions of the pepper plant as a crop is that it does not
require fertile soils, but flourishes under hot, humid conditions and an annual
rainfall of about 2,500 millimeters (98 inches). These requirements are met
in the interior of Sumatra. In early centuries, despite the plants slow maturation, cultivators were encouraged to grow pepper because it commanded high
prices in the international marketplace. Major demand came from China and
Europe, while Gujarati traders were eager to supplement their own Indian
supplies destined for the European market. Pepper consumption in Europe
reached saturation point by the 1680s, and subsequent VOC policy discouraged production, leading to a decline in pepper cultivation in Sumatra.17

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In addition to the export products that were readily available on the

northeast coast through the port of Pasai, Islam appears to have been an
important factor in Pasais rise to prominence. In 1292 Marco Polo observed
that Perlak, in the northeast coast of Sumatra, had a well-established Muslim
community.18 Although Muslim graves had been found throughout the archipelago, they were isolated individuals rather than whole communities. What
Marco Polo had stumbled upon was the first major local Muslim community
and, many scholars believe, the beginning of Islamization in the archipelago.
Malay sources, however, claim that the first place to have embraced Islam
was Samudera, which later became incorporated into Pasai to the immediate
south of Perlak.
The Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai (The Story of the Kings of Pasai), a text
said to have been written in stages beginning sometime between 1383 and
1390,19 attributes the Islamization to the sharif of Mecca. He dispatched a
ship carrying royal regalia for Samudera and religious scholars to convert the
ruler to Islam. In this episode the author of the hikayat implies not only that
Samudera was known in the Holy Land, but that it was deserving of the attention of the sharif of Mecca. Equally important is the mention of the arrival
of traders from benua Keling, or land of the Keling.20 The Keling were Tamil
Muslim traders from southern India who were a major economic force in
Southeast Asian trade. It is perhaps this Muslim connection from India that
enabled Samudera to become a leading Malayu center in the fourteenth and
early fifteenth centuries. Unlike previous centers, Samudera/Pasai was a Muslim polity and owed its rise to the Muslim kingdoms both in the Middle East
and in India.
Pasais rise in the middle to late fourteenth century occurred at the time
Adityawarman was governing his Malayu kingdom in the Suruaso area of
Minangkabau. Traders accustomed to dealing with a major Malayu entrepot
in the Straits of Melaka sought similar arrangements with Pasai. Pasai met
these needs, but unlike Sriwijaya and Malayu, its principal patrons were
not Chinese but Muslim traders from the Middle East and India. Its commercial success would not have gone unnoticed, and the hikayat describes
attacks by the Javanese kingdom of Majapahit. According to the story in the
hikayat, the first attack was launched to avenge a Majapahit princess whose
intended betrothed, a royal prince from Pasai, had been killed by his father.
In this just campaign the Pasai forces are defeated. The second attack occurs
because of the desire of Majapahit to bring more lands under its control.
In this invasion motivated by self-aggrandizement, Majapahit is defeated
by Pasai in a duel between water buffaloes.21 In keeping with traditional
Malayu court values, the Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai was primarily interested
in conveying ideas of proper behavior between rulers and subjects, as well

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as between fellow rulers. The occasion of Majapahits invasions of Pasai was

therefore used to emphasize how the justness of a cause would determine
the outcome.
The Javanese campaigns against Pasai, if they ever occurred,22 would have
been sometime in the second half of the fourteenth century during the height
of Majapahits power under Hayam Wuruk and his famous minister, Gajah
Mada. It was a period of Majapahit expansion and was likely the reason for
Adityawarmans decision to move his court into the safety of the Minangkabau
highlands. Pasai could have been a target because of its commercial success.
In the Suma Oriental, Pires comments that the establishment of Melaka at the
turn of the fifteenth century had little impact on Pasai because of the large
number of people who were there. There were few traders from the east,
but many from Gujarat, southern India (Keling), Bengal, Pegu, Siam, Kedah,
and Beruas.23
In the Sejarah Melayu, Pasai is regarded with great respect as a center
that rivaled Melaka in trade, heroes, and Islamic learning.24 Nevertheless, the
author of the Sejarah Melayu could not resist depicting the ruler of Samudera/
Pasai as being duped by the Siamese and made to tend the rulers fowls.25 By
the middle or late fifteenth century Melaka had obviously surpassed Pasai as
a trading emporium, for Pires mentions that with the defeat of Melaka Pase
[Pasai] will return to its former state.26 This, however, was not to be. Pasai as
an independent power only survived Melaka, its principal rival as the center
of the Malayu world, by some thirteen years and was absorbed by its northern
neighbor Aceh in 1524.
Another northeast Sumatran coastal polity that appears in the historical
sources is Aru. Unlike the other polities, however, little is known about its
government or society, and it is often depicted as a land primarily devoted
to piracy. According to Pires, Aru was a large kingdom, more extensive than
any of the others mentioned north of it, including Pasai, and its ruler was
the greatest king in all Sumatra. Pires estimated that there were some one
hundred boats at the disposal of the ruler of Aru and even more if required,
and that these boats were built for speed rather than for carrying cargo. The
description of Arus fleets and their activities resemble tasks the Orang Laut
had performed for Sriwijaya and Melaka. Arus officials and subjects conducted raids and presented a certain percentage of their booty to the ruler,
although he himself sponsored some of these expeditions. Melaka was one
of the major targets of Aru raids, which Pires attributes to a long-standing
quarrel between these two polities.27 What was really at issue, as in the past,
was control of the sea lanes to determine the leading entrepot in the Straits of
Melaka.

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Although Pires calls the ruler of Aru the greatest king in all Sumatra, he
does not describe anything of note except Arus powerful fleets and its raiding
activities. The reason is that the core of the polity was located in the interior.
One of Arus major allies and a source of warboats was Raja Tamiang (Raja
Tomjam), ruler of a polity that Pires describes as Bata[k]. At the time the
Raja Tamiang was a son-in-law of the ruler of Aru and had a fleet of some
thirty to forty well-equipped lanca (a seagoing, three-masted trading ship)
that could be sent downriver to the straits when needed. Immediately to the
south of Aru was a vassal polity that Pires calls Arcat, whose ruler was related
to the king of Aru. Arcat was a major center of the Orang Laut and a principal
supplier of Arus fleets, which perhaps explains the strong rivalry between
Aru and the kingdom of Melaka. The main Orang Laut support for the king
of Melaka came from the Orang Laut groups south of Arcat and in the islands
of the Riau-Lingga archipelagoes.28
It has been argued that Aru and the later Deli were located on the same
site, and that on this particular stretch of coast Panai flourished between the
tenth and fourteenth centuries, Aru from the late thirteenth to the early seventeenth century, and Asahan from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.29 What all of these polities had in common was access to the interior
products and the manpower resources of the Batak. In addition to benzoin,
camphor, rattan, and eaglewood, the Batak later added pepper and rice as
their major exports. There was an upsurge in Chinese demand for pepper in
the fifteenth century, which led to large areas of the Sumatran interior being
converted to pepper gardens. The time-consuming labor involved in cultivating pepper resulted in a shortage of rice, thus encouraging the Batak in the
interior of Aru/Deli to expand rice production.30
The history of the northeast Sumatran coast helps explain why Aru
became such an important polity between the late thirteenth and the early
seventeenth centuries. It had an extensive hinterland with a major Batak
population, whose agricultural and collecting activities complemented Arus
orientation toward the sea. With access to highly desired products for the
international market and with strong fleets to safeguard its trade routes and
discourage the rise of competitors, Aru became a worthy rival of both Pasai
and Melaka as the center of alam Malayu.
Aru and Tamiang are interesting cases of the interplay of ethnicities in the
sixteenth century. Both had been included as part of Desawarnanas bhumi
Malayu, and in the early sixteenth century they both pursued a way of life
clearly identifiable as Malayu. Yet both rulers had a Batak connection, with the
Raja Tamiang ruling over what Pires calls the kingdom of Batak. Although
Pires supplies no information on the origins of the ruler of Aru, the Sejarah

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Melayu states explicitly that he was a son of a Sultan Sajak, who descended
from the Batak.31 There was a steady flow of interior Batak to the coasts in
response to the international demand for camphor and benzoin. While Barus
on the west coast continued to be an important market for traders coming
from the west, the Chinese preferred to go to the closer and more accessible
ports on the Straits of Melaka. This enabled such ports as Kota Cina, Tamiang,
and Aru to participate in this trade dominated by the Chinese.
Since the Chinese would have been accustomed to trading with the
Malayu since the days of Sriwijaya, and since so many of the intermediaries
were Malayu on both sides of the straits, it made good economic sense for
the Batak traders to assume a Malayu identity when on the coast. But it was
equally important to maintain Batak ethnicity in order to perform special
Batak rites necessary to maintain access to land. There was thus the emergence of the Batak Malayu (or the Malayu Batak), or individuals who were
Malayu on the coast and Batak in the interior.32 The rulers of both Aru and
Tamiang had become Muslim and regarded themselves as both part of the
alam Malayu and the world of the Batak interior.
In 1365 the Desawarnana listed Barus, Lamuri, Samudera, Perlak, Daya
(Barat) Aru, Tamiang, and Panai as part of bhumi Malayu.33 Except for Barus,
these ports are located on the northeastern coast of Sumatra and would have
shared a common Malayu language and culture. It was this Malayu world on the
northeastern coast of Sumatra that laid the foundations for the rise of Aceh.

Emergence of Aceh
Only in the early sixteenth century is there a mention of a place called Aceh
with a population of fishermen.34 Its earlier existence may have gone unnoticed because the settlement was located a mile inland from the bay on the
Aceh River. Lying on the bay itself was Lamuri, which was better known
because of its ideal location on the trade route between India and China. For
some reason, possibly the shift in the course of the river or threats from Pidi,
the royal family of Lamuri moved its court to Makota Alam on the Aceh River.
It lay directly opposite the settlement of Dar al-Kamal, the epithet by which
Aceh was known at the time. In a war between the two settlements sometime
in the late fifteenth century, Makota Alam emerged victorious and Munawwar Syah became the ruler of the united realm.35 Aceh is unmentioned by the
Frenchman who went to Tiku to purchase pepper at this time, which may
indicate that Aceh was not yet a port worthy of note.36 Foreign merchants
appear to have preferred to trade at the coastal settlement of Lamuri.
At the time of these reports, Aceh was beginning to expand under Sultan Ali Mughayat Syah (151530), incorporating all the port polities along

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the coast: Daya in 1520, Pidi in 1521, and Samudera/Pasai in 1524. Only
Aru and the interior Batak settlements succeeded in resisting Aceh, but under
Sultan Alauddin Riayat Syah al-Kahar (153971), Aru too was conquered in
1564.37 So extensive were his conquests on Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula
that he is said to have referred to himself in a letter as King of Aceh, Barus,
Pidi, Pasai, and the vassal states of Daya and Batak, prince of all the land
bounded by the ocean and the inland sea, the mines of Minangkabau, and the
kingdom of Aru, recently conquered with just cause.38 Extravagant claims
by rulers were not uncommon, as is particularly evident in letters sent by the
Pagaruyung courts.39 The Portuguese obviously regarded Sultan Alauddin as
the most powerful ruler in Sumatra, with the Portuguese chronicler Diogo do
Couto further dubbing him Emperor of all the Malayu,40 a reference redolent of the past glories of Sriwijaya Malayu. Sultan Alauddin was also attributed with the establishment of the administration of the kingdom. He sent
envoys to Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent (152066), the reigning sultan of
Turkey (the famous Sultan Rum of Malay traditions), to obtain teachers to
strengthen Islam in his realm and military aid to fight the infidel Portuguese.
Acehs ability to besiege the Portuguese in Melaka and to obtain assistance
from the legendary Rum raised its prestige in the region and particularly in
the Malayu lands on both sides of the straits.41
One of the most detailed descriptions of early Aceh is found in a Portuguese account, Roteiro das cousas do Achem, based on reports by the Portuguese
Diogo Gil, who was a prisoner of the Acehnese for several years in the sixteenth century.42 Gil noted that one had to sail some three leagues (c. eighteen
miles) up the Aceh River before encountering forests, fallow land, and some
rice fields. On the right were a few villages of fisherfolk who, he remarked,
were well-regarded in the society. Though there were rice fields and gardens,
Aceh was not self-sufficient and had to import food for the city. Pasai, Pidi,
and Aru were major suppliers of food for Aceh, with additional rice, wine,
and butter from Pegu and rice, sugar, and conserves from Bengal. Merchants
from the city went to trade on Pulau Wai, a small island off the Acehnese
coast, because it was the principal market for food in Aceh. Acehnese exports
were camphor and benzoin from Barus, and pepper and gold from Pariaman,
Tiku, and Indrapura. Pepper also came from Pidi and Aru, as well as from
the Malay Peninsula and Java.
As with many contemporary observers, Gils population figures appear
inflated though they are useful in providing relative comparisons. He believed
that the city itself contained some 70,000 inhabitants, of whom 7,500 were
foreigners. The latter were housed in various quarters in the city: one for the
3,500 Pasai merchants; a trading village containing 3,000 foreign merchants
(origins left unmentioned) in houses with warehouses (gudang) below; and

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separate quarters respectively for some 500 Peguans and 500 Bengali. The
houses were lined along two principal streets. Past the foreign quarters was
the Great Mosque facing a square, and opening onto the square was a pavilion
known as the Bunga Setangkai (A Branch of Flowers), where foreign envoys
were received and official audiences held. Next to it was another pavilion serving as a courthouse, where judges gathered to decide cases. In the royal enclosure amidst some trees was a pavilion known as Sida-Sida, which housed the
special royal guards of eunuchs. Below the living area of the Sida-Sida was an
arsenal containing the rulers cannon, while the cannonballs and other guns
were kept in an adjoining house.43
Acehs early success was due principally to its ability to build upon the
traditions of those lands it absorbed. Until about the middle of the sixteenth
century, Samudera/Pasai and to a lesser extent Pidi provided Acehs commercial links to the Indian Ocean and to the South China Sea. The profitable route
westward went from northern Sumatra to Coromandel and Cambay (via the
Maldives) to the Red Sea. Persuaded by arguments of foreign merchants settled in Pasai after the Portuguese conquest of Melaka, Aceh maintained Pasai
as one of its major ports and preserved the well-established Pasai currency as
the principal medium of exchange. Among the international trading community in the realm, the Bengali merchants constituted the largest and most
influential. Another factor favoring the new kingdom was the introduction of
pepper cultivation from seeds obtained from Malabar, which provided Aceh
with a product highly desired in international trade. It sought to control the
production and distribution of pepper by seizing the major pepper-producing
area of Perlis on the Malay Peninsula and in conquering its chief rivals Aru
and Johor in 1564. Finally, Aceh assumed Pasais role as the leading center for
the study and dissemination of Islam.44 The successful integration of Islam in
Aceh forever transformed the understanding of what it meant to be Malayu.

Acehs Links to the Islamic World

Acehs attitude toward Islam was shaped by the long presence of this religion in northern Sumatra. When Marco Polo arrived in Perlak in c. 1292 on
his way home to Venice from China, he commented that the population was
predominantly idolaters, though with a substantial number of Muslims. He
further noted that many of those who dwell in the seaport towns have been
converted to the religion of Mahomet by the Saracen merchants who constantly frequent them.45 In the mid-fourteenth century, Ibn Battuta was a
visitor in Samudera at the time of Al-Malik al-Zahir, who is mentioned in the
Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai as the ruler who succeeded the first Muslim sultan of
the kingdom. He commented that the current sultan was a devout Shafii in

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madhhab [sect, school], and a lover of jurists, who come to his audiences for
the recitation of the Quran and for discussions. . . . The people of his country
are Shafiis who are eager to fight infidels and readily go on campaign with
him.46 The Suma Oriental mentions that Pasai had become Muslim some
seventy years before, hence c. 1450, through the cunning of the merchant
Moors.47 Given the frequent interaction among the polities along the northeastern coast, it is far more probable that they would have embraced Islam
about the same time as Perlak in the late thirteenth century. By the early sixteenth century, Aceh was expanding under Sultan Ali Mughayat Syah, who
continued the practice among rulers in north and northeast Sumatra in being
strong patrons of Islam. In 1575 an Aceh ruler required his officials to don
Arab dress, while Sultan Alauddin Riayat Syah al-Mukammil (15891604)
encouraged Islamic teachers from the Holy Land to preach in his kingdom.48
Acehs decision to promote Islam was due to its long and profitable relationship with the wider Islamic world. In the sixteenth and much of the seventeenth centuries, Islamic powers were pre-eminent in the Mediterranean,
the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, various seas in
the Indo-Malaysian archipelago, and parts of the South China Sea. The Ottoman, the Safavid, and the Mughal-Timurid Empires49 controlled the greater
part of the known world, with only Ming China their equal in power and
prestige. Persian, the language of literature and culture in the Islamic courts,
was the true international language of diplomacy.50 The splendor, the wealth,
and the learning of these Islamic empires and the incomparable strength of
their armies were legend. Many lesser kingdoms around the world, most particularly Muslim ones, sought to model themselves after such greatness. Aceh
was one such kingdom in the periphery of the Muslim world, and its ideal
location between the Islamic heartland and the Indo-Malaysian archipelago
enabled it to become the primary center for the study and transmission of
Islamic knowledge in the region.
Although Acehs strongest links to the Islamic world were through the
Indian Muslim kingdoms, particularly the Mughal dynasty, it was also exposed
to developments in the other two major Islamic empires: the Ottoman and
the Safavid. In 151617 the Ottoman Empire gained control of Egypt, Syria,
and the Hejaz, and between 153438 added Iraq and the Persian Gulf. The
Ottomans fought Spain and the other Christian powers in Asian waters to
preserve the Muslim spice routes. As part of this campaign, Sultan Sulayman
(152066) dispatched a contingent of artillerymen to accompany some large
Turkish cannon to Aceh in 1568 and perhaps even in 1564.51 Muslim traders and teachers from Rum, the Malay designation for the fabled land of
the caliph of Turkey, were found throughout the archipelago and as far as
the spice islands in eastern Indonesia.52 A Frenchman visiting Aceh in the

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beginning of the seventeenth century noted the presence of a community of

Turks who bought pepper from the Acehnese and then resold it from their
own stalls to other foreign traders.53 With the Ottomans in control of the
Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina, there was a flow of ideas between the
Ottoman Empire and Aceh, the Southeast Asian gateway for the Muslim
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This influence is readily discernible in certain
names and practices adopted by the Aceh kingdom that are traceable to the
Ottoman Empire.
The Safavid Empire with its core in the Persian heartland had an equally
important influence on Aceh, but much of it came indirectly through their subjects serving in the Indian Muslim lands of Golconda, Bijapur, and the Mughal
Empire. The major expansion of Persian trade under Abbas I (15871628)
and Abbas II (164266) occurred after what has been called the second wave
of Islamic expansion in India from the Indo-Gangetic plains to the Deccan in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.54 Through sharing a common Islamic
way of life, there was an ease of movement of traders, scholars, and travelers
in the Islamic world. Even in the Mughal court of Sultan Akbar (15561605),
most of the significant cultural figures were from abroad, especially from the
Safavid Empire.55
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Persian merchants living in
the fringe areas of the Safavid Empire were influential in the affairs of Southeast Asian kingdoms.56 This is especially notable in Aceh and Ayutthaya, where
the Persian connection may have been at work during the annual exchange of
envoys.57 Ample evidence exists to show that Southeast Asian rulers, including
those of Aceh, were eager to hear about the prestigious Muslim courts from
Muslim traders, envoys, and religious teachers. Islamic and secular literature
written in Persian, the literary language of the Muslim courts, was eagerly
translated by the Muslim kingdoms of Southeast Asia into Malayu, the literary language of the Muslim courts in the archipelago. Perso-Arabic-Turkic
and Islamic themes and ideas, along with a large number of Perso-Arabic
words and a modified Arabic script, were therefore transmitted in the Malayu
language primarily through Aceh to the rest of Southeast Asia.58
The sixteenth century and much of the seventeenth witnessed a period
of Islamic expansion in all fields led by the brilliance of the three major Muslim courts. They provided models of behavior and statecraft, the occasional
armed expedition, religious scholars, administrators, and traders to the other
Islamic lands. But most important of all, they offered an entre to an established and highly lucrative worldwide Islamic trading network. In the early
sixteenth century, Aceh profited more than any other kingdom in Southeast
Asia from its Islamic connection. A Frenchman visiting the kingdom in the
years 16013 noted:

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In the streets are a large number of shops belonging to merchants dressed in

the Turkish style who come from the great lands of Negapatnam, Gujarat,
Cape Comorin, Calicut, the island of Ceylon, Siam, Bengal, and various other
places. They live in this place for some six months in order to sell their merchandise that consists of very fine cotton cloth from Gujarat, sturdy silk bolts
and other textiles of cotton thread, various types of porcelain, a large number
of drugs, spices, and precious stones.59

As bearers of highly desired goods from the west and as representatives of

prestigious Islamic centers, these traders were welcomed by rulers in Southeast Asia. The presence of foreign Muslim communities in the port cities
became commonplace, and it was not unusual to find Muslim officials occupying influential positions in the courts.60
Because of Acehs location at the northern tip of Sumatra, it was the
logical first port of call for traders coming from the west. Acehs reputation
as an Islamic kingdom and its ability to provide desired local commodities
and the facilities to promote effective and profitable exchange quickly made
it a favored entrepot with Muslim traders. Asian shipping avoided Melaka
after its fall to the Portuguese in 1511, sailing instead to Aceh and to Banten
in west Java. Powerful Acehnese rulers such as Sultan Alauddin Riayat Syah
al-Mukamil and Sultan Iskandar Muda encouraged foreign traders by assuring the availability of pepper, tin, and elephants for exchange in the port.
Under these two rulers, Aceh conquered pepper-producing areas on the east
and west coasts of Sumatra, as well as in the tin-rich mining states of Perak
and Kedah on the Malay Peninsula. Other tin areas on the east and west coasts
of the peninsula came under Acehs control when Iskandar Muda extended
his conquests to Johor and Pahang.61 Elephants were so highly prized that an
Ottoman chronicler devoted more attention to this subject than to any other
aspect of Aceh.62
Among the most prominent of the Indian traders were the Muslim
Gujarati from northwest India. After 1511 they transferred their trade to
Aceh, where they could obtain such prized commodities as pepper, nutmeg,
cloves, mace, tin, gold, ivory, and elephants. Other Muslim communities,
including the Malabari Mapillah and merchants representing the powerful
Mughal dynasty, also patronized Aceh. The Mughal princes Aurangzeb and
Dara Shukoh participated in Acehs trade, and Aurangzeb even exchanged
presents with Acehs sultan in 1641. For two decades after the Dutch conquest
of Portuguese Melaka in 1641, the VOC tried to attract trade to Melaka by
restricting Muslim trade to Aceh. Angered by this action, the Mughal emperor
threatened retaliation in Gujarat for any losses due to Dutch intervention.
He issued a farman, or royal decree, instructing the Dutch to issue passes

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to any Indian ship wanting to sail to Aceh. By the 1660s the VOC backed
down and allowed Indian traders to sail to Aceh, Perak, and Kedah without
restriction.63
Another important trading community in Aceh consisted of Indians
from the Coromandel coast who had been prominent in Malayu Melaka. Golcondas ruler, nobles, and officials began investing in international shipping
and trade in the late sixteenth century. Under Ibrahm Qutb Shah (155080),
Golconda encouraged the immigration of Persians, especially those of Sayyid
clans residing in the vicinity of Isfahan. These Persians arrived in substantial
numbers in the late sixteenth century and were joined in the seventeenth by
other Persian merchants heartened by Golcondas Sultan Muhammad Qutb
Shahs (161224) close ties with the Safavid Empire. The courts and administration of both Bijapur and Golconda became dominated by three major
Muslim factions: the Persians, the Dakhnis (local converts), and the Habshis
(Abyssinian Muslims).64 Together, the Persian and Golconda Muslim communities provided the resources that fueled this strong Muslim trade from
the northern Coromandel centered on the port of Masulipatnam. In southern Coromandel it was the Muslim Chulias who participated in the textile
and elephant trade by visiting every major port in Southeast Asia, particularly
Aceh.65
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Coromandel merchants
used Aceh as their primary trade center in the region. Coromandel textiles
were especially admired for the designs and colors with specific names associated with the markets for which they were destined. Coromandel traders also
brought rice, iron, steel, indigo, and some slaves, in return for pepper, tin,
ivory, elephants, cloves, nutmeg, and mace. Aceh so valued this trade from
the Coromandel that it retained a permanent agent in Masulipatnam, which
Golconda reciprocated with an agent in Aceh. Elephants were highly valued
in Bengal and in the Muslim kingdoms of Golconda, Bijapur, and Tanjore,
but they required special care in the long voyage from Southeast Asia to India.
Bengali merchants favored Aceh because of its ability to supply the burgeoning demand for elephants for the Mughal army in the seventeenth century.66
Commercial ties were strongly reinforced by personal links between rulers.
Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh, for example, preferred to establish state-tostate trade based on agreements between himself and his royal counterparts
rather than between merchants. Aceh continued to be the main focus of
Coromandel traders in the 1660s and for the rest of the century. By midcentury, however, the Persian shippers based in Golconda were gradually
being replaced by Europeans.67
The key to Acehs success as an entrepot was its continuing ability to
supply the region with a rich variety of Indian textiles brought by Muslim

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and Hindu traders from India. So highly desired was Indian cloth that many
groups, including the interior Sumatrans who were the major suppliers of
pepper and gold, refused to accept anything else in exchange. Even when the
Dutch brought their formidable technological and capital resources to bear
on Aceh, they were unable to stem the flow of Indian ships to Acehs roadstead. In one typical year Aceh received six Muslim ships from Bengal, another
six from Gujarat, one from Pegu, five Hindu-owned ships from south India,
plus numerous smaller boats manned by Malayu, Javanese, Chinese, etc. The
Indian traders brought so much cloth to Aceh that the whole region became
saturated, which pleased local populations but dismayed the monopolyminded Dutch.68 Initially, the VOC employed a naval blockade and other
restrictive measures to discourage Indian traders from going to Aceh. When
this policy failed because of Mughal threats of retaliation noted above, the
Dutch sought to deprive the Indian traders of tin and pepper by cutting off
Acehs access to these products. These measures were more effective, but sufficient supplies were available to satisfy the continuing flow of Indian traders
to Aceh.
Aceh competed with Johor for the control of tin on the Malay Peninsula
by conquering Perak and Kedah in 1620 and assuring supplies from Ujung
Salang, Banggarai, and Tenasserim. To gain a monopoly over the pepper
trade, Sultan Iskandar Muda extended Acehs control over the northeast coast
of Sumatra and the pepper-producing Minangkabau lands on the west coast.
This policy was maintained by his successors until the Minangkabau settlements succeeded in rejecting Acehs control with the help of the VOC in the
1660s.69 Elephants were in plentiful supply in both Sumatra and the peninsula
and satisfied the demand from Indian courts. Contributing to the attraction
of Aceh as an entrepot was its ability to supply rice and other consumables
from Java, as well as gold from the Minangkabau interior, which reached Aceh
via Bengkalis and Indragiri.70
While the trade of Sriwijaya and to a lesser extent Melaka had depended
heavily on the Chinese, Acehs success was based on the flow of traders from
Islamic lands. Muslim rulers favored Aceh with special trading privileges and
high-ranking envoys, an honor that would not have gone unnoticed in the
region. With its growing success, Aceh became a major contender for leadership in alam Malayu. In the Hikayat Aceh, Sultan Iskandar Muda is said to be
of the line (nasab) and race (bangsa) of Iskandar Zulkarnain, the legendary
Islamic hero based on the Alexander Romance or legend of Alexander the
Great of Macedonia. The hikayats statement clearly presents Aceh as part of
the Malayu world, for the Raffles 18 version of the Sejarah Melayu written
in 1612 implicitly depicts Iskandar Zulkarnain as the ancestor of the Malayu
rulers.71 Another significant claim made in this statement is Acehs position

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123

as the champion of Islam. Because of Acehs strong links to the wider Islamic
world, it is likely that Acehnese scholars would have known the Perso-Islamic
tradition of Iskandar Zulkarnain. Although this tradition describes Iskandars
role as conqueror, seer, and prophet in search of the water of life, the central
message is his destiny to establish a universal kingdom, a kingdom of Islam.72
The reign name taken by Acehs ruler, Iskandar Muda, or the Young Alexander or even the Heir of Alexander, clearly proclaims Acehs decision to
make Islam a central tenet of the land in the advancement of the kingdom of
Islam.
For Aceh, claiming descent from the legendary Islamic hero Iskandar
was convincing because its kings had already begun to establish Acehs credentials as a Malayu nation with Islam as its major defining characteristic.
Through Islamic teachings, the concept of the Malayu ruler was expanded to
make it obligatory for the ruler to possess sufficient power to implement laws
and preserve the territory of Islam. Such religious precepts are contained in
a sixteenth-century Malayu text originating from Aceh, a kingdom which one
scholar has called the intellectual and spiritual center of Islam in the Malay
world at that time.73 Building upon Pasais reputation as a center of Islamic
knowledge, Aceh demonstrated its Islamic cosmopolitanism by adhering to
the latest religious and secular fashions from the Islamic world. Scholars,
traders, and foreign envoys from Muslim lands brought their wares, tracts,
and ideas to Aceh. They enticed the ruler and the people to institute changes
that would update their society in the image of their illustrious coreligionists in the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires. As was characteristic of
Southeast Asia, Aceh only selected those aspects that were compatible with the
society.74
Islam thus became a defining feature of Aceh and was central to all of its
institutions. It was during the heyday of Aceh in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries that it became the center of alam Malayu and made Islam an indispensable part of Malayu identity. Aceh attracted the best Islamic scholars from
the region and became the hub of Islamic reformist ideas that were spread
throughout Southeast Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.75 It is
no surprise that the Indian author of the Akbar Nama, who wrote this panegyric to the great Mughal sultan Akbar before his death in 1605, showed little
interest in the Europeans but was very much aware of Aceh.76 In a five-volume
work on various parts of the Islamic world written in Mughal India sometime
between 1602 and 1607, Pegu and Aceh are the only places in Southeast Asia
that merit extended discussion. Although the description of Aceh focused on
its commercial products, especially camphor, there is a specific reference to
the dispatch of agents and gifts to the Mughal court, showing that it was sufficiently respected to be accorded diplomatic relations by one of the most

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powerful Muslim empires at the time.77 Aceh was the undisputed successor
to Melaka as the most prosperous and prestigious center of the Malayu world
and came to offer new standards of Malayuness based on Islamic models in
literature, in court administration, and in behavior.

Islamic-Influenced Malayu Literary Works from Aceh

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Aceh became the most productive
center of literary activity in alam Malayu and excelled particularly in Malayu
Islamic literature.78 Aceh built upon a growing number of imported Islamic
Arab and Persian works that had been brought to alam Malayu and integrated
into an indigenous corpus heavily influenced by Hindu-Buddhist literature.
Didactic and entertaining works such as the Hikayat Muhamat Hanafiyyah,
translated into Malayu sometime around the fifteenth century; the Hikayat
Iskandar Zulkarnain, based on the Alexander Romance; and the Hikayat Amir
Hamzah, a story of the Prophet Muhammads uncle, became popular among
the Malayu accustomed to similar messages in Indian epics.79
The fact that most extant Islamic theological texts from the precolonial
period originated from Aceh suggests that it was the major center of transmission of religious knowledge in the region. Non-Sufi ideas were deliberately conveyed in narrative-based form of exegesis to appeal to the bulk of
the population. The interest of the Malayu exegetes in the qiraat, or variant
readings of the Quranic text, indicates that Islamic scholars of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries were transmitting a whole range of Islamic knowledge
and not simply Sufism.80 Nevertheless, it was Sufism that was the inspiration
for much of the religious literature written and read by Acehs intellectual
elite. The rulers principal Islamic advisors (Syaikh al-Islam) were Sufi scholars with strong influence in the theological direction of the country.
Acehs regional prestige can to a considerable extent be attributed to its
support for Malayu-Islamic scholars. The language and style of Malayu works
originating in Aceh were influenced by Arabic and Persian syntax and poetic
genres because of the practice of translating Arabic and Persian poetry into
the Malayu language.81 One of the earliest of these religious and literary mediators was Hamzah Fansuri, who rose to become the Syaikh al-Islam to Sultan
Alauddin Riayat Syah (15891602). After traveling through the Middle East
to study at different Islamic centers, he was initiated into the Sufi Qadiriyyah
tarekat or brotherhood. Hamzah wrote Malayu syair inspired by Persian verse,
as well as Islamic tracts on Sufism, making him one of the earliest MalayuIslamic scholars in the archipelago.82
A second significant influence in the Islamic literary world of Aceh was
the Sufi scholar Bukhari al-Jauhari, who also used Persian sources in writing

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his Taj al-Salatin (Mirror of Kings). If he were, as his name could suggest,
a Johorese who was writing in Aceh, it would be yet another indication of
the common culture shared by Malayu courts that encouraged movement of
scholars and even prominent officials between kingdoms. Instead of engaging
in philosophical discussions or definitions of concepts, the Taj al-Salatin uses
a popular narrative technique to provide models of good Muslim behavior,
particularly for rulers and ministers. It enabled Aceh to create a model of
Muslim Malayu kingship in the seventeenth century, which reached its pinnacle under Sultan Iskandar Muda.
Syams al-Din al-Samatrani of Pasai, the Syaikh al-Islam under Sultan
Iskandar Muda, was a third important Malayu-Islamic scholar in Aceh. He
and Hamzah Fansuri fostered the Wujudiyyah interpretation of Sufism and
dominated the religious and intellectual life in the archipelago until condemned by al-Raniri.83 In 1601 Syams al-Din wrote the Mirat al-Mumin in
Malayu, which he termed the language of Pasai [bahasa Pasai], because so
many of my honorable religious brothers do not know Arabic and Persian but
only the language of Pasai.84 Syams al-Din is also thought to be the author of
the Hikayat Aceh, which may have been written as a response to a challenge
from Johor, Acehs chief rival in alam Malayu in this period. According to the
Bustan al-Salatin (chapter 12, section 12), Raja Abdullah of Johor commissioned the Bendahara Tun Sri Lanang to undertake the writing of the Sulalat
al-Salatin (The Genealogy of Kings, better known as the Sejarah Melayu)
in May 1612. The decision to undertake the writing of the genealogy of the
kings of Melaka at that time was part of the renewed effort by the Malayu of
Johor to return to Melaka and reclaim the city of their ancestors. Unsuccessful
attempts to retake the city from the Portuguese in 1606 and 1608 did not deter
them from their ultimate goal. It has even been suggested that the scribe of the
new text deliberately sought to omit references to the Perak line, which had a
stronger claim to being directly descended from the Melaka royal family.85
The rest of alam Malayu, including Aceh, would have been aware of the
renewed vigor with which Johor was attempting to reclaim the leadership
once held by Melaka. This would have been the provocation leading to the
Acehnese attack on Johor in June 1613, a year after it became known that
a legitimizing text, the Sulalat al-Salatin, had been compiled in the Johor
court.86 After the Acehnese invasion, the Johor ruler Sultan Alauddin Riayat
Syah (15971613) and a number of the princes and nobles, including Bendahara Tun Sri Lanang, the author of the Johor text, were brought as prisoners to Aceh.87 Sultan Alauddin died soon after his arrival, and Raja Abdullah,
given Iskandar Mudas younger sister in marriage, was sent back to govern
Johor accompanied by two thousand Acehnese.88 On his return Raja Abdullah ordered Tun Sri Lanang to resume the Sulalat al-Salatin. In 1615 Aceh

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again attacked Johor, and Tun Sri Lanang fled after completing thirty-four
episodes.89 The second Acehnese attack may have been motivated once more
by the challenge that the resumption of the writing of the Sulalat al-Salatin
posed.
Such an interpretation appears reasonable in light of an earlier episode
involving Aceh and Perak. According to the Silsilah Raja-Raja Perak (The
Genealogy of the Perak Kings), sometime in the mid-sixteenth century the
widow and children of the second Perak ruler were taken by the conquering
Acehnese armies back to Aceh, where they were treated as honored guests
rather than as prisoners of war. The eldest son was taken as husband by the
sultanah of Aceh, and four years later in 1579 succeeded as ruler with the title
Sultan Alauddin. He then sent his younger brother back to Perak to rule.90 The
favorable treatment accorded the royal captives from Perak, and the subsequent marriage of a member of the Perak royal family to the Acehnese sultanah, are consistent with seventeenth-century events involving Sultan Iskandar
Muda. In both cases the Aceh rulers were sensitive to the importance of the
Melaka royal line in providing legitimacy to their attempts to be acknowledged as leaders of the Malay world.
Iskandar Mudas commissioning of the Hikayat Aceh, apparently sometime either after the first attack on Johor in 1613 or after the second in
1615, was a significant affirmation of the new identity evolving in Aceh. The
removal of the rival claim from Johor prepared the way for Acehs assertion of
leadership in alam Malayu through the legitimizing document of the Hikayat
Aceh. While Sriwijaya used strategically placed stone inscriptions invoking
sacred sanctions to maintain loyalty among its subjects, its successors sought
the same results employing a new medium, the written text.91 The change in
medium would have combined an older significance of sacred objects with a
new understanding of sacred contents to create an even more powerful object
of sanction and legitimacy for the ruling class.92
While scholars have argued over which model informed the writing of the
Hikayat Aceh,93 the more important issue is its intended functions. The most
obvious, of course, was to praise the great Iskandar Muda. After his death, it
appears that this hikayat continued to be recited at special occasions to commemorate a ruler whose life, according to a Dutch East India Company
envoy in the seventeenth century, was cruel but whose good name would
never die among the Acehnese. He describes how the Dutch were accorded a
singular honor by the sultanah of Aceh by being invited to a performance by
the musicians and singers of her late father, Sultan Iskandar Muda. The performers offered a praise song in which the sultanahs late fathers deeds were
extensively celebrated, so affecting the nobles and other Acehnese listening to
it that they burst into tears.94 This could have been segments of the Hikayat

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Aceh being recited by the court singers in Malayu, the language of Pasai and
of the Aceh court.
Nur al-Din al-Raniri was the fourth major figure who contributed to
the growing corpus of Malayu-Islamic literary works that justified Acehs
claim as the center of alam Malayu. Although he was born in Ranir, a harbor
in Gujarat in northwest India, today he is regarded as a Malay-Indonesian
ulama. He came from a Hadrami family of religious scholars, studied in the
Hadramaut, and followed the same scholarly route as other itinerant Muslim
teachers who helped to strengthen links among Muslim communities. It was
such scholars who were responsible for generating interest in Sufism in Aceh.
Al-Raniri gained prominence when he became Syaikh al-Islam in 1637 to Sultan Iskandar Thani (163641) and for a short period to Sultanah Taj al-Alam
Safiyat al-Din (164175).95
Al-Raniri wrote no fewer than twenty-nine works both in Malayu and
Arabic, of which fourteen were kitab, or books with a strong Islamic content. The Bustan al-Salatin, written in 1638 at the behest of his patron, Sultan
Iskandar Thani, shows the influence of a number of Malayu works including
the Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain, which he translated into Malayu, the Taj
al-Salatin, and the Sejarah Melayu.96 The Bustan was similar to the earlier
Taj in drawing on Islamic collections of stories written in Persian from India,
but the Bustan was intended for scholars and theologians rather than for the
ordinary reader.97 The length of this work and the coherence of individual
sections may explain why only parts of the Bustan have ever been edited. Its
importance, however, is unquestioned, and it served as a source for many later
Malayu literary texts. For example, the introduction to the Bustan was borrowed for the nineteenth-century Shellabear version of the Sejarah Melayu,
and the Bustan was the basis for the Hikayat Hang Tuahs description of the
garden of a Turkish ruler.98
It is as an Islamic scholar that al-Raniri is particularly noted. His studies on sharia (Islamic law) and fikh (jurisprudence) culminated in the Sirat
al-Mustaqim, which served as a popular manual for basic religious duties.
One of the extracts from the latter work was said to have been instrumental
in the Islamization of Kedah. In addition to making Islamic knowledge more
accessible to the Malayu world, al-Raniri also introduced the Muslims in the
archipelago to comparative religion. Although he spent a mere seven years
(163744) in Aceh, he had a far greater impact on Islam in the archipelago
than any of his predecessors. His strong network of religious teachers extending to the Middle East made him one of the leading transmitters of Islamic
reformism in the archipelago in the seventeenth century. Because of his network and that of his most famous disciple, the Makassar Syaikh Yusuf, known

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in Islamic circles as al-Maqassari, Aceh became noted as the leading center of

Islamic learning in the region.99
A fifth important scholar who contributed to the impressive output of
Malayu-Islamic literature from Aceh was Abd al-Rauf al-Singkili (1615?93).
He was born in Singkel in west coast Sumatra, left Aceh in 1642 to study in
Arabia, and spent some nineteen years abroad studying with various religious
teachers. Sultanah Taj al-Alam Safiyat al-Din appointed him to the office of
Qadi Malik al-Adil or mufti in charge of religious affairs. Until his death he
continued to serve the subsequent sultanahs who ruled Aceh for the remainder of the seventeenth century. During this time he is reputed to have written some thirty books on mysticism, jurisprudence, the unity of god, and the
traditions. At the request of Sultanah Safiyat al-Din he wrote the Mirat atTullab in 1663, a substantial work covering various aspects of the religious life
of Muslims. It was written apparently to assist him in the performance of his
duties as mufti. The sources used in compiling this work are evidence of his
extensive intellectual connections with the Islamic world. He was also the first
to write a Malayu exegesis (tafsir) of the entire Quran, which circulated and
stimulated further study throughout the archipelago.100
What distinguished Acehs Malayu literary production from that of other
Malayu courts at the time was not only its greater volume, but also its stronger
emphasis on Muslim themes and literary models from the great Islamic courts
in India and the Middle East. Even works written in praise of Acehs rulers or
in support of Acehs political goals exhibited influences from Persian and Arabic Islamic literature in both the original and in Malayu translations, as is evident in the titles of such well-known texts as Bukharis Taj al-Salatin (1603)
and al-Raniris Bustan al-Salatin (1638).101 By producing and maintaining
a high standard of Malayu-Islamic literature, Aceh strengthened the idea of
Islam as a crucial component of Malayu identity. This association of Islam
and Malayu was further enhanced by Acehs selective adoption of court and
administrative practices from the most prestigious of the Islamic empires.

An Islamic Model for Malayu Court and Administration

While Aceh shared many features with Malayu Melaka, a fundamental difference was its active pursuit of ideas and models from Islamic civilizations.102
Malayu culture as represented by Melaka and later Johor was an amalgam of
indigenous, Hindu-Buddhist, and Islamic ideas,103 whereas Islam formed the
underpinnings of society in Aceh. This was especially evident in the organization
of the administration and the royal court. The activities of the Syaikh al-Islam
in Aceh as the personal spiritual and secular advisor to the ruler suggest that

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this office was modeled after that in the Ottoman Empire. During the reign of
the Ottoman sultan Sulayman the Magnificent (152066), the Syaikh al-Islam
became the highest ranking individual in the religious bureaucracy. As grand
mufti, he was the personal Islamic advisor to the ruler, but he also supervised
judges, jurisconsults (an advisory position), and religious teachers. Sultan
Sulayman gave the Syaikh al-Islam authority to control the entire religious hierarchy, which in effect meant everyone in the religious teaching establishment.
For the first time the Syaikh had the authority to discredit scholars through
his control over the religious schools.104 A similar exercise of power by the
Syaikh al-Islam in Aceh may have been inspired by the Ottoman example.
Hamzah Fansuri was apparently the first Syaikh al-Islam in Aceh, serving
Sultan Alauddin in the late sixteenth century. The latters successor, Sultan
Iskandar Muda, then appointed Syams al-Din, the well-known Sufi mystic and
probable author of the Hikayat Aceh, to be his Syaikh al-Islam. After Syams alDin, the position continued to be filled by important religious scholars who
were also Malayu literary figures at court. They were Nur al-Din al-Raniri
under Iskandar Thani, and Saiful-Rijal and Abd al-Rauf under Sultanah Taj
al-Alam Safiyat al-Din. According to the Bustan al-Salatin, written in the
reign of Iskandar Thani, though the Qadi Malik al-Adil was the supreme court
judge and the first minister in the land, the Syaikh al-Islam Syams al-Din was
the most prominent of the Acehnese dignitaries. All of Acehs Syaikh al-Islam
in the seventeenth century exercised considerable religious and secular influence. As the chief advisor to the ruler, the Syaikh had considerable esteem and
power and became the most important official in matters of religion, state,
and international trade.105
As Aceh became acknowledged as a leading center of the Malayu world,
many Malayu on the Malay Peninsula came to serve its rulers.106 Like their
counterparts on the peninsula, Acehs leaders dispensed titles to favored foreigners in exchange for specific services. One of the most profitable of offices
was that of saudagar raja (kings merchant), who was often an Indian merchant in charge of trading on behalf of the ruler.107 Even European traders
were honored with such descriptive titles as raja suci hati (the pure-hearted
king), raja putih (the white king), or the more Acehnese title uleebalang raja
(the warrior king), and were expected to offer their highly respected military
skills and armaments to the ruler.108
Acehs strong Islamic orientation is evident in the principal minister, who
was also a religious figure. When Aceh ambassadors to the VOC headquarters in Batavia in 1644 were asked to name the most powerful figures in the
kingdom other than the sultanah, they said it was the first councilor (eersten
ryxraet), the Leub Kita Kali. Despite his religious title of Qadi Malik al-Adil,
he presided over both religious and secular matters.109 Next in importance

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was the Orang Kaya Maharaja Sri Maharaja, chief minister of state affairs.
He was followed by the Orang Kaya Lakasamana Perdana Menteri, who was
also the panglima dalam in charge of court affairs. The fourth in rank was the
panglima bandar, who was entrusted with international trade and oversight of
the lucrative tin and pepper trade in Acehs territories of Perak and west coast
Sumatra.110 Law and order in the port were the responsibility of the penghulu
kawal and the tandil kawal.111
Acehs model for the four ministers of state owed less to Melaka than
to the Mughal dynasty in India.112 Even the use of military titles for Acehs
officials is a borrowing from the Islamic world. In Aceh, local lords were
referred to as uleebalang, and governors assigned to vassal areas and certain
court officials as panglima. Although these lords and officials were supposed
to assemble and lead their forces in times of war, their primary function was
nonmilitary. The uleebalang were heads of villages or larger units in the countryside, while the panglima were appointed by the court to the major fiefs in
the kingdom. There were panglima of the major parts of the kingdom such as
Pidi, Pasai, Daya, and Deli, as well as panglima for the pepper-producing west
coast Sumatra Minangkabau settlements of Barus, Pasaman, Tiku, Pariaman,
Padang, Silida, and Indrapura. Panglima titles were also assigned to officials in
the court itself, such as the panglima bandar in charge of international trade.
Although hulubalang and panglima are Malayu terms, the use of military
titles for civil functions is a practice borrowed from the great contemporary
Islamic empires in Asia. Both the Ottoman and the Mughal Empires regarded
central power with its administrative branches as one great army.113
Acehs use of karkon for scribe was a borrowing from the Persian, and
the chief scribe was given a combined Malayu-Persian title of penghulu karkon. The position of scribes and the chief scribe in Aceh, at least in the seventeenth century, may have been held by trusted capados (Port. eunuchs) of
the court, a practice also found in the Ottoman Empire. These scribes were
responsible for recording goods and gifts being brought into the port by foreign merchants.114 While Aceh, like Melaka and Johor, used the Persian term
syahbandar, or harbor master, only in Aceh was the syahbandar assisted by a
nazir (inspector of trade) and a dalal (middleman), which were also Persian
titles.115
A Malayu court practice that was far more developed in Aceh than in
other Malayu courts was the widespread and varied use of the royal edict and
the royal seal, presumably borrowed from the Islamic empires institution of
the farman. There were two distinctive Acehnese royal orders bearing seals:
the sarakata or tarakata, which had to be observed until formally retracted,
and the seuteumi or seuteumi, which was intended to be a permanent command.116 These orders were conveyed throughout the kingdom and the vas-

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sal areas by the rulers officials and demanded immediate obedience.117 The
young men of the court (bujang) were often sent to various areas carrying
the rulers seuteumi.118 When a foreign vessel arrived in Acehs roadstead, it
was not allowed to land men or goods or sell anything until the royal seal was
delivered. The seal was placed at the base of the hilt of a royal keris, which one
Englishman in the seventeenth century described as like to a Mace which
openeth on the top where the signet is Enclosed.119 On one occasion in the
early seventeenth century, a VOC merchant went ashore before being presented with a royal seal. For his effrontery he was thrown before an elephant
and had his legs broken.120
Perhaps the strongest evidence of Islamic borrowing in Aceh was the
prominent role of the harem and eunuchs in the court.121 When Augustin de
Beaulieu visited Aceh in the reign of Sultan Iskandar Muda, he noted that the
palace was guarded by three thousand women:
These women come seldom out of the Castle. They have a marketplace
of their own, and traffick with one another in such manufactures as they
make. . . . None are allowed to enter into their apartments but the kings
eunuchs [capados], who are said to be in number about five hundred. Besides
these the king has a great many wives and concubines; and of these his wives,
twenty are the lawful daughters of the kings whom he has pillaged.122

Thomas Bowrey visited Aceh in the latter half of the seventeenth century
and reported that the attendants to the sultanah are Said to be 100 eunuchs
and 1000 of the comliest women the Countrey or Citty affordeth.123 The
women in the harem did not actually provide sexual services to the ruler but
were personal retainers for the rulers mother, his consorts, and his children,
with the largest number being house servants.124 More importantly, however,
was the role of the palace women in linking the court to powerful families. The
numbers of women in the harem remained high despite the reign of sultanahs
in Aceh, which reinforces the view that the primary importance of their presence in the court was for purposes of alliance rather than sex. Women for the
harem came chiefly from uleebalang and panglima families, as well as from
the royal households of other kingdoms. Their presence was a visible sign of
the mutual trust and alliance established between the sultan and his lords, and
between the ruling house and other royal families.
The extensive role of eunuchs in Aceh is another borrowing from the
powerful contemporary Islamic empires. In classical Malayu literature there
is a term sida-sida, which has been translated as eunuchs,125 but a reference
in the Sejarah Melayu to a certain court official Tun Indera Segara, who is said
to be a descendant of a sida-sida (Adapun akan Tun Indera Segara itulah asal

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133

sida-sida.), raises a question whether the sida-sida were actually castrated.126

In Aceh, however, sida-sida did refer to eunuchs and is confirmed in a late
sixteenth-century description of a pavilion built specifically for the eunuchs
and referred to as Ida-Sida [sic].127 Further evidence is found in a Malayu
conversation recorded in Aceh sometime between 1599 and 1601, where the
term sida-sida is translated into Dutch as ghelubden, which is the equivalent of the Portuguese capado or eunuch.128
In classical Malayu literature most references to sida-sida are simply listed
alongside a number of other court officials who supervise ceremonies or are
present before the ruler. In describing a ceremony at court, the Sejarah Melayu
notes that the sida-sida emerge from within (dari dalam), which could have
only meant the inner chambers of the court, or where the women of the court
are housed.129 The link between the sida-sida and the court women is also
implied in the eighteenth-century Perak court poem the Misa Melayu, which
groups the sida-sida and the dayang (court maidens) together.130 In the
Sejarah Melayu the sida-sida are also described as bearers of letters.131
In contrast to the Malayu courts on the Malay Peninsula, in Aceh there
is substantial evidence of the prominent role played by the sida-sida. They
formed part of the rulers bodyguard and lived in a special pavilion in the royal
enclosure.132 Their primary function was to serve the court and the rulers, and
they had free access to the innermost chambers of the court, including the
harem. In Islamic sultanates the main task of eunuchs was to enforce the strict
seclusion of Muslim women of the royal harem. Khadim, or eunuch-servants,
were widely employed in Muslim society because their presence enabled the
sequestered women to move more freely through the royal enclosures or the
homes of the well-to-do.133 In Aceh, no one was allowed access to the ruler
except through the capados, some of whom were the rulers closest advisors.
They served the guests at court and were the primary bearers of messages
from the throne. Whenever there was a royal procession, they marched as a
group and were easily recognized by their weapons. An Englishman in Aceh
in 1637 witnessed a procession where the capados rode horses without saddles
and bore on their shoulders long swords in gilt or gold scabbards. At another
procession in 1642, the Dutch described some 150 capados carrying halberds
and royal gold ornaments.134 Thomas Bowrey also witnessed the procession
of the sultanahs royal barge, which was accompanied by some one hundred
eunuchs: Each of them wore his Turban after the Arabian mode of beaten
pure Gold and very large Shakels of beaten Gold quite up their arms and
leggs, and bore each of them a lance of beaten gold of 7 or 8 foot longe, and
proportionately thick.135
The capados were regarded as the personal messengers of the ruler and
hence treated with great respect. They were entrusted with the royal seal,

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which they brought to incoming ships so merchants could present their obeisance to the royal proxy before being allowed to land.136 During the reigns of
Acehs sultanahs in the seventeenth century, the capados acted as intermediaries between the throne and the guests and officials at court. Muslim propriety demanded that the sultanah, as a woman, be sequestered. She therefore
conducted affairs of state somewhere behind the throne, out of view of the
audience, and communicated through her capados.137 Because of their trusted
positions in court, some of the capados came to occupy positions of great
importance in the kingdom. In the mid-seventeenth century the capado Raja
Adona Lela was considered to be the equal of the four ministers of state,
while the commander of all the capados was given the title of maharaja setia.
Another capado was the bookkeeper to the sultanah. These capado heads
became close advisors to the ruler and exercised considerable power in the
kingdom because of their role in determining who could gain access to the
throne.138
The inspiration for the use of capados in Aceh did not come from Melaka.
While there were sida-sida in Malayu Melaka, they were not eunuchs but most
probably effeminate men who once belonged to a pre-Islamic priestly class
associated with royalty.139 In Aceh, however, the capados may indeed have
been eunuchs. In 1616, the English captain William Keeling was in Aceh,
where he described two noblemen who were condemned to have their testicles removed because they had not carried out the rulers orders.140 If castration as a punishment was practiced, the idea of court eunuchs may not have
been considered unusual. The inspiration for eunuchs in Aceh came from the
great Muslim empires. In Mughal India, castrated young boys from the slave
markets of Bengal were purchased to become slave-eunuchs. They became
trusted confidants and advisors to their high-born masters and mistresses,
and they came to fill a variety of functions. Some were servants and guards,
while the most capable were entrusted with the business dealings of noblewomen in the harem.141 In Bengal and areas further west in India, as well as
in the Islamic court of Arakan in Southeast Asia, eunuchs were employed in
positions of authority.142 But it was in the Ottoman Empire that the institution of the eunuch was most elaborated. Most were involved in court duties
and as guards of the harem, though a few reached high military or administrative positions or became scribes.143 Not only would the Acehnese have
heard of the eunuchs in the Muslim lands, but many would have dealt with
eunuchs arriving on Muslim ships to trade on behalf of their masters.144
Acehs admiration for the Ottoman Empire is evident in the Adat Aceh.
It describes Sultan Iskandar Muda reposing under his royal umbrellas and
banners and likens him to the Ottoman sultan Sulayman the Magnificent. In
a procession, some of the Acehnese soldiers bear swords, spears, and muskets

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135

and are dressed in the style of the Ottoman warriors. Others carry shields
made from iron brought from Khurasan. In describing Iskandar Muda at
prayer, the Adat Aceh comments that his piety is known even to the caliph in
Istanbul. The grand procession from the palace to the mosque led by Iskandar
Muda is said to resemble the setting out to war of the great legendary Muslim
ruler Iskandar Zulkarnain.145
The ambience of the Aceh court owed much to the models from the major
Islamic empires. In Aceh, more than any other court in the archipelago, elephants and horses were an indispensable part of the royal presence. A Malay
syair 146 from Deli recounting events in the late sixteenth century describes
Aceh as an enormously large kingdom with numerous ministers and officials, with elephants and horses beyond count, and a harbor full of ships and
boats.147 Both elephants and horses came to represent the power of the Aceh
ruler. In a letter sent in 1640 to the Dutch governor-general in Batavia, the
greatness of the Aceh ruler Sultan Iskandar Thani is strongly associated with
his elephants and horses. He is referred to as:
King of the whole world . . . who has a white elephant, the eyes of which shine
like the morning star, also elephants with four tusks, purple and spotted
elephants . . . for which God has given me so many gold cloths of different
sorts, enameled and encrusted with various precious stones, to dress these
elephants, as well as so many hundred elephants to use in war . . . also so many
hundred horses.148

All those who sought favor at court participated in the elephant hunt,
and even the sultanah engaged in this activity.149 So enamored was she of her
elephants that in a letter to the sultan of Perak she styled herself the lord of
all manner of elephants, among which was one with white eyes as clear as the
morning star. The last phrase recalls the description of the elephants mentioned in Sultan Iskandar Thanis letter to the Dutch in 1640. The sultanah
was equally proud of her collection of horses, and she boasted to the Perak
ruler that she was also through Gods Grace lord over all manner of horses
from Arabia, Turkey, Rum, Tartary, Cathay, Lahore and Tanging.150 Pride in
the origins of the horses is also evident in the Hikayat Aceh, which describes
a special ceremony at court in which horses of Arab, Iraqi, and Turkish stock
bedecked with jewels play a prominent part.151
All evidence points to the fact that Acehnese court administration and
practices were patterned after those of the prestigious Islamic kingdoms in
the Middle East and India. The process of centralization in the kingdom led
by Sultan Iskandar Muda coincided with the codification of state ceremonies
with a heavy Islamic content described in the Adat Aceh. The detailed descrip-

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tions of the involvement of the ruler in important Islamic events, such as the
Friday prayer (Jumah), the fasting month (Ramadan), the breaking of the
fast (Id al-Fitr), and the festival of the sacrifice (Id al-Adha), became the
standard for all subsequent Aceh rulers.152 As long as Aceh was the leading
entrepot and military power in alam Malayu, it became the model for other
Malayu courts. Kedah on the Malay Peninsula and a number of kingdoms on
the northeast and northwest coasts of Sumatra had already adopted Acehnese
practices and titles by the seventeenth century. Had Johor not regained its
prominence in the Straits of Melaka toward the end of the seventeenth century and restored the Malayu model based on Melaka, the Malayu world as
we know it today would have mirrored Aceh during its period of glory in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

From Malayu to Acehnese Identity

Aceh became Melakas de facto successor in the Straits of Melaka for about
150 years, from the reign of Sultan Ali Mughayat Syah (1514?30) to that
of Sultanah Taj al-Alam Safiyat al-Din (164175). It built upon the earlier
Islamic traditions that developed in Samudera/Pasai, and it dominated trade
in the straits and beyond through its ability to attract to its port the considerable traffic in Indian cloth, a commodity in great demand in the region.
Its scholars produced religious and secular Malayu literary works of high
quality in the court, and its institutions reflected the latest ideas and models
from the illustrious Islamic empires of the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the
Mughals. Acehs model of a Malayu kingdom, therefore, owed much to its
Islamic connection. In contrast, Melaka embraced Islam in the mid-fifteenth
century, and the new religion had to contend with a deeply embedded amalgam of Hindu-Buddhist and indigenous beliefs. The Sejarah Melayu clearly
demonstrates the coexistence and equality in Melaka of indigenous, Indian,
and Islamic ideas. In the fifteenth-century composite text called the UndangUndang Melaka (The Laws of Melaka), customary law (adat) prevailed with
some attention given to Islamic law.153 It was a code of laws that reflected the
times, but it was not as appropriate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
when Islam was playing such a dominant role in the archipelago. Aceh, on the
other hand, was founded as an Islamic kingdom in the early sixteenth century
and had nearly two centuries to integrate the religion into the lifestyle of the
court and society.
As the leading Malayu kingdom, Aceh was admired and emulated by
other Malayu societies in the region of the Straits of Melaka. Perak and Pahang
acknowledged its overlordship in the first half of the seventeenth century, and
though Kedah was under the suzerainty of Ayutthaya, it did not fail to offer

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allegiance to the Aceh ruler.154 Areas on the northeast and northwest coasts
of Sumatra were counted among Acehs territories. Many of these lands conducted their affairs in the Aceh manner by following Acehnese court protocol
and by employing Acehnese titles and functions for their officials. They were
responsive to the royal seals dispatched from the Aceh court, and they regularly intermarried with Acehs royal family.155 Acehs reputation as a center for
religious learning was strengthened by the steady output of Islamic tracts,
written either in Malayu or translated into Malayu from the original Arabic
or Persian. By the end of the seventeenth century, Acehs conscious adoption
of Islamic models in court and its leading role as the disseminator of Islamic
ideas and Malayu Islamic literature established a new standard of Malayuness
in the region.
A combination of internal conflict in Aceh and a resurgent Johor under
the leadership of the Laksamana family in the last quarter of the seventeenth
century saw Johor replace Aceh as the most prestigious kingdom in alam
Malayu.156 Melaka traditions were resurrected and reinterpreted in the Johor
court, and thus was born the myth of an unbroken line of Malayu customs
and history extending back to Melaka. In the process of asserting the MelakaJohor Malayu identity, there was a conscious rejection of the Aceh model.
Sometime in the eighteenth century, Aceh was also displaced by Palembang
as the center of religious and secular Malayu literature.157 Yet Acehs infusion
of Islamic ideas into the society was emulated in Malayu lands, and Islam
became regarded as an essential component of Malayu ethnic identity. The
more exotic features of the court at Aceh, such as the role of the capados and
the place of elephants and horses as part of the royal ambience, never took
root in other Malayu courts.
The transition from a Malayu to an Acehnese identity was facilitated by
a shift in power from the ruler, whose authority was based on the coast and
international trade, to the local leaders (uleebalang), whose source of strength
was in the territorial unit known as the mukim in the agricultural interior.
Only after being overshadowed by Johor in the late seventeenth century did
Aceh begin to orient its affairs more and more toward the interior. The shift
in orientation and power is captured in the words of the Hikayat Pucut Muhamat, an eighteenth-century text written not in Malayu but in Acehnese:
Marketing does not yield much profit, even if you grow pepper, my friends.
If there is no rice in the country, nothing else will be of use. . . . The entire
population will emigrate: the only ones left will be the king and his consort.
But if there is no one left in the country, what shall we reign over? You may
accept it from me that agriculture is the best of trades.158

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The gradual shift from the coast to the interior, from trade to agriculture, and
from the Malayu to the Acehnese language reflected the transformation of
Aceh from a Malayu to an Acehnese polity.
The formation of an Acehnese ethnic identity was strengthened by a
reputed letter from the grand mufti in Mecca to the effect that female-led
governments were contrary to Islamic practice. This supposedly led to the
deposing of the last sultanah of Aceh in 1699 and the installation in 1703 of
a short-lived Arab dynasty. A failed attempt by the sultan to subdue one of
the mukim led eventually to the removal of the Arab royal family by the uleebalang and the beginning of a Bugis dynasty in 1727.159 After the late seventeenth century, roaming groups of refugee Bugis were a source of instability
in the area because of their willingness to be hired as mercenaries in return for
promises of land to settle to begin new lives.160 The coincidence of the rise of
a Bugis dynasty in Aceh in 1727 and the establishment of Bugis power in the
kingdom of Johor by 1728 may have contributed indirectly to the promotion
of Acehnese ethnic identity.
In the Malayu texts written by descendants of the Bugis Raja Muda family of Johor based in Riau, there is no evidence of an attempt to establish
relations with the Bugis dynasty in Aceh. The Bugis in Johor-Riau took pains
to demonstrate their support of Malayu traditional institutions, and so they
requested and were given the Malayu position of Raja Muda. In practice, however, they transformed the position from one that indicated the designated
heir apparent to one of chief advisor to the ruler, a function reserved for a
similar office in the Bugis homeland. Subsequent events demonstrate that the
assurance of a fixed domicile in Riau, an office reserved for the Bugis, and
intermarriage with Malayu royalty and nobility enabled the Bugis to identify
with and become increasingly Malayu.161 There would have been an incentive
for the Bugis dynasty in Aceh to emphasize its difference with the Malayu
identity being forged by their compatriots in Johor-Riau. Moreover, any decision to cultivate an Acehnese identity would have been regarded with favor by
the uleebalang in the mukim, whose language and cultural differences with the
coastal elite were becoming increasingly emphasized.
Although the Acehnese language was pre-eminent in the countryside, it
was always present in the city and even in the courts where the Malayu language was supreme. In 1644 a Dutch envoy in Aceh apologized to his hosts
because, though he could speak Malayu, he was not conversant in the Acehnese language and customs.162 In addition to Acehs thriving written literary
court culture in the Malayu language, it had an equally vital oral (and later
written) noncourt tradition in Acehnese. The Malayu language spoken in the
kingdom derived from Pasai with a strong infusion of Acehnese words and

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syntax, as is evident in a collection of conversations in Malayu recorded by

a Dutchman at the beginning of the seventeenth century.163 The Dutch were
well aware of the bilingual nature of Acehnese society, which was not peculiar
to Aceh but a general phenomenon in Southeast Asia.164
Bilingualism was a feature of courts in maritime Southeast Asia in the
early modern period, with Malayu spoken widely in the ports and in the cosmopolitan environment of urban centers. When the Portuguese commander
Affonso de Albuquerque wished to make contact with the Thai court of Ayutthaya, he was pleased that he could send one of his men who was versed in
the Malayu language.165 Malayu was a language of trade and diplomacy even
in the Thai court. There was no established standard for Malayu, though the
form written and spoken at the most prestigious court would naturally be
regarded as fashionable or, in the parlance of a later age, modern.166 Written
Malayu was not immune to the influence of a local language or dialect, and
the spoken version was as varied as the people who spoke it. In the sixteenth
century, Aceh was considered to be a Malayu kingdom, and the language spoken in the land was peppered with Acehnisms. This spoken language influenced the written Malayu works produced in the court, and in the seventeenth
century certain Acehnese Malayu writings were criticized because the Acehnisms were incomprehensible in Borneo.167 In the bilingual environment of
Aceh, the borrowing of languages and literary styles was a two-way process.
In the late nineteenth century, Malayu hikayat, or metrical romances, were
often retold to fellow villages in the Acehnese language using a prose style
known as haba.168 The cross-fertilization of languages can also be seen in the
Malayu Hikayat Sultan Aceh Marhum, which originated as a prose version of
the Acehnese Hikayat Malem Dagang in verse form.169
Acehnese hikayat are in verse form and are intended to be read aloud. Both
the Hikayat Malem Dagang and the Hikayat Pocut Muhamat express ideas and
attitudes that challenge earlier views advanced by the Malayu hikayat written
in the Aceh courts. The Hikayat Malem Dagang was written not later than
the end of the seventeenth century, a time when it was already apparent that
Aceh was losing its dominance in alam Malayu. Unlike the Malayu hikayat,
written in praise of rulers, the Hikayat Malem Dagang is a panegyric to the
Laksamana under Sultan Iskandar Muda. The focus is not on the courts and
the courtiers, but on the countryside and the ordinary people. The unquestioned obedience to the awe-inspiring rulers as portrayed in the Malayu court
hikayat is replaced in the Acehnese hikayat by resentment expressed by the
people because of the exactions of the court, particularly in times of war.
Another theme found in the Hikayat Malem Dagang is the strength of
Islam among the Acehnese and their superior understanding of the religion.
The reciters of this hikayat would have known the story of the theological

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contest between the religious scholars from Pasai and Melaka as recounted
in the Sejarah Melayu. To counter Melaka/Johors claims of pre-eminence in
matters dealing with Islam, the Hikayat Malem Dagang describes the king of
Johor as refusing to embrace Islam, thus forcing his brother to come to Aceh
to be converted.170 The text thus portrays Aceh as a beacon of Islam guiding
others to its shore to convert and learn more about the religion. Islamic rectitude is no longer the preserve of the sultan, and the ulama or religious teachers are portrayed as the measure of piety and as a source of nonroyal spiritual
and hence temporal power. In one telling episode the people call upon their
ulama to intervene on their behalf to assuage the sultans anger. When the
sultan refuses to be mollified, the ulama instructs his followers to throw away
their gifts intended for the ruler. He explains that [s]omeone who does not
open his mouth does not deserve my obeisance. It is better that I return to my
own land, Medina, because here we are treated unjustly.171
The Hikayat Malem Dagang also describes an impending war between
Melaka (i.e., Johor172) and Aceh. During the preparations for war, a keel
measuring some forty fathoms long intended for one of Johors war boats
drifts away to Aceh. The people are afraid to gaze upon it because they realize
it is inhabited by a powerful spirit. The sultan in Aceh is told of this strange
event and goes down to the shore to investigate. Approaching the keel, he asks
it to explain its origins. The keel replies:
My Lord, I come from the land of Johor Lama [Old Johor, the capital of
the Johor kingdom]. When Si Ujut felled me, he intended to war with your
country. Had he succeeded in completing me, then you would certainly have
lost the war. But I am an Islamic spirit [jin] and not your Majestys enemy,
and therefore I have come here. If you so wish, use me to make a ship because
then Melaka [Johor] would be sure to lose the war.

And so the sultan uses the keel to build a ship, but at the launch it refuses to
budge until an ulama offers a prayer.173 In the expedition to Johor, the Aceh
fleet stops at various lands to gather ships and men. The spiritual leader of
the expedition is the great ulama Ja Pakeh. It is he who makes Malem Dagang
the commander of the fleets and requires him to cleanse himself ritually
and to recite passages from the Quran prior to battle. When Malem Dagang
approaches the Aceh ruler, the Mahkota Alam [Sultan Iskandar Muda], to
receive the orders to begin the battle, the ruler says to him: Why ask me? It
is Ja Pakeh, the ulama, who has better knowledge of it than I. If he says to go
ahead, then you should.174
The message of the Hikayat Malem Dagang is clear: Islam is the primary
source of power in the land, and the ulamas authority takes precedence over

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141

the sultans.175 This development may be linked to a shift in emphasis in

Sufism, which played a major role in Acehnese society. Before the eighteenth
century, succession in a Sufi brotherhood (tarekat) passed from the syaikh
(leader of a tarekat) to a disciple elected for his spiritual mystical knowledge.
A change in determining succession appears to have occurred sometime in the
eighteenth century, when the transmission of such knowledge was no longer
as important as the baraka, or Gods blessing working through a favored
one.176 Although scholars have tended to focus on the Sufi writings of the great
Syaikh al-Islam in the Aceh court, there were other Sufi syaikh who were more
focused on worldly activity. In the neighboring Minangkabau highlands, the
Sufi syaikh and their disciples were active participants in the development
of commercial agriculture beginning in the late seventeenth century.177 With
the growing importance of agriculture in the interior of Aceh, it is likely that
Sufi ulama were similarly involved. Many of the tarekat had become peacefully integrated into Acehnese society, and their influence in the countryside
is clearly evident in the Hikayat Malem Dagang.
The other major Acehnese language epic is the Hikayat Pocut Muhamat,
which was written sometime in the middle of the eighteenth century by a
man of religious learning (teungku). One notable feature of the Hikayat is the
role played by agriculture and the mukim. In the early nineteenth century, the
Mukim XXII was located in the interior highlands and focused on agriculture,
while the Mukim XXV and Mukim XXVI were on the coast and involved in
trade.178 In earlier centuries there may have been different mukim configurations, and their association with interior agriculture may have been what
distinguished them from the coastal settlements. The Hikayat Pocut Muhamat
describes rice fields and irrigation works in the mukim and declares that agriculture is the best of trades.179
These princely sentiments reflect the shift in the eighteenth century from
a Malayu culture based on coastal trading settlements to an Acehnese culture characterized by irrigated rice cultivation, mainly in the interior but also
along the coast. The distinction and the greater importance of the interior
are clearly expressed in this hikayat when Pocut Muhamat states that recruits
from coastal Pidi will be sought only after he has assembled all the Acehnese
in the interior.180 Not long after taking office in 1641, Sultanah Taj al-Alam
Safiyat al-Din publicly chastised the Orang Kaya Seri Maharaja for seizing the
best lands in Pidi for himself and leaving the poorest to the ruler.181 Although
Pidi was earlier noted as one of the important ports along the northeastern
coast, it is clear from these later references that its later claim to fame was its
agricultural lands.
The Hikayat Pocut Muhamat emphasizes the power of the mukim leaders
in relation to the sultan. Pocut Muhamat informs the leader of Pidi that

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[t]he most famous man in Aceh is Panglima Po Lm, who is in a position

to enthrone and dethrone our lord the Sultan. / He is always busy conferring
with others, and constantly resides in the XX Mukim.182 Unlike the powerful seventeenth-century rulers of Aceh, the leaders described in this mideighteenth-century hikayat are in a situation in which regional leaders are
equal in authority and influence to the sultan. Power is acquired and sustained
through judicious marriages that help to build a strong family network. When
Pocut Muhamat goes to the interior to recruit men for an expedition, many
of his relatives through marriage arrive with their men.183 The point of having
family to provide a secure power base is made even stronger when the leader
of Pidi challenges Pocut Muhamat, saying:
Maybe in Aceh Muhamat is quite a man, but here in Pidi we take him for
a greenhorn. / Maybe in Aceh he has quite a reputation, but when he comes
here, we ignore him. / For outside his own village and region, no one counts
for anything with us. / Leave your own village and withdraw from your relations, and we tear you to pieces without any respect. / Everyone (belongs)
on his own rubbish heap, in his own region, with his own relations. / Not a
word is known about a man whose grave is far away from (the residence of)
his family.184

The Hikayat Pocut Muhamat is explicit in citing family as crucial to ones

power, that authority is dispersed and localized, and that kingship is subordinated to local lords. These themes reflected Acehs political situation in the
first half of the eighteenth century, where the landed elite played the role of
kingmakers.

Conclusion
The destruction of Melaka by the Portuguese in 1511 enabled the leadership of the Malayu world to shift back from the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra.
Although one of the princes of the Melaka royal family eventually settled in
the southernmost part of the peninsula on the Johor River, the new Johor
kingdom was subject to continual harassment, first by the Portuguese and
later by the new power in the Straits of Melaka, the kingdom of Aceh. Pasai, a
long-time rival of Melaka, was the logical choice as successor to the glories of
Melaka, but it eventually succumbed to the emergence of its northerly neighbor Aceh.
With a coastal culture based on international trade, Aceh was very much
part of the Malayu world. It benefited from the refugee scholars and merchants fleeing Melaka, and it became the settlement of choice among traders

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143

and religious teachers arriving from the western lands. Building upon the
Islamic traditions established in Pasai and other northeastern Sumatran communities, Aceh became the pre-eminent Malayu kingdom in the region. It
borrowed models of literature, court protocol, governance, and amusements
from the great Islamic civilizations in India and central Asia. Its greatest legacy to alam Malayu was to make Malayu synonymous with Islam.
From the middle of the seventeenth century, Johor, with the assistance of
the VOC, began its steady recovery as a power in the Straits of Melaka. By the
end of that century, it had displaced Aceh as the leader of alam Malayu. As
things Malayu became increasingly associated with the Malay Peninsula, Aceh
began to create a distinctive Acehnese ethnic identity often in direct contrast
to the Malayu. The Hikayat Malem Dagang, written in the Acehnese language,
stresses the importance of Islam, but differs from the Malayu emphasis by
elevating the position of the ulama over even that of the sultan. Its focus and
sympathies are with the ordinary people, rather than with the ruling classes,
and the occupation that is most highly valued is that of a farmer rather than a
trader. The Hikayat Pocut Muhamat, another Acehnese work, praises agriculture as the fundamental basis of Acehnese society and identifies the agricultural
interior as the core of the kingdom. It also depicts the mukim and their leaders
as wielding the true authority in the land, displacing the all-powerful rulers of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Trade in Aceh remained important, but agriculture was becoming increasingly dominant with the expansion of rice and pepper cultivation. By the late
seventeenth century, restrictive VOC trade policies and the increased competitiveness of the ethnicized Minangkabau fanned out on both the eastern and
western rantau eroded some of the advantages that Aceh had enjoyed in international trade. The beginning of the shift in economic priorities from trade
to agriculture is evident during the long reign of Sultanah Taj al-Alam Safiyat
al-Din in her efforts to expand the cultivation of rice and pepper in the interior. According to the Adat Aceh, this was the period that Acehs lands underwent reorganization into mukim to form the three sagi (provinces) named
after the number of mukim in each: Mukim XXII, Mukim XV, and Mukim
XVI. It was this reorganization which led to the rise of the landed uleebalang
and the importance of the interior, along with Islam and the ulama, as major
features of Acehnese ethnic identity.185
By the late nineteenth century Snouck Hurgronje, a leading scholar
of Aceh, observed that Malayu was rarely spoken in the kingdom.186 Yet as
recently as two centuries before, Malayu was the primary language of Acehs
court and administration and one of two languages spoken in the kingdom.
In general, the coastal populations spoke Malayu and those in the interior
spoke mainly Acehnese and a few other languages. From being a model of

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Malayuness in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Aceh by the beginning of the nineteenth century had developed a distinctive Acehnese ethnic
identity. It was based on its interior agricultural lifestyle and local uleebalang,
the Acehnese language and literature, and the prominent role played by Islam
and the ulama.
The process of ethnic formation among the Acehnese and the Minangkabau had strong similarities. Both emerged from a general cultural phenomenon that was associated first with bhumi Malayu and after Islam with alam
Malayu, both initially attempted to claim leadership in the Malayu world,
and both eventually abandoned the effort and sought instead to distinguish
themselves as a separate ethnicity by emphasizing non-Malayu characteristics. Their northerly neighbors, the Batak, had also experienced ethnicization
in response to shifts in international trade in the Straits of Melaka, but the
process had begun much earlier.

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Chapter 5

The Batak Malayu

he Batak form a major ethnic community in the vicinity

of the Straits of Melaka.1 As in the case of the Minangkabau and the Acehnese, the formation of Batak ethnic identity in their early history was shaped by the presence of the Malayu.
Despite certain common features, however, the Batak are not as closely related
as the other three ethnic communities. Certain Austronesian-speaking groups
such as the Batak and the Gayo of northern Sumatra were not part of the
expansion of Western Malayo-Polynesian languages beginning c. 15001000
BCE. Instead, they formed a later development due to language replacement
occurring long after the initial dispersal. Certain cultural features came to be
identified with the Batak, such as a strongly patrilineal tendency, extensive
lineages (marga),2 and secondary burial in stone sarcophagi and urns.3
The ethnonym Batak is probably ancient, but as yet no scholar has
been able to provide a satisfactory derivation.4 One of the first occurrences in
written sources is in the Zhufan zhi written sometime in the mid-thirteenth
century by Zhao Rugua, the Chinese inspector of foreign trade in Fujian. He
mentions a dependency of San-fo-tsi (Sriwijaya) called Ba-ta, which is likely
a reference to the Batak.5 The next definite identification comes from Pires
Suma Oriental, which mentions the kingdom of Bata, bordered on one side
by Pasai and on the other by Aru.6 From the sixteenth century onward, references to the Batak as inhabitants of the interior of north Sumatra and also of
certain kingdoms along the northeast coast become more frequent. Foreign
interest in the Batak can be explained by the fact that in the forests of their
homeland grew two of the most valuable products in the international marketplace: camphor and benzoin.
The single most important feature that was historically associated with
the group and became a distinctive identity marker was their reputation as

146

cannibals. Early visitors to Southeast Asia were fascinated by rumors of a cannibal tribe called the Batak in the interior of Sumatra. At the end of the thirteenth century, Marco Polo reported that the Sumatran people (presumably
the Batak) consumed the sickly.7 A variation of this tale was repeated by a
Dutchman in the mid-seventeenth century, who claimed that when people
became old in Batak society they were killed and eaten by their descendants.8
European understanding of the little-known Sumatran interior was influenced by stories commonly told in east coast Sumatra by downstream (hilir)
people that upstream (hulu), that is, in the interior, the people were hostile
and grotesque. A Portuguese chronicler even repeated downriver stories of an
inland group possessing tails like unto sheep.9
Stories of cannibalism among an interior group persisted, and when the
Englishman John Anderson was traveling along the Sumatran coast and interior in the early nineteenth century, he was regaled by a Batak who boasted
of having eaten human flesh seven times, even mentioning his preference for
particular parts of the body. Two other Batak confirmed participating in this
practice and expressed their anxiety to enjoy a similar feast upon some of
the enemy, pointing to the other side of the river. This they said was their
principal inducement for engaging in the service of the sultan.10 Lurid details
of cannibalistic practices may have been provided by the Batak themselves in
an effort to prevent outsiders from penetrating into their lands. From early
times, therefore, cannibalism became associated with Batak identity and had
the desired effect of limiting the intrusion of Europeans until the nineteenth
century. It appears that many of the comments made on Batak cannibalism
were hearsay, and there is no evidence of any commentator having witnessed
its occurrence.11 While ritual cannibalism may have been practiced as a form
of punishment, to dwell on cannibal tales simply reinforces long-held misleading stereotypes about the Batak.
Another common misconception is that the Batak communities were isolated from events occurring on the coasts. Although most of the Batak lived in
the interior of northern Sumatra, they were very much part of the economic
and cultural developments occurring around the Straits of Melaka. The Batak
were sufficiently integrated into international trade to warrant a mention
by Chinas inspector of foreign trade in the thirteenth century and by Tom
Pires in his Suma Oriental in the sixteenth. A study of the Batak data reveals
a greater commonality with their neighbors and interaction with the outside
world than is generally recognized. In the first millennium CE, the Batak were
subject to similar Indian influences as the Malayu, the Minangkabau, and the
Acehnese, and the exchange of ideas helped to create a common Sumatran
culture. The Old Malayu language inscription found at temple II at Joreng,
Tapanuli, and the bilingual inscription in Old MalayuJavanese and Tamil from

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Padang Lawas are both written in a square type of early Kawi script, indicating strong Batak links to the Java-Sumatran Indianized polities.12 Despite
the sharing of a common culture, however, the Batak developed a distinctive
identity as a way of maximizing their advantage in international trade.
This chapter describes the circumstances that led to the ethnicization of
the Batak. Crucial in the forging of the larger identity from the numerous
clans and subclans known as marga was the indigenous religion and its practitioners, who provided the common bond and the structure for the creation
and maintenance of a Batak ethnic identity. The major stimulus in this process was Batak involvement in trade as collectors of commodities in great
demand in the local and international marketplace. Among these products,
the most valuable for many centuries were camphor and benzoin, two oleoresins obtained from the forests in the Batak lands.

The Camphor and Benzoin Trade

Camphor and benzoin were among the products of greatest demand at the
major port cities in the Straits of Melaka from the early fifth century, and at
Sriwijaya between the seventh to the eleventh century. These valuable resins are found in the northern Sumatran forests in the Batak lands, and so
it was the camphor-benzoin trade that provided the first indirect evidence
of Batak participation in international commerce.13 By the sixth century in
southern China, benzoin became widely accepted as a substitute for myrrh
(Commiphora mukul Engl.) and later came to replace it as a permanent and
valuable commodity not only in China but also in western Asia and Europe.14
The value of these resinsconsidered to be on a par with gold in Chinalay
both in their much-vaunted medical properties as a cure for a host of illnesses
and shortcomings as well as in their scarcity (see chapter 2).
The camphor tree is one of the largest of the dipterocarps in western
Indonesia, reaching a height of between 60 and 70 meters (196 to 226 feet).
It grows at altitudes of 60 to more than 365 meters (196 to 1200 feet) above
sea level on well-drained soils and often on steep ridges. These conditions are
met in the Batak lands in northwest Sumatra between Singkel and Air Bangis.
Benzoin trees grow in the same areas and under similar conditions as the
camphor trees. They are found in clumps from the north of Padang Sidempuan to the area around Tarutung, as well as in another three locations from
the mountain valley of the Lai Cinendang, a tributary of the Singkil River,
northward to Sidikalang. Camphor crystallizes in the wood from an oleoresin
present in the tree itself, and it accumulates irregularly in the cavities of the
trunk. Only after twelve years does the tree produce camphor, with the oldest
trees supplying the greatest quantity and others yielding nothing at all.15

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On the basis of later evidence we can probably assume that camphor was
traditionally collected by Batak men under a special leader (in subsequent
centuries called pawang), whose spiritual prowess was employed in locating
the elusive commodity. Nevertheless, even with the aid of religious practitioners and adherence to strict taboos, including the use of a special camphor
language, expeditions were not always successful. Writing in the late eighteenth century, William Marsden claimed that not even 10 percent of the trees
cut down yielded any crystallized resin or camphor oil. Benzoin trees were
tapped for their resin after seven years but stopped producing after about
ten to twelve years. The finest was obtained in the first three years of tapping.
After that the quality deteriorated and had a lower market value.16
Only small quantities of camphor and benzoin were brought to China,
India, and the Middle East in the early sixth century, which kept their value
high. In the eighth century, camphor was being included as tribute to the
Chinese emperor from non-Indonesian rulers, indicating that camphor was
growing in popularity in other areas.17 Export of benzoin to China may have
begun as early as the fifth century, though some believe that it began as late
as the eighth or even the ninth century.18 This increased demand for camphor
and benzoin was met by Sriwijaya, which was the dominant entrepot in the
Straits of Melaka between the seventh and eleventh centuries.
The Ligor inscription dated 775 CE indicates an expansion of Sriwijayan
power across the straits. A consequence of, and perhaps even an important
motivation for, this expansion would have been the control of camphor supplies from the Isthmus of Kra and the Malay Peninsula. The annals of the
Liang dynasty, which ruled China from 502 to 556 CE, mention that camphor
came from both Funan and Langkasuka. Funan must have imported and
redistributed the camphor since it did not produce the Dryobalanops aromatica variety brought into China.19 Sriwijayas incursion on the peninsula would
have prevented further export of camphor to ports on the Mekong delta. By
the latter part of the eighth century, therefore, Sriwijaya may have succeeded
in monopolizing the sale of camphor and benzoin in the region.
A major source of Sriwijayan camphor and benzoin was the forests in
northwest Sumatra. The supply route from these forests to Sriwijaya went
to Padang Lawas via Sipirok and the valley of the Batang Toru. There is little evidence that Padang Lawas was ever a large settlement, but it may have
been a trade center linking the northwestern areas of production to east coast
Sumatra.20 From here there was a route leading directly to Barus, as well as
two alternate routes southward. One of the southern routes went via Padang
Sidempuan to the valley of the Batang Angkola, while the other passed near
Sibuhuan in the Padang Lawas across the mountains into the Angkola valley
near Si Abu. From the Angkola valley the route continued southward through

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Bonan Dolok to Penyabungan and Hutanopan in the Batang Gadis valley. It

then crossed the mountains at Muara Sipongi to Rao.21
From Rao one could go directly to Muara Takus in the valley of the
Batang Mahat, a tributary of the Kampar Kanan. But the more frequently
used route went through the valley of the Batang Sumpur, a tributary of the
Sungai Rokan Kiri, then passed through Tanjung Medan and Lubuk Sikaping
via Bonjol into Minangkabau territory. The Batak most likely transferred the
products to the Minangkabau, who then completed the journey through their
own lands downriver to the Malayu in Sriwijaya. There were again two alternate routes leading from Bonjol to Buo, where it was possible to reach the
headwaters of the Batang Hari, the major river through Jambi.22 From the
Batang Hari the goods could be sold to the Malayu downriver and then transported by sea to Sriwijaya. Another possibility was to use the tributaries linked
by land routes leading from the Batang Hari River in Jambi to the Musi River
in Palembang. One such route followed the tributary Tembesi River, which
flowed down along the Jambi-Palembang border. From Ulu (upriver) Tembesi it was only eight days travel to Palembang and about twelve to Jambi.23
The method used to transport the camphor and benzoin in earlier centuries is not mentioned explicitly in the sources. From available evidence it
appears that men carried the cargo on their backs using a series of narrow
footpaths that ran along the hills from the interior to both east and west
coasts. Such trails were found on the summits of the Batak highlands, as well
as along the upper reaches of rivers, such as the Panai and the Bila.24 Even as
late as the mid-nineteenth century, a Dutch linguist recalled an evening when
he hosted half a dozen Toba Batak in Barus who had transported their cargo
of benzoin on their backs.25 Though horses are mentioned as an item of trade,
it is difficult to find evidence of horses being used to transport export products. Marsden writes that there were numerous horses in the Batak lands and
that many were supplied to Bengkulen. Nevertheless, the Batak kept their finest for ritual purposes and apparently as special delicacies for their festivals.
Horse-flesh, according to Marsden, they esteem their most exquisite meat,
and for this purpose feed them upon grain, and pay great attention to their
keep.26 Such precious animals would most likely not have been used as beasts
of burden.
For nearly four centuries, Sriwijaya controlled the trade of forest products
in the region. Its success as a major entrepot to traders from around the world
attracted the envy of other major kingdoms seeking economic dominance
in the area. As previously noted, in 10245 the Cholas launched an attack
and subdued Sriwijaya and its dependencies along the Straits of Melaka.27
Although Sriwijaya was reconstituted on the Batang Hari River in Jambi, the
name Sriwijaya disappeared from the records and was replaced in the elev-

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enth century by an entity known as Malayu. Following the Chola invasion,

the temporary weakness of Sriwijaya and its Jambi successor, Malayu, as well
as the increasing volume of Indian Ocean trade, enabled several polities to
emerge as suppliers of camphor and benzoin. This development was tolerated
as long as the vassal areas did not challenge Sriwijayas and Malayus direct
export trade in Indian Ocean commodities.28 Although its secondary centers
and feeder ports had always had some direct trading with foreign merchants,
from the late eleventh century this became the dominant pattern. Two of the
most important of these alternative ports were Barus and Kota Cina.

Barus and Kota Cina

The location of the Tamil inscription dated 1088 from Lobu Tua near Barus
is the strongest evidence so far demonstrating Barus return to prominence
since the late seventh century. The inscription was erected by a Tamil merchant guild, the Ayyavole-500 (The Five Hundred of the Thousand Directions), which enjoyed the patronage of the Chola dynasty in Tamil Nadu,
the Tamil homeland in southern India. By the end of the eleventh century
the guild in India had begun to incorporate several ethnolinguistic groups
among its ranks and had become established in a number of coastal towns.
The Lobu Tua inscription refers to the guild having met at the velapuram
in Varocu, also called the . . . pattinam. The word Varocu is the name for
Barus, but there is a difference of opinion on the significance of the terms
velapuram and pattinam. Subbarayalu suggests that the former refers to the
harbor while the latter describes the town itself. Christie, on the other hand,
interprets pattinam as designating Barus as a commercial center of the first
rank and velapuram as referring to the enclave of Lobu Tua as a trading
settlement of secondary rank.29 Permission was required for admission to the
city, and fees for the trade in aromatics (kasturi) were calculated in gold.30 As
an international port, Barus would have had a mixed population, though its
core inhabitants may have been Batak. Direct overland routes from the nearby
camphor forests directly to Barus helped assure the citys reputation as a reliable supplier of that valued commodity. Camphor from Barus could demand
such high prices that Batak collectors in the sixteenth century working on the
right bank of the Singkel River did not sell their product at nearby Singkel,
but took it to the more distant port of Barus.31
Ptak believes that although Barus was frequented by Indians and other
traders from the west, it was not a major port for the export of camphor to
China. Song and Yuan texts, i.e., information from the tenth to the fourteenth
century, do not indicate a regular trade contact between west coast Sumatra
and the southern Chinese ports of Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang.32 The

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strong Chinese trade in camphor and benzoin was most likely focused on
another port located on the northeast coast with the revealing name of Kota
Cina (Chinese Stockade).33 Chinese traders were more familiar with Sumatras northeast coast and the Straits of Melaka34 and would presumably have
gone to Kota Cina, rather than to Barus itself, to obtain forest resins. The existence of Song and Yuan sherds in interior sites of Kota Bangun and Deli Tua
appear to support this contention. Moreover, access to gold from the nearby
mines located in such areas as the Bohorok and Pengkuruan Rivers, some fifty
kilometers (thirty-one miles) west of present-day Medan, would have been an
added attraction.35
Kota Cina was inhabited between the late eleventh and the fourteenth
centuries, and grew from a small village into a large settlement of some ten
thousand inhabitants by the middle of the twelfth century.36 The ruined site
was mentioned by John Anderson on his trip to east coast Sumatra in the early
nineteenth century and was only rediscovered in 1972.37 Located some three
to four miles from the port of Belawan Deli, between the confluence of the
Belawan River (known also as Hamparan Perak or Buluh Cina) and the Deli
River, it was once accessible to seagoing ships.38 Although Miksic stresses the
Chinese component of the settlement, Edwards McKinnon argues that Kota
Cina was predominantly a Tamil trading settlement established by merchants
like those responsible for the Lobu Tua inscription in Barus. The existence of
permanent religious structures, including a Siva sanctuary and a Buddhist
vihara, is indicative of the economic importance of the Tamil community for
whom they were built.39 A Ganesa figure atop a pillar, one of the few Hindu
images in Padang Lawas, contains an inscription in both Old MalayuJavanese and in Tamil.40 Nevertheless, the Chinese were also a major presence in
the city judging by the tens of thousands of Chinese porcelain sherds found
on the site dating between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries.41
The rise of Kota Cina should be viewed in the context of Tamil trading
activity in Sumatra in this period. So far there are three known Tamil settlements at Kota Cina, Lhok Cut (Aceh), and Lobu Tua, as well as four possible
settlements at Neusu (Aceh, thirteenth century), Bahal 1 (Tapanuli Selatan in
the Padang Lawas area), Buo (west Sumatra), and Kota Kandis on the western
branch of the Batang Hari inland from Muara Sabak in Jambi.42 The Tamilinspired Buo inscription and other Tamil inscriptions reinforce the view of
a fairly extensive Tamil trade involvement in Sumatra. A provisional reading
of the Tamil inscription found at Neusu appears to refer to trade regulations,
while the nearby site of Lhok Cut is believed to be the remains of an eleventhcentury port. Two further Tamil inscriptions have been found that date from
the second half of the thirteenth century. The first was found at Batu (or
Bandar) Bapahat, near Suruaso, in the Minangkabau highlands. Though no

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transcription or translation has been made nor any archaeological context

provided, the inscription may be linked to the Minangkabau trade in camphor and gold.43 The second inscription is from the back of a Ganesa statue
found at Porlak Dolok near Paringginan in the Padang Lawas area and dates
from either 1258 or 1265. From what can be inferred from a very damaged
text, the inscription commemorates an offering made by the ruler as a meritorious act.44
Although the inscription at Porlak Dolok is in the Tamil script, de Casparis notes that beside it to its right is another in the same Sanskrit script
used in Adityawarmans fourteenth-century inscriptions.45 Using these two
different scripts for apparently the same message suggests that there were sufficiently large number of Tamil speakers in the community to warrant the use
of a Tamil script. The discovery of Tamil inscriptions at Porlak Dolok and
at Batu (or Bandar) Bapahat implies a strong Tamil presence in these two
areas. It is highly probable, therefore, that the Tamil population was a major
intermediary in the movement of ideas and even images between the Padang
Lawas center and the court of Adityawarman at Malayupura.
The Padang Lawas complex was located at the confluence of three rivers
and was a flourishing Buddhist community. It had twenty-six temples and
stupas strewn around a 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) area, with the remainder
situated close to the banks of the rivers. The presence of Tantric Buddhist statuary in both Padang Lawas and Malayupura strengthens the view advanced
in the previous chapter that they formed part of a single bhumi Malayu.
The sustained Tamil economic activity in north and west Sumatra from the
eleventh to the fourteenth centuries provided the economic stimulus for the
increasing Batak participation in the trade of camphor and benzoin. These
products continued to be transported southward to the entrepots in Malayu,
but by the late eleventh century most of the supplies were going to Barus and
Kota Cina.
The founding of Kota Cina was not an isolated event but part of the historical oscillation in the Straits of Melaka between a single dominant entrepot
and a number of smaller dispersed ports exporting the products of their
immediate interior. Based on recent archaeological explorations in Singapore,
Miksic believes that Kota Cina may have been simply one of many similar
settlements along the straits, which came to include Singapore (c. 1300) and
Melaka (beginning of the fifteenth century).46 Contemporary with Kota Cina
was a similar port at Pengkalan Bujang across the straits in Kedah to the north
of the Merbok River.47 It is apparent that Kota Cina served principally as a
depot for supplying fresh water and Sumatran forest products. Though there
were other possible outlets for Batak goods in this period, Kota Cina may have
been the dominant port in the northeast coast.48

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The economic opportunities offered by both Kota Cina and Barus as

major sources of camphor and benzoin encouraged the Batak to move toward
both the east and west coasts to profit more directly from this international
trade. Batak communities also began to grow along the various land routes
that, though difficult because of the rough and broken terrain, provided a
safer alternative than the sea voyage from the west coast around Aceh into
the Straits of Melaka. In addition, the increasing demand for rice from the
burgeoning coastal centers encouraged other Batak to seek new lands to plant
rice. All these factors led to the spread of the Batak out of their homeland to
various parts of Sumatra.

Expansion of the Batak World

The Toba area is said to have been populated by those migrating from the legendary first Batak village, Sianjur Mulamula, situated on the slopes of the sacred
Pusuk Buhit on the western shore of Lake Toba. Pusuk Buhit is considered to
be the birthplace of their common ancestor, Si Raja Batak, and the home of
the most powerful deities. From here groups left and settled the series of valleys along the west coast of Lake Toba and then to the southern shores of the
lake (Toba-Holbung) in search of rice-growing lands similar to those found in
their homeland. They later fanned out to the island of Samosir, to the highlands
west of the lake (Humbang), to the Silindung valley, and then westward to the
coast.49 In subsequent periods emigration from the Toba lands continued to
occur in response to economic conditions. The process is known among the
Toba Batak as marserak, whose original meaning was the migration within the
territories of ones marga or into lands not yet occupied by other marga.50
Based on marga origin tales, the point of dispersal was in the Toba homeland (specifically the island of Samosir and the areas to the west and south of
Lake Toba) and the Pakpak region west of the lake.51 Daniel Perret suspects
there is a direct correlation between European placement of the origins of
the Batak peoples somewhere south of the lake and the strong presence there
of the German mission. These European reports, he infers, may have influenced later marga tales that acknowledge the Toba lands as the origin of their
group.52 There is, however, evidence in the form of a pollen core from Pea
Sim Sim swamp near Lake Toba indicating minor forest clearance that could
have started as early as 4500 BCE, with a major phase marked by an increase
in grass pollen during the first millennium BCE.53 What this suggests is early
human habitation in the Lake Toba area, which would lend support to the
marga origin tales.
As a result of the economic opportunities provided by Kota Cina and
other east coast Sumatran ports between the eleventh and fourteenth centu-

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ries, Batak groups moved from the Lake Toba and Pakpak regions eastward
using a number of routes. Perret shows the spread of various Karo marga from
their homeland in the current Pakpak districts, located close to the camphor
and benzoin forests, to the present-day Karo region.54 The thriving trade in
forest products encouraged the establishment of settlements along the major
routes, which led from the camphor and benzoin forests through passes in the
Bukit Barisan mountains and finally down the rivers to Kota Cina. The shortest route from the Karo highlands to Kota Cina was via the Cingkem pass and
then either down the Serdang River (known in Karo as Lau Tawang) or the
Deli River (in Karo, Lau Petani) to the coast. But the easiest route from the
highlands was via the Buaya pass, which followed the upper course of the Ular
River (in Karo, Lau Buaya) to the area of Seribudolok on the border of the
present-day division of the Karo and the Simalungun lands. In the nineteenth
century the most important market for the Karo and Simalungun continued
to be situated on this well-frequented trade route.55 The village of Seberaya
was the strategic convergence point of the routes from the camphor- and
benzoin-producing forests, across the Karo plateau, down to Kota Cina and
the east coast.56
South of Lake Toba, one of the earliest transinsular routes went from
Sibolga on the west coast, through a low pass in the mountains, and then
to Gunung Tua and Portibi in the Padang Lawas region. Many places dated
between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries are found inland with their
main functions being trade with the highland groups.57 Miksic points out
that ceremonial sites, such as those at Padang Lawas and at Muara Takus (on
the upper Kampar River), were often located near the border between the
highlands and the coastal plains and may reflect some function in regulating
intercourse between highland and lowland groups.58 From Padang Lawas the
major route southward went through a number of valleys and towns to Rao.
From Rao it was possible to go directly to Muara Takus via a tributary of the
Kampar River, but the more common route seems to have been to Buo and
then out to the Batang Hari River. These routes encouraged the movement of
peoples from the area of Lake Toba southward into the region that later came
to be associated with the Angkola-Mandailing groups.59
Migration out of the Toba highlands to areas south of Lake Toba may
have begun sometime in the eighth century when Sriwijaya became involved
in the camphor and benzoin trade. Scattered evidence suggests that the Batak
had earlier spread into lands now occupied by the Malayu or Minangkabau.
According to some Malayu traditions from Kampar, the area of Rao was once
Batak but was later seized by certain Minangkabau chieftains, while lands
directly east of Rao were regarded as Batak. There is also a story of an attack in
the past on Muara Takus by Batak based in Kuamang, which today is occupied

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by Malayu. In the nineteenth century a Dutchman reported seeing a stone

inscribed in Batak characters in the neighborhood of Kota Gelugur on the
Kampar River. He explained that the stone was a commemorative tablet to
honor the first village heads, assumed to be Batak in origin, since the people
in this area exhibit unique traits that can be traced to the Mandailing. Until
the middle of the thirteenth century, Neumann believes, the Batak occupied
the northern half of the Pasoman mountains (Dolok Pasoman in Batak).
These mountains were the source of the Rokan, Siak, and the Kampar Rivers
and marked the southernmost border of the Batak lands. In support of this
latter point, he notes that the word Pasoman indicates the end of a world.60
The fourteenth-century Lubuk Layang inscription found on the border of
South Tapanuli near Padang Lawas dates from the time of Adityawarman and
is believed to have marked a frontier post to guard against attacks from the
presumably Batak kingdom of Panai.61
Ideas of a single Batak ethnicity were strengthened because many of
those who moved into new lands had a common origin. Based on genealogies
collected in Portibi and Mandailing in the early nineteenth century, Willer
concludes that these areas were settled by migrants from the Toba homeland.
Only after they had been in the area for a long time did a new noble lineage arrive claiming to be linked to the legendary rulers of Minangkabau.62
Other origin tales collected by Batara Sangti indicate that the Lubis and the
Nasution, two of the largest marga in Angkola-Mandailing, stem from ancestors in the Lake Toba region.63 The Lubis marga itself acknowledges that its
founding ancestor Namora Pande Bosi, the great ironsmith, came originally
from Toba. Also claiming an origin in Toba is the Rangkuti, one of the oldest
marga in Mandailing. They believe that their ancestors were from the marga
Parapat, part of the Borbor group whose datu are particularly feared for the
potency of their black magic. This may account for the Rangkutis fame as the
home of powerful datu.64 Smaller marga in Mandailing, such as the Pulungan,
Parinduri, Rangkuti, and Borotan, all acknowledge a Toba origin. According
to Keuning, two of the largest marga, the Mandailing Godang and Mandailing
Julu, trace their ancestors to Toba lands.65
This movement of Batak people may have occurred between the eighth
and the fourteenth centuries, when use of the camphor-benzoin routes to
Sriwijaya/Malayu and Kota Cina was greatest. Once these groups became
established in their new lands, others were encouraged to join them in response
to economic opportunities that rose and fell in accordance with the rhythm
of international trade in the Straits of Melaka. The emergence of pepper as
an important export commodity proved to be a new factor contributing to
further Batak emigration from the well-populated areas around Lake Toba.
At about the fifteenth century black pepper (Piper nigrum, Linn.) gained a

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mass market in China in the preparation and preservation of food, and by the
seventeenth century China may have been importing between ten and twelve
thousand piculs (picul = 60.5 kg or 123 lbs.) annually. Europe also became a
major market for pepper and by 1500 was importing about twelve hundred
metric tons yearly. To meet this burgeoning demand, the Sumatran kingdoms
of Aceh, Palembang, and Jambi increased their production of pepper.66
As the Malayu kingdoms in northern Sumatra responded to the new
demand for pepper, they relied on the more populous Batak communities in
the interior to provide the labor. A Malayu document describes how the Batak
were enticed to descend from the highlands to plant pepper in the Malayu
lands of Serdang.67 Batak migrants willing to plant pepper would have been
welcomed in these Sumatran kingdoms. Even in the early nineteenth century
when the peak of the pepper trade had already passed, Anderson noted large
numbers of Batak engaged in pepper production in the interior of Deli. In the
pepper season, he wrote, the river at the ford in Sunggal is almost impassable for the multitudes of people who flock there with produce.68 Aceh, at
the northern tip of the island, also began to transform some of its interior
areas into pepper lands, and Sultan Iskandar Muda (160736) expanded pepper cultivation down both coasts. Across the Straits of Melaka he conquered
other pepper-producing areas in Kedah and Perak to monopolize their
production.69
The cultivation of pepper was labor-intensive and required almost continuous attention. Once the men had cleared the forests and planted the pepper, the women and children were responsible for putting in support plants,
training the pepper vines around them, and weeding the root areas of the
pepper vine. The first pepper harvest came after the fourth year, with a large
and a minor harvest annually thereafter. The pepper growers were therefore
kept busy picking, cleaning, drying, and bagging the fruit for much of the year.
It was estimated that it took a woman an entire day to sift a picul of pepper
berries. Because of the labor involved in growing pepper, most families could
not plant rice at the same time.70 As the powerful rulers of Aceh, Palembang,
and Jambi required more and more of their subjects to plant pepper, rice production in these areas declined. Rice had to be imported to feed the families
now engaged full time in the pepper fields. The surplus rice from the extensive
wet rice (sawah) fields of the Minangkabau and the Batak in the interior of
central and north Sumatra became the favored sources of supply. Rice, which
was ordinarily scarce in Aceh, was found in abundance under Sultan Iskandar
Muda as a result of shipments from the Batak interior.71
In response to demand for rice from the pepper-producing kingdoms,
the Batak greatly expanded rice production by more extensive use of their
lands. When these proved insufficient, many emigrated in search of cultivable

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lands to serve the burgeoning market for rice. When the missionaries Burton
and Ward visited the Silindung valley in 1824, they remarked that rice and
sweet potatoes were widely grown.72 In the Karo lands, sawah fields irrigated
by small streams were established in the dusun (the Karo plains from the
foothills to the east coast), but sawah was also planted in the ravines in the
highlands in addition to the more common ladang (dry rice). The Simalungun areas also supplemented ladang east of the Karei River with sawah in the
ravines. While ladang was the preferred form of rice cultivation in the Purba
district and some pockets adjoining Lake Toba, sawah also became common.73
In the lands south of Lake Toba, rice surpluses were created through the extensive cultivation of sawah in the fertile valleys of the lowlands of Mandailing
Godang (Large Mandailing) and ladang in the highlands of Mandailing Julu
(Little Mandailing).74 The sawah fields brought into production in the Padang
Lawas region, particularly those in Ulu Barumun, were noted for their productivity.75 Much of the extra labor required to bring these new lands under
cultivation would have come from the populous and experienced food producers in the Lake Toba region.
While international demand for camphor, benzoin, pepper, and rice was
a major stimulus for Batak migration (marserak), other factors contributed to
the process. Among them were status enhancement through founding of new
villages, desire for land, disputes in a family, safety from enemy threat, and
the necessity of finding new lands for a burgeoning population.76 Other reasons for the Toba Batak migrations are long life and numerous descendants
(hagabeon), prosperity and well-being (hamoraon), social status (hasangapon), ability to exercise authority (sahala harajaon), and the ability to achieve
respect (sahala hasangapon).77
Immigration into the new expanded Batak world would have originated
in the region of Lake Toba, but in time new groups would have emerged
based on modifications to the marga system. Individuals became members of
these new marga through migration, adoption, and birth from an incestuous relationship (i.e., a marriage between members of the same marga).78 It
is noteworthy that lands now occupied by the Karo, the Simalungun, and the
Angkola-Mandailing have far more examples of newly formed marga than in
the Toba areas. Unlike these groups in the expanded Batak world, the Toba
have extensive genealogies tracing the groups to the primeval ancestor, Si Raja
Batak, whereas the Simalungun genealogies, for example, rarely go beyond
three generations.79 When van der Tuuk was in the process of translating the
Old Testament into Toba Batak in the mid-nineteenth century, he found that
what interested the Toba most was the long biblical genealogies.80 In the following century Keuning also noted the great Toba interest in and knowledge
of the links among the marga. They would explain how the various marga

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came to form a main marga, which were the oldest, middle, and the youngest, and how the marga came to create even larger marga culminating in the
moieties of the Lontung and the Sumba.81 The tendency for other Batak genealogies to downplay ancestral depth may reflect the relative newness of their
marga and therefore the need to emphasize other more useful linkages than
that of an ancient lineage.
The Karo today identify themselves as belonging to the Merga 82 Silima,
or the Five Marga: Karo-Karo, Peranginangin, Ginting, Tarigan, and Sembiring, all claiming an origin from lands to the west. Neumann suggests that
the original inhabitants were the Karo Sekali based on their name, which he
translated as genuine or true Karo (echte Karo), but that idea has been challenged.83 Unlike the Toba, with their extended patrilineally based genealogies
going back to a common mythical ancestor, the Karo emphasize instead the
marital bonds among the five major clans and the alliances created in the
formation of new marga under a local mother marga.84 Equally striking is
Singarimbuns claim that the Karo do not possess any myth of the origin
of their own society nor a ritual center. The Karo clans, he argues, are not
descent groups, have no history of common origin, and do not regard
themselves as agnatically related to one another.85
Simalungun society is very much like that of the Karo in stressing the
equality of the four basic marga of the Saragih, Purba, Damanik, and Sinaga,
while eschewing the importance of long genealogical links to the founder of
the marga. The marga do not play such an important role in Simalungun, and
there is an absence of any tradition of common marga territory, property, or
ceremonies.86 These features of Karo and Simalungun society appear to be
much more in keeping with rapidly evolving frontier societies where longstanding traditions have less relevance than those of the more recent past.
With less venerable traditions to consider, such societies were more likely to
experiment and adopt new forms and ideas. A continuing important source
for such innovations among the Batak, particularly in the newly settled communities, was the Indian subcontinent.

Indian Influence and Batak Identity

The Tamils were a formative influence on Batak society. Although a ninthcentury inscription at Takuapa on the Malay Peninsula mentions the presence of members of the Manikkiramam, a Tamil merchant guild, it was only
after the successful Chola invasion of Sriwijayan territories in 10245, perhaps at the behest of Tamil traders, that there was a noticeable increase in
Tamil economic activity in the region.87 In the 1088 Lobu Tua inscription
described above, mention is made of local armed men, oarsmen, agents, and

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merchants serving the Tamil guild. Through daily intercourse between the
Tamils and the local inhabitants in this thriving settlement, ideas would have
been exchanged.88 Another direct consequence of the Chola invasion was the
emergence of Kota Cina. Edwards McKinnon, the foremost expert on this
historical site, has stated unequivocally: I now see Kota Cina as a predominantly Tamil trading settlement established by a community of merchants
such as the Ainnurruvar [also known as the Ayyavole] who left an inscription
at Lobu Tua.89
In response to the rise of Kota Cina, there was a movement of some of
the Tamil population from Barus toward the east coast. Edwards McKinnon
found that the Sembiring marga of the Karo established itself on strategic
points along the routes leading from the west to the east coasts, and that two
of the villages, Deli Tua and Hamparan Perak, were located within easy reach
of Kota Cina.90 The Sembiring marga is believed to have had direct ties with
Tamil traders. The name Sembiring, meaning the black one, is often cited
as a major clue. Certain names of the sub-margaColia, Berahmana, Pandia, Meliala, Depari, Muham, Pelawi, and Tekanare clearly of south Indian
derivation.91 A particular way of disposing of the dead, believed to have been
borrowed from the Tamils, has been cited as further support for a southern
Indian origin of the Sembiring marga. This practice, which involves secondary cremation and setting the ashes adrift [the pekualuh ceremony], is found
only in the Dairi lands in the west and among the Karo.92 There may also have
been some Tamil influence on Karo ideas of village structure. Urung, the term
for a village federation in Karo, is believed to be a form of organization found
in medieval Tamil society.93 Another source of Indian ideas, particularly in the
realm of magic and religion, was the Indianized Malayu communities. This
influence is especially evident in the Padang Lawas complex.
Some scholars contend that the presence of Tantrism in the Padang
Lawas complex was due to Indian influence coming from the Malayu polity
in the Minangkabau highlands via east Java. To support this view, they cite
the famous fourteenth-century Adityawarman statue in the form of the god
Bhairawa, one of the important deities in Kalacakra or Left-Handed Tantric
Buddhism (see chapter 2). Inspiration for the statue can be traced directly to
the Singasari court of east Java, where Adityawarman spent some years of his
life and left an inscription in 1343. The model was a similar statue dated 1292
of the Bhairawa seated on a dais surrounded by skulls, with a crown, earrings,
and a necklace of skulls. Tantric influence appears to have been maintained by
Adityayarmans son Anangavarman, who identified himself as Heruka, a demon
figure.94 At Kampung Lubuk Layang in Rao, in the Pasaman district, a headless weather-worn statue broken in two was found exhibiting Hindu elements,
possibly Tantric, and similar to the guardian statues in Padang Lawas.95

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There is also support for the argument that Indian influence may have
reached Padang Lawas from the north. Harry Parkin, for example, argues that
many Saivite ideas were brought by Indians themselves through communities
such as those found in Lobu Tua and Kota Cina.96 A team of archaeologists
visiting the site in 1973 also concluded that it had no clear relationship with
Java.97 Their preliminary findings suggest that the Padang Lawas complex
was more a result of Indian influence coming from the port cities in northern Sumatra rather than from Java and southern Sumatra. It is likely, however, that Padang Lawas received Indianized ideas from both directions and
formed a cultural frontier between the Minangkabau and the Batak. The idea
of a frontier between these two cultural groups was first advanced by the
archaeologist Satyawati Suleiman in an attempt to explain the presence of an
inscription associated with Adityawarman found at Lubuk Layang in the Pasaman district. The inscription was near the border of south Tapanuli, where
the Padang Lawas complexlocated at the confluence of the Sirumambe, the
Barumun, and the Panai Riversformed the center of the ancient kingdom
of Panai. For this reason, Satyawati believes that the inscription was issued
by a local prince under Adityawarman whose task was to guard the frontier
against possible invasion from Panai.98
The close link between Sriwijaya, Malayu, and Panai is evident in the
presence of Tantric Buddhist ideas. De Casparis argues that in the Sabokingking (Telaga Batu) inscription, many of the punishments and the rewards
for those drinking the sacred oath of loyalty to the Sriwijaya ruler are Tantric
references.99 Based on a study of the artistic images found in east Java and
Sumatra where Tantric influences are evident, Reichle concludes that Sumatra is characterized by Buddhist Tantrism. In Padang Lawas, for example, the
images are almost universally Buddhist with a striking exception of a Ganesa
figure atop a pillar. An inscription accompanying the image mentions the
name of an official, which appears to have been the same one associated with
the inscription on the Amoghapasa statue associated with Adityawarman.100

Religion and the High Priests in the Service of Trade

Whatever the ultimate source of Indian religious inspiration in Padang
Lawas, the evidence suggests that Indian magico-religious ideas were eagerly
sought by the Batak to strengthen their belief systems in the ongoing effort
to improve their spiritual and material well-being. Indigenous Batak religion,
known as Perbegu or Pemena,101 was not overwhelmed by religious concepts
from India, but came to coexist with them. It was therefore possible for the
Batak to practice their own beliefs while also adopting Mahayana Buddhist,
Saivite, and Tantric rituals.

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Parkin explains that Perbegu can be considered a cult of the human

soul, which in a living person is known as tondi and for a dead person is
generally called begu.102 Tondi is sometimes translated as soul stuff and
is found in smaller quantities in animals and plants. It is present in every
part of the human being, including the hair, fingernails, sweat, tears, urine,
excrement, shadow, and even in the name of a person. The most powerful
tondi resides in the placenta and amniotic fluids at birth, so great care is taken
to dispose of them with the utmost secrecy. Ritual cannibalism provides the
opportunity to strengthen ones tondi at the expense of the victim by consuming those parts of the body potent with tondi, such as the blood, heart, palms
of hands, and soles of the feet. When a person dies, the tondi becomes begu
(ancestral spirit).103 The most powerful begu, and hence subject to the most
frequent appeals, is the sombaon, an ancestral spirit who when living founded
great communities.104 Through public feasts of homage, a begu is transformed
to sumangot, then to sombaon.105 The ultimate test of potency was the possession of sahala, which can be succinctly translated as the manifestation
of supernatural power.106 Sahala is manifested in successful economic and
other ventures, numerous children and grandchildren, influential relatives,
skill in oratory, or bravery in battle. Respect (hasangapon) accompanies one
possessed of sahala, while refusal to obey and venerate such a person courts
disaster.107 This cult of the human soul became an important marker of
Batak identity and a recognizable ethnic boundary with their neighbors.
From early times, religion was closely linked to trade among the Batak.
Religious edifices were built along trade routes to protect the trader from
adverse human and natural forces and thus assure the economic success of
the venture. Edwards McKinnon notes that from Padang Lawas southward is
a line of candi or religious temples marking a route from Tapanuli down to
the Minangkabau lands. More candi are found along rivers used to gain access
to the east coast. The Padang Lawas or Panai complex arose due to its strategic location at the crossroads of several riverine and land routes. The ancient
kingdom of Panai, sufficiently important to have warranted an attack by
Chola forces in 10245, benefited from its links to the interior areas through
the important transinsular portage in the Panai-Barumun river valley.108
In the Padang Lawas site, as well as in the Tamil settlements at Lobu Tua
and Kota Cina, religious temples are prominent. With the withdrawal of the
Tamil population and/or their absorption into the Batak community, perhaps after the demise of Kota Cina in the fourteenth century, the candi were
replaced by tombs erected to honor important Batak ancestors (sombaon). In
the late nineteenth century, Malayu (most likely Batak who moved easily
between two worlds, perhaps more properly termed Malayu Batak) horse
traders going to the Karo plateau from the east coast made offerings at the

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tombs of the Sibayak (lords) of Kabanjahe and Barusjahe. On the outward

journey betel was presented, but on the homebound journey after the completion of a successful transaction, a goat or white chicken was sacrificed.109
These ancestral tombs proved popular as sites of spiritual power.
The religious institution with the greatest economic impact on the Batak
was the high priest.110 Though the phenomenon arose in the Toba lands, it
spread quickly to the new areas where the Toba migrants had settled. Situmorang suggests that the Toba Batak believed in a sahala-harajaon, the spiritual
power of governing, which derives from the gods and is transmitted patrilineally through the original founders of the three major Toba margathe
Borbor, the Lontung, and the Sumba.111 It was this sahala-harajaon that legitimized the rule of high priests with the title of Jonggi Manaor among the
Borbor, the Ompu Palti Raja among the Lontung, and the Sisingamangaraja
(preceded by the Sorimangaraja) among the Sumba.112 Although they were
equal in stature within their own marga, the Sisingamangaraja was the best
known to Europeans. Unlike the Sisingamangaraja, the Ompu Palti Raja did
not claim a divine origin, nor authority beyond their own jurisdictions among
the Lontung. The pretensions of the Jonggi Manaor were also far more modest than those of the Sisingamangaraja and claimed to have their own specific
areas of influence.113 The success of the high priests in promoting trade and
agriculture was an important measure of their sahala.
A fair amount of literature exists on the Sisingamangaraja, but little on
the Jonggi Manaor or the Ompu Palti Raja. One can assume, however, that
many of the distinctive features attributed to the Sisingamangaraja would
have been applicable to the other two high priest groups. One of the most
extensive accounts of the Sisingamangaraja is from a Batak manuscript collected by C. M. Pleyte. In this legend the deity Batara Guru causes a jambu
fruit to fall to the ground. It is found and eaten by the wife of the chief of the
village of Bakkara, and she becomes pregnant. After three years pass with the
baby still unborn, a spirit informs the mother that another four years will
elapse before the birth can occur. She will know when it is time because there
will be earthquakes, lightning, and a heavy rainstorm, spirits will fill the village
square, and tigers and panthers will tear at one another. These things occur,
and the Sisingamangaraja is born with a black, hairy tongue. The afterbirth
is buried under the house, but lightning strikes at that very spot and transports the afterbirth into heaven.114 Batara Gurus messenger then brings to
the child manuscripts with the astrological charts for augury purposes, matters concerning planting and weaving, the calendar, the laws, and a handbook
of spells. The Sisingamangaraja confirms his supernatural origins by openly
declaring, I am a descendant of the gods.115 Other legends were later added
to reaffirm the Sisingamangarajas supernatural attributes. In 1870, de Haan

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was told that the Sisingamangaraja could go seven months without food and
three months without sleep because the gods supplied his every need.116
The divine origins of the Sisingamangaraja made him an ideal intermediary between the gods and the human community. He could make peace, create
laws, and expose both truth and liesqualities that made him unsurpassed in
settling disputes. If a war continued unabated, he sent a staff as a sign that a
ceasefire should be declared and the parties submit to his mediation.117 Intervention in disputes took place not only among the Batak, but also between the
Batak and the outside world.118 Early European observers believed that these
high priests exercised very little authority because there were no visible signs
of political power. Heine-Geldern, for example, acknowledged that the Sisingamangaraja was effective in settling quarrels and mediating peace between
warring parties but concluded, otherwise his political power was weak.119
What he failed to realize was that the Sisingamangaraja and the other high
priest figures exercised effective control not so much through the use of force
as through the threat of supernatural sanction contained in their words, letters, and widely recognized spiritual powers.120
Although Lance Castles characterizes precolonial Batak society as stateless, there was a hierarchy of institutions under these high priests that provided a form of supra-village unity. The basic social unit was the huta, a village,
with a varying number of huta forming a horja, and a number of horja constituting a bius.121 The parbaringin were the religious officials under the high
priests jurisdiction, with the chief official in the bius (known variously as
raja bius, raja oloan, or raja na ualu) chosen by the heads of the horja.122 At
the apex of this hierarchy stood the Sisingamangaraja, who instituted the bius
markets and legitimized the officials through letters of appointments. Among
the responsibilities of the bius was the hosting of the large market (onan na
godang or onan bius), where the great council (rapot bolon) mediated disputes and made binding decisions on important public issues.123
Situmorang traces the origins of the bius to the need for management
of the irrigation system, and hence the organization of agriculture and the
implementation of laws. The bius is usually described as a sacrifice community because the culmination of its activities is the annual agricultural ritual
and sacrifice officiated by the parbaringin. In addition to assuring the fertility
of the harvests, the sacrifice provides the occasion for community integration and the renewal of commitment to its customs and traditions. Perhaps
the most important agricultural function of the bius was the promotion of
ongoing feasts and rituals throughout the year devoted to the cycle of rice
growing and the appeasement of spirits.124 The network of bius organizations
throughout the land provided a supra-village structure based on a melding of
economic, political, and religious authority.

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The Sisingamangaraja was revered for his powers in assuring the material welfare of the people through the promotion of agriculture, creating harmony among the Batak groups through mediation, and the maintenance of
the marketplace. In agriculture he was attributed with the ability to bring the
rains, locate wells, maintain the irrigation system, enforce the acceptance of
his allocation of the rice lands, and assure efficacious agricultural rituals.125
The Sisingamangaraja was said to have been capable of causing rice plants
to grow with their stalks in the ground and their roots in the air. His control
over the growth of rice and various types of ubi or root crops, and his ability to cause rainfall and to locate well water, were attributes expected of one
with direct links to the agricultural deities. Before the rice-planting season
began, the Sisingamangaraja conducted rituals invoking the ancestral spirits
to assure a good harvest and prosperity for their descendants. In Toba proper,
his appointed officials, the parbaringin, presided over the sacrifices in the
important agricultural rites. Although there is very little about the other two
high priests, the Ompu Palti Raja and the Jonggi Manaor, nineteenth- and
twentieth-century sources mention that they continued to be highly revered
for their ability to summon rain and control rice growth.126
Conducting the agricultural ritual was considered an essential task of the
parbaringin to assure the ongoing prosperity of the inhabitants, the animals,
and the crops. As late as 1938 the Dutch received delegations of parbaringin
who sought to revoke a colonial measure introduced earlier in the century that
forbade the continuation of this ritual. It was this prohibition, they asserted,
which had resulted in problems in their community.127
The esteem and respect of the high priests among the Batak may have
risen even further when rice became an important Batak export commodity.
The growth of the pepper trade in the fifteenth century led to an increasing
demand for rice from communities engaged in pepper production in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. It may have been around this time that the Batak
intensified rice planting in existing fields to meet this need. Rice is a fragile
plant requiring great preparation and care. Moreover, during its growth it
is vulnerable to unexpected weather changes, diseases, and pests, which can
destroy the entire crop. In such circumstances traditional rice-growing societies everywhere have resorted to appeals to supernatural forces to prevent
the loss of a crop and to assure a bountiful harvest. The Batak were no different, and Raffles commented on their belief that the Sisingamangaraja could
blight the paddy, or restore the luxuriance of a faded crop.128
A second important function of the Sisingamangaraja was to assure harmony among the Batak groups through his mediation. In this role he was able
to gain widespread agreement on standard rice measures and scales, and the
assurance that the sanctity of the marketplace would be observed. Burton and

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Ward reported the influence of the Sisingamangaraja who was considered by

the inhabitants as bertuah or invested with supernatural power. His representatives, whom Burton and Ward believed to be village chiefs from the
surrounding districts, were known as parbaringin. They received their appointments from the Sisingamangaraja and had the important responsibility of
maintaining the viability of the markets.129
By the nineteenth century it was possible to conceive of a heartland and
an extended network of communities forming a single Batak cultural unity,
promoted and strengthened by the activities of the high priests. Although
the latter had arisen among the Toba, their influence extended to the other
areas where the Batak had settled. The Ompu Palti Raja was the high priest
with greatest influence among those in the Simalungun lands involved in the
trade between Lake Toba and the east coast, while the Jonggi Manaors area of
jurisdiction was in the lands between the interior and Barus. Of these three,
however, the Sisingamangaraja exercised the greatest influence among the
Batak communities in general. Representatives bore their insignia and exercised authority on their behalf because of the awe and veneration with which
the Batak regarded these high priests.130 As the Batak became increasingly
involved in international trade, these magico-religious figures became the
foci and facilitators of the production and delivery of rice and forest products
between the interior and the coasts. Their expanded functions contributed to
the evolution of a supra-village authority and a growing sense of belonging
to a single ethnic group under the leadership of the high priests and their
religious network.

Ethnicization of the Batak

As the Batak moved toward both coasts and southward from Lake Toba in
response to economic opportunities, they came into direct competition with
their neighbors. In the face of this development, the institution of the high
priests was invoked to promote ethnic unity. The acknowledgment of the
Sisingamangaraja as the overarching spiritual authority over all Batak may
have been a deliberate economic decision by the Batak to compete effectively
against the newly ethnicized Malayu, Minangkabau, and Acehnese. Through
the appointment of the parbaringin, a hierarchy was created whose major
responsibility was the maintenance of agriculture and the marketplace. If not
the threat of supernatural sanction, then the promise of economic advantage
assured the appeal of the high priests.
A European report from the early nineteenth century confirms the
elevated status and veneration enjoyed by the Sisingamangaraja among the
Batak. In a letter to Marsden, Raffles wrote that among the Batak was

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something like an ecclesiastical Emperor or Chief, who is universally acknowledged, and referred to in all case of public calamity, etc. His title is Si Singah
Maha Rajah, and he resides at Bakara in the Toba district. He is descended
from the Menangkabau race, and is of an antiquity which none disputes. My
informants say certainly above thirty descents, or 900 years. He does not live
in any very great state, but is particular in his observances; he neither eats hog
nor drinks tuah [palm-wine]. They believe him possessed of supernatural
powers.131

In this letter Raffles claims that the Sisingamangaraja was universally acknowledged. Although it is more likely that he had direct influence only over the
Sumba group of marga among the Toba Batak, stories of his superior powers
would have been sufficient to convince many other Batak to heed his words or
the words of those who represented him. In this way the Batak in the southern Lake Toba region, who were the Sisingamangarajas principal adherents,
would have been joined by Batak elsewhere in forming a group responsive
to his wishes. While he did not possess any means for physical coercion, his
acknowledged supernatural powers were far more intimidating. Instead of
a political structure with the accoutrements of state authority, the Sisingamangaraja and the other high priests created an ethnic unity among many
Batak groups based on their sacred reputation, system of marketplaces, and a
coterie of magico-religious officials who operated in a borderless world.
Batak ethnic consciousness was further reinforced by the creation of
pustaha or bark books. Written in a language and a script unlike anything
possessed by their neighbors, the pustaha was regarded as distinctly Batak.
Although the Batak language employs an old Indian Pallava-derived script,
there is no record when pustaha were first written. Nevertheless, Uli Kozok
argues that the Batak script continues to have an affinity with the Pallava and
Old Javanese (Kawi) scripts, whereas modern Javanese has diverged significantly from the original Pallava.132 The antiquity of the Batak script is further
attested by the fact that the first Batak bark books acquired by the British
Museum in 1764 already demonstrated marked regional variations.133 This
suggests that Batak writing may have begun early in the creation of the pustaha
but remained relatively unchanged over the centuries, perhaps because of the
pustahas sacred contents. The pustaha were intended for magico-religious
purposes and contained astrological tables and magic formulae.134
The retention of a Batak language using a modified Pallava script to transmit sacred and other tribal knowledge is noteworthy. From the seventh until
at least the fourteenth century, the dominant intellectual and political languages in Sumatra were Sanskrit and Malayu. Their influence was particularly
strong, and evidence of their presence has been noted in the discussion of the

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archaeological finds at Padang Lawas. Yet despite these cultural incursions, the
Batak were not absorbed into the expansive Malayu language and culture.135
The survival and persistence of the pustaha tradition may have been a deliberate political choice at a time when the Batak were becoming increasingly
involved in economic rivalry with their neighboring communities. As Pollock
so succinctly explained, Vernacular literary languages do not emerge like
buds or butterflies, they are made.136 A Batak world was thus inscribed and
circumscribed by the pustaha, which not only performed a magico-religious
role but also became an important marker of Batak identity.
Often in the introduction to the pustaha, a chain of transmission of
knowledge from the legendary founder to the current writer is listed. Teachers
and pupils from different regions traveled together throughout Batak areas
because their services were sought everywhere.137 When the intrepid Italian
traveler Elio Modigliani journeyed through the Toba Batak area in 1890, he
befriended the great datu Guru Somalaing. From him, Modigliani was able to
obtain a text from the wandering datu of the Simanjuntak marga intended
for his pupils belonging to the Siagian marga. The itinerant quality of these
datu is emphasized in another of Modiglianis collected texts, where one of
the great masters is called Singa Mortandang, or the wandering lion.138 It
was commonplace for pupils to travel long distances to study with famous
datu.139
Through long and intensive study the datu acquired an incomparable
knowledge of the future, the characteristics of plants, and the wisdom contained in the writings of the ancestors. The wandering datu was described as
not simply a religious practitioner, but also a man of science who embodies all current available historical, medical, theological and economic knowledge. Through his mastery of the contents of the pustaha, he became the
primary source of old tales, legends, and traditions from which the Batak
gained an understanding of their ritual ceremonies.140 This latter function
continues to survive among the Batak today. Ginting describes a Karo guru
(the Karo equivalent of the datu) who can recite in a sing-song tone the old
legends and myths which are important in the performance of a ritual so that
the participants understand its background and can therefore experience the
ritual more intensely.141 The datu was also able to use his knowledge of plants
and the spirit world to concoct the various medicines to treat and to prevent
illnesses, conduct special rituals to ward off evil or recall a spirit which had
wandered away from a body, and prescribe potions to assist in affairs of the
heart and to give self-confidence.142
Because of the datus ability to assure the well-being of the community in
so many different ways, he gained the confidence and support of the people.
He thus became an influential advocate and ideal conduit of information

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and directives of the high priest. His wandering lifestyle and the practice of
accepting pupils from all Batak lands contributed to a network that transcended territorial and marga divisions. Also strengthening the sense of a unified Batak world were the pustaha traditions. In his intensive study of pustaha,
Voorhoeve concludes that the sacred language of the texts is from a sub-Toba
dialect spread by the wandering datu, who were immune to inter-marga and
intervillage warfares in precolonial times.143 The spread of the pustaha tradition
helped create a shared sacred language and a common store of magico-religious
lore. Prior to the twentieth century, Perbegu/Pemena, or the old religion of the
Batak, was a central element in Batak identity. But the keys to the ethnicization of the Batak were the components of Perbegu/Pemena: the high priests,
the datu, and the pustaha.

Conclusion
The people who are collectively known today as Batak were historically never
isolated from the developments occurring in the region. Based on origin tales
and linguistic evidence, I have assumed that the ancestors of the Batak occupied the area around Lake Toba in the interior of northern Sumatra since
perhaps 4500 BCE and at least by the first millennium CE.144 International
trade was a major catalyst in the movement of Batak from the Toba highlands
toward both coasts, though personal and environmental reasons also contributed to the out-migration. The interior redistribution centers and the international marketplaces on the coasts exposed the Batak to new peoples, new
ideas, and new products. In searching for economic advantage in the highly
competitive market environment, the Batak sought support among their kinfolk, both real and fictive. One of the means employed to extend the kinship
network as widely as possible was to seek commonality by determining the
cultural discontinuities that distinguished them from their neighbors. This
was found in the institution of the high priests and the role of the wandering
datu/guru.
The Batak were incorporated early into regional trade networks because
they were major suppliers of camphor and benzoin. For this reason the Batak
lands were regarded as crucial to the prosperity of Sriwijaya and therefore
an essential part of the polity. When Sriwijaya was attacked by the Cholas in
10245, the polity of Panai located among the Batak was also destroyed. In
the late thirteenth century, when the eastern Javanese kingdom of Singosari
began to extend its influence to Sumatra, it sent sacred images to at least two
important centers of Malayu: Dharmasraya in the upper Batang Hari River
and Padang Lawas (Panai) in the Batak area. Panai was one of the areas listed
as part of bhumi Malayu in the Desawarnana, which suggests that at least

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from the latter half of the fourteenth century the Javanese regarded the Batak
areas as part of the Malayu world.
Involvement in international trade encouraged Batak responsiveness to
political and economic shifts that had a direct impact on their livelihood.
While Sriwijaya was still the dominant entrepot in the Straits of Melaka, the
Batak used routes from the camphor and benzoin forests to the northwest
and southeast of Lake Toba southward to Padang Lawas, then onward to the
Batang Hari and eventually to Sriwijaya on the Musi River in Palembang.
When Sriwijaya was conquered by the rival Chola dynasty, the Batak sought
other outlets for their products. The rise of Kota Cina on the east coast and the
re-emergence of Barus on the west coast as ports for the export of camphor
and benzoin drew the Batak toward both coasts. Though Kota Cina disappeared sometime in the fourteenth century, in later centuries other east coast
kingdoms came to provide an outlet for the export of Batak forest resins and
rice. Batak groups sought to profit from international trade by following these
routes and settling within proximity of these export centers. Another major
economic stimulus to Batak migrations was the growing demand for rice
among pepper growers in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula beginning in the
fifteenth century. To meet this new demand, there were migrations from the
Toba region in search of new rice lands to the south and east of Lake Toba.
Crucial to the success of Batak involvement in international trade was their
religious institutions. Candi and ancestral tombs were judiciously erected along
major trade routes to assure spiritual protection and success for Batak traders.
With the increasing tempo of trade and the dispersal of Batak communities
from the Lake Toba region, there was a need for some form of mediating
power among the scattered communities. This was provided by the institution of the high priest, which originated in the Toba lands but gained support
in the other Batak areas. Through their claims of supernatural powers, access
to agricultural deities, and creation of a network of officials and markets, the
high priests were instrumental in the promotion of Batak trade until their
demise in the early twentieth century. The activities of the datu/guru helped
to assure ongoing support for the high priests among the Batak in the precolonial period.
As different ethnic groups became increasingly competitive in international trade, particularly between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries,
every avenue was explored to gain advantage over others, including ethnicization. The Batak became ethnicized by stressing cultural discontinuities with
their neighbors, particularly the Malayu. A Batak acknowledged origins in
the Toba highlands, a belief in Perbegu/Pemena, compliance with the authority of the high priests, and reliance on the knowledge and spiritual powers
of the datu/guru and their pustaha. In the early modern period the option

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of being Batak became both a political and economic decision resulting in

the removal of huta and marga barriers in the formation of a Batak ethnic
identity.
Despite the increasing ethnicization of groups in Sumatra by the early
modern period, their shared Malayu cultural heritage and the absence of any
rigid ethnic and political boundaries facilitated movements of groups in and
out of ethnicities. The Batak who were involved in trade in the Malayu areas of
the east coast found it advantageous at times to become Malayu by embracing
Islam and using the Malayu language. Yet they knew their marga, and when
they returned to the interior they reaffirmed their links to the ancestral lands
through specific Batak rituals associated with the indigenous religion. For
these Batak, there was little to lose and much to gain through the maintenance
of complementary ethnicities. The presence of many of these Malayu Batak
on the coasts helped to forge strong links between the Malayu kingdoms and
the interior Batak communities, which in time led also to the acceptance of
Batak Sibayak as the royal family of some east coast Malayu states.145
For the Batak, the flexibility to move between a Malayu and a Batak ethnic identity was useful economically and ritually. A common cultural base, the
absence of insurmountable ethnic and political boundaries, and a continuing
desire by rulers for new subjects enabled neighboring communities such as
the Malayu, the Minangkabau, the Acehnese, and the Batak to move easily in
and out of ethnic identities and to participate in activities that defined one or
another group. The ordinary people, perhaps more than the elite, would have
made this move between ethnic worlds to seek greater economic advantage.
Although this option was also open to the sea people (Orang Laut) and the
forest and hill peoples (Orang Asli/Suku Terasing), they rarely took it because
their value rested on their complementary lifestyle and hence their separate
identity from the more dominant ethnicities. The story of their ethnicization,
therefore, follows a different trajectory from the Malayu, the Minangkabau,
the Acehnese, or the Batak. But, as with these other ethnic communities, it rests
fundamentally on calculations of optimal economic advantage to be gained
from the rich international trade flowing through the Straits of Melaka.

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Chapter 6

The Orang Laut and the Malayu

he Orang Laut are well known in the history of Southeast Asia because they are associated with trade and
piracy. The strong negative image of piracy has partially
defined and delimited the Orang Lauts ethnic boundaries. Yet it should be
noted that in the past when the Orang Laut were an integral part of a Malayu
polity, they were proud of their status and the high offices held by their leaders. They were arguably the most valued subjects or allies of the Malayu rulers
because of their indispensable role in promoting international trade. Their
intimate knowledge of their home seascapes enabled them to gather edible
seaweeds, pearls, and turtle shells for the China market. But their most valuable contribution to Malayu rulers was maintaining security in the sea lanes
and in persuading international merchant vessels to frequent the rulers
port. In return, the Orang Laut were honored with titles, social status, and
access to foreign goods. Only with the major shift in Malayu economies to
agricultural and extractive industries in the late nineteenth century did this
profitable complementary relationship end. The historical shifts in the economic and social fortunes of the Orang Laut within the Malayu world, and
the corresponding adjustments made in their ethnic identities, are the subject
of this chapter.
In the ethnography of the Orang Laut, three divisions are usually mentioned: the Sama-Bajau, the Orang Laut, and the Moken/Moklen. The SamaBajau are located on the northeastern coast of Borneo, the Sulu archipelago,
and in smaller groups in Sulawesi, the Lesser Sundas, and Maluku. The SamaBajau will not be discussed because they are not associated with the Straits
of Melaka, which is the focus of this study. Nevertheless, many of the observations made about the Orang Laut and the Moken/Moklen would probably apply equally well to the Sama-Bajau.1 Orang Laut is the term usually

173

given to the numerous sea and strand communities that inhabit the northern
and southern entrances to the Straits of Melaka, the lower reaches and the
estuaries of the major rivers in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, the RiauLingga archipelagoes, and the various island groups in the South China Sea.
The Moken and the Moklen are closely related and live along the strands and
islands off the western coast of peninsular Burma and Thailand.
Unlike most of the Orang Laut, the Urak Lawoik (a dialectal form of
the term Orang Laut) are located at the northern entrance of the straits in
islands and coasts bordering Malaysia, Thailand, and Burma. For this reason they are often discussed as one with the Moken and Moklen. One Urak
Lawoik tradition traces their homeland to Langkawi, while another claims
origins in the vicinity of Gunung (Mt.) Jerai or Kedah Peak. Their dispersal
is explained simply by the statement that they are a frightened people. A
story of the origins of the group told by one of the elders involves a disciple
of God who is shipwrecked and found after seven years and seven days. He is
brought to a temple by the Thais, who try to teach him Buddhism and how
to become a rice farmer, but he is unable to learn. The Malayu then take him
and try to teach him their language and Islam, but again without success. He
thus goes to the seashore and becomes the progenitor of the Urak Lawoik. It
is said that they later drifted/floated apart (berpecah hanyoi)2 to form the
Baw Jet Luuk in Satul province, the Kok Lanta, and those who settled in the
forests of Kedah. In this latter tradition the Urak Lawoik and some of Kedahs
forest people, including the Semang group called the Kintaq Bong, trace their
origins to Gunung Jerai.3
Gunung Jerai is famous because it was a recognizable landmark for early
shippers making landfall on the west coast of the Isthmus of Kra or the northern Malay Peninsula. Early sources refer to this coast as Kalah (Arabic)/Kataha
(Sanskrit)/Kadaram (Tamil), where at different times in the past various ports,
including those in south Kedah, would have been visited by traders coming
from the west. They came either to exchange their goods before returning
home or to obtain provisions for their onward journey. In the early centuries
CE the favored route from the west coast went overland to the Gulf of Siam,
and then on to the Lower Mekong, central Vietnam, and from there to China
(chapter 1). The existence of an oral tradition linking the Urak Lawoik and
Kedah may be based on this early trade relationship between the sea people
and Kedah inhabitants. The areas at the lower reaches of the riverthe strand,
mangroves, and the many smaller creeks that are found on both sides of the
northern Straits of Melakawere known to both Orang Laut and Orang Asli
groups and thus provided many convenient meeting points. Because of their
complementary lifestyles, they formed ideal partners in the gathering of local
products for international trade.

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Some Urak Lawoik believe that Lanta Island was their immediate place
of origin (via Gunung Jerai), and they are indeed called Orang Lonta by the
Moken. From Lanta the Urak Lawoik spread outward to other areas.4 Their
close linguistic and historical links with the Malayu may indicate a strong
relationship with South Kedah polities, with Moken operating farther north
in the Isthmus of Kra. Nevertheless, there would have been contact between
both groups since the medium of communication was a form of the Malayu
language, as is the case today.5
In the same area as the Urak Lawoik live the Moken, whose lifestyle is similar to the Orang Laut, and the Moklen, who have completely abandoned life
on the sea and have settled permanently on land. The Moklen live in coastal
villages and refer to themselves in Thai as Chaaw Bok (Coastal People) and
to the Moken as Chaaw Kok (Island People). The Moklen language spoken in
Phangnga province and at the northern end of Phuket island is considered a
dialect of Moken.6 There is little known about the Moklen, but it is believed
that they once led a lifestyle similar to the Moken before becoming land dwellers. This type of change can occur very quickly. In the early twentieth century
an Englishman tried to entice the Moken to settle ashore by offering to erect
substantial houses for them and by assuring them of regular employment.7
The very few who did so had made the crucial decision to exchange a Moken
way of life and ethnicity for that of the Moklen, thus providing an example of
how lifestyle may determine identity.
During the strong winds and heavy swells associated with the southwest
monsoon, the Moken seek shelter on the leeward side of islands or on coasts
protected from the winds by islands lying just offshore. In this period they
establish their homes on land and forage the strand and the forests for food.
They then return to their boats and their nomadic sea existence once the
monsoon winds change. Even when the Moken are at sea, they put to shore
occasionally so that at low tide the women and children can gather crabs, oysters, snails, mussels, watermoths [watermotten], and shrimp. When the tide
is high, the women go by boat to the islands to gather berries, wild fruit, and
roots while the men seek honey in the forests.8 While it is likely that the Urak
Lawoik followed a similar lifestyle as the Moken in the past, today they are
regarded more as strand dwellers who go to sea to obtain sea products, but
then return to live on land.9
Moken tales provide a variety of reasons for the groups lifestyle based on
the sea. According to a tale told to an Englishman c. 1930, the ancestors of the
Moken lived on the mainland of Burma and the northern shores of the Malay
Peninsula. Fierce Burmese hill tribes from the north and Malayu pirates from
the south raided the Moken and forced them to seek safety in the islands. But
the Malayu continued to harass them and so they finally took to living on

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boats.10 Another explanation for their wandering lifestyle on the sea is found
in an epic tale of their sacred ancestor, the golden-haired queen, who was
ruler of a prosperous land-based people. In this story she falls in love with a
visiting Muslim Malayu who teaches the Moken about fire and rice. They are
married, and on their wedding night, spent on his father-in-laws boat, the
groom is entranced by the queens youngest sister and sleeps with her. This act
of betrayal so angers the queen that she expels the people from her land and
condemns them to live forever on boats in search of food.11
The Urak Lawoik and the Moken/Moklen have been very little studied,
and much of the information about them has come from modern ethnographies. In reconstructing their past, I have relied on an understanding of the
trade patterns in the areas where the Urak Lawoik and the Moken/Moklen
operate and have assumed that they had certain practices in common with
the Orang Laut groups at the southern end of the Straits of Melaka. Based
on settlement patterns reconstructed from oral traditions referring to the
prehistorical period and those observed in more recent times (1989), Pattemore and Hogan postulate that the Urak Lawoik originated in the south and
then moved north, with the islands of Rawai, Sireh, Peepee, and Sepum their
northernmost limit. The Moken, on the other hand, were originally located
farther north and then moved southward to the Urak Lawoiks northern limits, though they rarely ventured beyond Surin and Phra Thong island.12
Information on the Orang Laut at the other end of the Straits of Melaka
is comparatively richer than those for the sea peoples in the north. This is
because the former played a prominent role historically in the Malayu maritime kingdoms and are therefore far more visible in the documents. While the
evidence suggests that the Moken and Urak Lawoik were also involved with
some of the northern Malayu polities, there is too little information to be able
to reconstruct a detailed study of their activities. For this reason, this chapter
focuses primarily on the Orang Laut found in the islands and coasts at the
southern entrance of the straits.
The languages spoken by the Orang Laut in the straits area belong to
the Austronesian family, and variations are attributed to a number of factors,
including slow expansion and adaptation to the environment, intergroup
contact, and influences from external civilizations. They, like the Orang Asli
(chapter 7), are said to occupy the cultural fringes of the Indo-Malaysian
world.13 Yet in past centuries both were regarded as important components
of lowland societies, with skills and economic contributions that complemented those of the Malayu. For this reason, considerable care was given
by the Malayu lords to maintain and strengthen ties with these groups. The
Orang Laut in particular responded with a devotion that often surpassed that
of Malayu subjects themselves.

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Lifestyle formed the major ethnic boundary between the Malayu and the
Orang Laut. Until late in the nineteenth century, the Orang Laut were valued
for their prowess at sea and their role as guardians of the rulers maritime trade
lanes. There was little reason to abandon this favored ethnicity, and far greater
incentive to retain and strengthen it to preserve this economically and socially
rewarding relationship with the Malayu. The distinction between the two ethnic communities was very clear to the Dutchman Ch. van Angelbeek, who visited Riau in 1825 in his official capacity as Malay translator. He wrote:
The Orang Laut do not appear to belong to the Malayu people, and at present
there is a great difference between a Malayu and an Orang Laut. While the
language is with a few exceptions the same, one finds great differences in the
character of both people.14

Despite the close relationship between the Orang Laut and the Malayu,
outside observers never saw these groups as anything but separate. Maintenance of this boundary was the result of the recognition of their complementary and mutually beneficial economic roles and lifestyles.

The Orang Laut Seascape

The areas frequented by the Orang Laut are located principally in the numerous islands in the Riau-Lingga archipelagoes and the southern portion of
the South China Sea. The difficulty of navigating through this Orang Laut
seascape is captured in an early nineteenth-century description of the RiauLingga archipelagoes:
These islands are separated by numerous Straits. Only a few of these Straits,
however, are navigable by ships; the rest are so narrow and crooked, that it is
even unadvisable for small vessels of light draught to venture through them.
All have reefs of more or less consequence, part of which are connected with
the islands and part are detached. From this circumstance these islands were
formerly much frequented by pirates, who had inaccessible hiding places all
over them, in which they were perfectly secure against an attack by boats,
owing to the multitude of outlets and salt water creeks.15

The many hidden shoals and reefs that dot these archipelagoes were a constant
danger to ships. Knowledge of the currents, winds, islands, and the locations
of shoals and reefs in their home waters gave the Orang Laut an advantage
over far superior forces. The strong current from the South China Sea flowing
to the northeast of Batam Island split into two, moving in a westerly direction

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through the Singapore Straits, but also southward through the Riau Straits.
Ships sailing on these currents became prey to Orang Laut groups operating
in teams, particularly in the Bolang Straits, although there were many areas in
the islands south of Singapore that provided ideal conditions for Orang Laut
attacks on passing ships.16
In addition to the treacherous maritime conditions in the region south
of the Straits of Melaka, other dangers faced ships intending to reach the early
Malayu entrepots by entering the mouths of the Musi River in Palembang and
the Batang Hari in Jambi. The Batang Hari was difficult to locate because of
the absence of any prominent landmark and because the mouth was divided
into a number of tributaries flowing through the marshy delta. Only two of
these tributaries enabled large ships to enter, and great skill and knowledge of
the river were necessary to navigate through the many sandbanks that lay close
to the surface. Equally difficult were the conditions on the Musi River. Knowledgeable native pilots were needed to guide foreign vessels to the principal
settlements located upriver. From early times the Orang Laut were employed
to perform this vital function, and they were strategically positioned not only
to guide ships but also to provide early warning of any intended attack from
the sea. The Orang Laut village of Simpang in Jambi was located some thirty
kilometers (18.6 miles) from the sea at the junction of the two tributaries that
allowed access to the Batang Hari, while in Palembang the Orang Laut village
of Sungsang lay near the mouth of the Musi.17
The Orang Laut formed the first line of defense for the Johor rulers
whenever they shifted their capitals to the Riau-Lingga archipelagoes, the
home waters of many of Johors Orang Laut.18 An 1857 treaty signed between
the Dutch government and the sultan of Lingga lists some 467 islands as
being under the sultans jurisdiction. These numbers increased further in
1864 when other islands, particularly in the archipelagoes in the South China
Sea, were documented by the Dutch for the first time.19 Many others would
have been left uncounted, either because they were regarded as too small and
insignificant or simply because they were reefs which only emerged at low
tide. Yet the Malayu themselves had special terms to identify differences in the
islands. Tokong refers to any small islet with only a few or no trees, and
malang to rocks that are not totally submerged at high tide.20 The Orang
Laut would have had even finer distinctions to identify the various seamarks
for safe navigation and the search for sea products. In the nineteenth century
only a few main islands in the West Anambas or Jemaja group in the South
China Sea were inhabited and cultivated, while all the other islands [were]
uninhabited and only visited by the Orang Laut.21 This comment reflects the
general view that a sedentary population, preferably involved in agricultural
activity, was necessary for a piece of land to be considered inhabited.

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Such a perception ignores the specific lifestyle of the sea people who conceptualize space differently from those based on land. The presence of Orang
Laut groups scattered throughout the Malay-Indonesian archipelago fostered
the misconception that they recognized no fixed boundaries. In fact, their lifestyle was characterized by systematic sojourns within a fairly well-determined
area of exploitation in search of moving prey, such as the sea turtle, and of
edible seaweed, tripang (sea cucumber), and pearl oyster beds. In pursuit of
such economic activities, an island, even a tiny rocky outcrop, could be an
important seamark. Although highly mobile, the Orang Laut did not venture
beyond the islands and surrounding seas they regarded as their areas of exploitation, whether for purposes of burial, transmission of knowledge, gathering
of sea products, or for specific activities on behalf of a Malayu lord. Knowing
the boundaries of such areas was essential to prevent the overexploitation of
resources and to avoid destructive rivalries with other Orang Laut groups.22
These demarcations meant each Orang Laut group had an intimate knowledge of its own specific area of operation. The Malayu rulers who sought
to maintain advantage over competitors were therefore dependent upon the
different Orang Laut groups to supply sea products and to guard the sea lanes
within their respective maritime territory (maritory).
The precise divisions of areas of exploitation between groups contributed
to a common understanding of the land and sea components of a groups
maritory, with a center under an acknowledged head.23 Islands with hills or
some high point were favored not only because high places were often revered
as the domicile of powerful spirits, but also because they served as visible landmarks for their ships at sea. Mountains were sacred to the Orang Laut, and
islands with high peaks were frequently selected as burial sites. Such islands
could be recognized by the numerous white flags planted around the burial
area and by the remnants of food offerings left for the dead. Although the
Orang Laut spent much of their time on water, they did not bury their dead
at sea because they believed that the deceased can do harm to the community
if they are not buried on land and maintained with special ceremony.24
Islands were not only associated with the ancestors, but were sites of communal knowledge conveyed through stories linked to the natural vegetation,
rocks, and other physical features. Orang Laut groups were often identified by
reference to specific islands regarded as spiritually potent and essential for the
preservation of the groups traditions and identity. The Moken, Moklen, and
the Urak Lawoik acknowledge the customary rights of specific groups over
islands. In the Mergui archipelago, the Moken are divided into five groups,
with each taking the name of the island where they shelter during the rainy
season. These five mother islands are characterized by the presence of a
major mountain, the abode of the sacred ancestors who are propitiated in

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special ceremonies. In addition, the Moken frequent some fifteen satellite

islands and reach the farthest extent of their area of exploitation at Kok Surin,
a small coral island on the Thai-Burma border. The island is regarded as the
home of the monkey king, where each beach, each rock, and each mountain
possesses a history and an ancestor.25
Cynthia Chous recent study of the Orang Laut populations in the Riau
archipelago provides some insight into how the Orang Laut groups in the past
may have determined their maritoriality. The seascape is divided according
to the usufruct of the seas and the bordering coastal fringes, as well as by the
legitimizing tales of prior clearance and settlement of an area. The groups
maritory extends to include that of its kin, creating a fluid situation in which
groups appear to outsiders to be wandering freely among the seas and islands.
Such apparently random movements are actually based on what Chou calls
a network of territorial ownership through kinship. For example, one group
can move to the island of another to harvest tripang, and when it is the cuttlefish season the favor is returned. The practice of operating in anothers area
of usufruct is considered to be borrowing, with the only obligation being
prestations to the spirits of the area being visited.26
Historical evidence indicates that Orang Laut groups varied in size, economic importance, and social organization. The larger and better-organized
in sociopolitical terms were under leaders with indigenous or Malayu titles
presented by a land-based ruler. Most of the information about the Orang
Laut prior to the nineteenth century relate to their role as the rulers navy,
guarding the sea lanes or participating in raids against passing ships and
coastal settlements. But they also performed varied economic functions that
provide an informal guide to their social status. They planted sago, pepper,
gambir, and coconut trees; collected ebony, eaglewood (gaharuwood, aloeswood), lakawood, rattan, gold, tin (smelted), tripang, and agar-agar; felled
trees for timber; prepared betelnut, gathered and wove kajang or palm-leaf
mats for sails and roofing (a mainly female activity); manufactured coconut
oil; fished; and raided.27
According to an 1827 Dutch official report by von Ranzow, the most commonly used title for the heads of Orang Laut islands was the indigenous term
batin. The Malayu title orang kaya was also frequently used, together with
datu, panglima, and penghulu. Only one head had the mixed Malayu-Bugis
title of datu sullewatang. The largest and most important of the islands were
placed directly under a Malayu or Bugis lord: Lingga under the sultan, Singapore under the Temenggong of Johor, Pahang under the Bendahara of Johor,
and both Penyengat and Bintan under the Bugis Raja Muda.28 Begbies 1834
account adds nothing new to von Ranzows list of titles,29 and neither mentions the Raja Negara, which in 1718 was the title of the head of the Orang

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Laut in Singapore.30 In the Hikayat Siak he is the leader of the Orang Laut who
save the famous Raja Kecil, the purported son of the Johor ruler assassinated
in 1699 and the eventual founder of the Siak dynasty.31
In von Ranzows report, the suku (tribe in the Orang Laut context)
Galang were apparently regarded as pre-eminent in the Orang Laut hierarchy.
They numbered some thirteen hundred people and their principal task was
to carry out piratical activities, though their women were engaged in the
profitable trade of gathering and preparing tripang for sale to the Chinese. Yet
what von Ranzow and the Dutch regarded as piracy, the ruler of Johor considered laudable service performed by the suku Galang in controlling the sea
lanes at his behest. Other smaller groups were boat builders (suku Gelang and
Gelam), woodcutters (suku Gelang, Gelam, and Ladi), preparers of kajang
mats (suku Mantan), collectors of ebony and eaglewood (suku Temiang,
Muru, Pekaka, and Sugi), and sago producers (suku Buru). The suku Tambus
were considered different because they lacked a fixed residence, engaged in
coastal piracy from Temiang to Sugi, and were enemies of the other Orang
Laut.32 There were sub-suku, including some on the Sumatran coast opposite
Riau, whose identities were only known to the larger groups and were, like the
major suku, named after islands, rivers, or creeks.33
In 1854 Netscher tried to bring some general order to the bewildering
numbers of Orang Laut groups by making a distinction between two types:
the Orang Rakyat, who were part of the population that wandered about,
living not in fixed villages but on the periphery mostly on boats, and the socalled native Malayu tribes that are divided into suku as in Sumatra.34 In this
division he tried to characterize a group by the degree to which it adhered to
a nomadic lifestyle. Yet later he remarked that two suku, the Orang Buru and
the Orang Tambus, both listed in the second category, lived on the sea and in
their lifestyle have some similarity with the Bajau of Celebes.35 Begbie had
earlier noted that the Orang Tambus have not even a fixed abode, but wanderers [sic] like sea gypsies, from island to island, shifting with the monsoon,
and finding shelter in every creek.36 It is clear that Netschers categories were
inadequate in explaining the many and subtle distinctions among the Orang
Laut groups.
Schots 1883 description of the duties of Orang Laut reveals certain differences with von Ranzows account. He states that the suku Ladi were provided
with lances in order to perform guard duty for the Riau-Lingga ruler, and that
they also served as rowers in wartime. The Orang Laut fighters came from the
suku Galang, Gelam, Sekanna, and Sugi, but Bugis descendants held the most
important ranks in the fighting force. They were under the direct orders of
the Bugis Raja Muda of Riau. While all four suku had to provide rowers when
required, the suku Gelam had the further duty of providing boats. The suku

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Mantang were not simply providers of kajang but had the more honorable
occupation of ironsmiths and weapon makers to the ruler. Another notable
change was the downgrading of the importance of the suku Tambus, who
were now simply listed as the keepers of the rulers hunting dogs. The comment that they were not allowed to serve as rowers in a boat carrying the ruler
also implies a decline in status. The suku Mapar are not mentioned by von
Ranzow, but Schot claims that in the past they were entrusted with conveying
the rulers envoys and royal letters to foreign lands.37
According to local traditions, the most prestigious Orang Laut in nineteenth century Riau-Lingga comprised two groups known collectively as
Orang Dalam (People of the Royal Court), who had moved from the Malay
Peninsula to the islands with the Malayu ruler. One, the suku Bintan, were said
to have moved from Java to the islands during the period of Majapahits dominance over the area. The second group of Orang Dalam was the suku Mapar,
who had originally lived in Terengganu on the peninsula until the ruler of
Pahang killed their leader, Tun Telanai. Three grandsons of the murdered
leader then went with their followers to complain to the ruler of Melaka, who
entrusted them with the task of governing and maintaining order among
the wandering tribes in Lingga and the surrounding islands.38 The stories of
Wan Sri Benian and Tun Telanai are also well-known episodes in the Sejarah
Melayu, which demonstrates the ease with which popular tales circulated and
were localized by each community.
The special relationship of the Orang Dalam with the ruler elevated them
above the other Orang Laut, with the bride price for a suku Mapar women
reaching 350 reals and a woman from suku Bintan as much as 400 reals.
Among the other Orang Laut groups, serving in the rulers fleets appears to
have been the most highly respected of the duties rendered to the Malayu
ruler and was reflected in the bride price. The most prestigious was the
Galang, whose women commanded a top bride price of forty-four reals, but
far below that of the Orang Dalam. Sharing this status were the suku Sekana
and Gelam, part of the rulers fighting force, whose women also required a
bride price of forty-four reals. Women from the suku Selat, Trong, Sugi, and
Tambus, as well as from the suku Enam on the Sumatran coast, could demand
a bride price of thirty reals. If a woman married a second time, her bride price
was reduced by half, with the sole exception being the Galang women, whose
price remained constant. This exception clearly underscores the importance
of the Galang, who were regarded as the fiercest of the rulers subjects. They
were unchallenged over a wide area of the archipelago, which included both
Galangs, Karas, Rempang, Stoko, Temojong, the islands in the Bolang Straits,
and the Gelam and the Rokan group of islands. The high status of an Orang
Laut group attracted smaller, less prestigious suku because size obviously

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mattered. The Dutch noted that in disputes among Orang Laut over fishing
rights in an area, the group with the larger population invariably gained the
upper hand.39
Except for collecting sea products and guarding the sea lanes, the other
tasks entrusted to the Orang Laut were directly related to the royal household,
from conveying royal missives to foreign rulers to caring for the rulers hunting dogs. Certain historical incidents suggest that the Orang Lauts relationship with the ruler was far more intimate than that with the rest of the rulers
subjects and was more in the nature of a lord and his or her personal retainers.
When the Orang Laut from Singapore heard of the death in 1685 of Sultan
Ibrahim Syah of Johor, they shaved their heads in mourning.40 The 1699 regicide in Johor also provoked an Orang Laut response far stronger than those
from the Malayu subjects themselves.41 The only explanation for this relationship is given in the Sejarah Melayu, where the Orang Laut remind Permaisura
that [w]e too belong to thy ancient lordship of Palembang; we have always
gone with thee.42 In this simple remark the Orang Laut justified their loyalty
to the rulers because it was an ancient bond established and hence legitimized
by the ancestors. This tradition would have encouraged the formation of an
Orang Laut collective identity because of the special status it enjoyed with the
Malayu ruler.
The Orang Laut, however, were never united under one leader, and rivalries and enmities did occur. In the nineteenth century, it was reported that
the suku Enam, who were located along the Mandau and Gaong Rivers in
southeast Sumatra, often roamed the archipelago and came into conflict with
other Orang Laut groups.43 Other factors that militated against the creation of
a single Orang Laut leader were the strong identification of the various suku
to their specific areas of exploitation and their fierce devotion to their own
elders. Yet despite such differences, some sense of Orang Laut identity did
develop because the groups shared a common loyalty to a powerful Malayu
patron and were valued for their specialized skills associated with the sea.
Their favored status with the Malayu ruler encouraged the maintenance of
a lifestyle and collective identity that clearly distinguished Orang Laut from
Malayu.

Forging Links between the Orang Laut and the Malayu Lords
To maintain the loyalty of the Orang Laut, the Malayu ruler presented their
leaders with various emblems of office and some with Malayu titles.44 When
the Malayu rulers in the Riau-Lingga archipelagoes were replaced by the
Dutch colonial state as overlords, the batins requested and received Dutch
flags so they could raise them whenever colonial officials paid a visit or when

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the batin dispatched a formal delegation to the Dutch.45 The emblems of

authority were important to the batin not simply for legitimizing their activities on behalf of the overlord, but also because they were regarded as imbued
with that overlords sacred power.
While the enticement of material and spiritual benefits through association with a Malayu ruler was almost irresistible, one of the most effective
ways the Orang Laut leaders became linked to the Malayu lords was through
the forging of kinship ties. The earliest detailed information on the relationship between the Orang Laut and a Malayu ruler comes from Pires sixteenthcentury account, the Suma Oriental. According to Pires, the refugee prince
from Palembang, the Permaisura, in addition to making both the Orang Laut
men and women hereditary nobles, marries the Malayu princes to the daughters of the Orang Laut leaders. Thus, he explains, the kings [of Melaka] are
descended [from the Orang Laut] through the female side.46
Seventeenth-century Dutch sources mention that Orang Laut leaders were placed as captains of royal trading ships and were related through
marriage with prominent families. The services of one particularly powerful
Orang Laut chief, Long Pasir, were so valued that the ruler of Jambi presented
him with one of his nonroyal wives (gundik). A nineteenth-century Jambi tale
recalling events two hundred years earlier offers another example of the desire
to retain Orang Laut loyalty through kinship ties, this time through adoption.
A great Jambi hero, Orang Kaya Hitam, adopts the Orang Laut leader as his
brother and provides him with a state keris and the right to raid along the
Jambi-Palembang coast.47 By making the Orang Laut their kinfolk, Malayu
rulers were able to rely on the sense of family to strengthen their bonds.
Malayu rulers did not govern the Orang Laut directly but appointed officials who were either from that community or had some blood ties with some
of its members. They received their commissions and titles from a Malayu
lord, and the most favored were entrusted with lucrative raiding expeditions.
An example was the colorful nineteenth-century figure from Lingga, Panglima
Raman, who was the offspring of a Bugis trader and a daughter of an Orang
Laut leader. Because of his talents and general demeanor, he was given an
official position in the Riau-Lingga kingdom and made head of several Orang
Laut groups. His activities took him from the Palembang River to the Java
coast, but he later abandoned this way of life after being dislodged from his
base in Bangka by the head of the Palembang Orang Laut.48
In the nineteenth century, when control of piracy became a major campaign of the British and the Dutch, the leaders of the populous Orang Laut
communities in the Lingga area became especially important. During his official visit to Riau in 1825, the Dutchman van Angelbeek noted that the two
most important heads of the pirates in the kingdom were the Penghulu

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Hamba Raja of Mapar, under whose jurisdiction belong all the so-called
Orang Laut from the islands in Linggas waters, and the Raja Long from the
island of Bulang, under whom are placed the Orang Laut of Galang, Bulang,
and some other islands lying in or near the entrance of the Straits of Melaka.
For raiding expeditions, these two Orang Laut leaders and their people acted
under the orders of a Malayu with the title of panglima, who provided the
boats, weapons, and supplies for the expedition and shared in the booty.49
The Malayu lords were quick to reward Orang Laut service but found it
difficult to punish insubordination because of the Orang Lauts highly mobile
lifestyle. Acts of Orang Laut piracy without Malayu direction did occur and
were often condoned, but all this changed with the signing of the Anglo-Dutch
Treaty of 1824. Pressure from both the British and the Dutch to eradicate
piracy eventually forced the Malayu lords to make or be seen to be making
a greater effort to cooperate. The Tuhfat al-Nafis describes one expedition in
the mid-1830s led by a member of the Raja Muda family based in Riau. His
task was to visit the various Orang Laut groups between Riau and Lingga and
satisfy the Europeans that everything was being done to control Orang Laut
piracy:
Where they [the Orang Laut] had behaved, they were administered fairly and
their services acknowledged; where things had been unsatisfactory, the law
for miscreants was applied and people were arrested and taken to Riau. All
their resources which had been used for their illegal activities, their heavy
artillery and large perahu [native boats] were confiscated. Some of the chiefs
were dismissed because their crimes were so blatant. They were replaced by
those whose goodness was obvious and who commanded the loyalty of their
followers. The conferences and consultations continued like this until Lingga
was reached.

Despite such missions, the British complained that in one such visitation,
piracy was suspended during the time of the tour but quickly resumed once
their Malayu lord had left.50
The Laksamana of Melaka and Johor had especially strong ties with the
Orang Laut in his role as commander of the rulers fleets. But the relationship may have been a far more intimate one if Pires is correct in claiming in
the Suma Oriental that the position of Laksamana had been held by Orang
Laut since the establishment of the Melaka kingdom.51 Support for this claim
comes from the great Malayu epic the Hikayat Hang Tuah, where the hero
is depicted as a famous Laksamana born into a sakai or Orang Laut family.
Because of his extraordinary skills, he is adopted and brought to court, where
he demonstrates an exemplary loyalty to the ruler.52 Although many have seen

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Hang Tuah as a model of Malayu behavior, he may have been regarded as illustrating the ideal relationship between the sakai and their Malayu lord. When
the Temenggong family was given Johor as an appanage by Sultan Mahmud
(r. 17671812), the Temenggong replaced the Laksamana as the main link
between the Malayu ruler and the Orang Laut. The important area of the
appanage was not the sparsely populated mainland but the islands inhabited
by the many Orang Laut groups.53 The Bugis Raja Muda also exercised this
intermediary role between the Orang Laut and the Malayu ruler from the
early eighteenth century until the abolishing of the Raja Muda post in 1899.
In addition to kinship links through marriage and adoption, mutual economic interests contributed to the close bonds between the Orang Laut and
the Malayu. From the earliest Chinese accounts, the Orang Laut have been
regarded as among the most fearsome pirates, quite unlike twentieth-century
ethnographies, which depict them as shy and elusive. While some condemned
the Orang Laut as major perpetrators of piracy, there was also a recognition
that such activities often occurred during certain monsoon periods when
food became scarce because of the difficulty in seeking a livelihood from the
sea (mencari isi laut).54 Many of the piratical activities would have been tasks
assigned by the Malayu ruler. The Orang Laut were essential for the success of
any entrepot because of their naval skills and intimate knowledge of the seascape in the Straits of Melaka. They patrolled the seas to warn of impending
danger, to bring traders to port, and to harass and destroy competitors. While
competitors viewed such activities as piracy, the Malayu patrons regarded
them as acts of loyalty.
The Orang Laut were effective fishers of the sea, but their catch was not
limited to delicacies for the China market or pearls and turtle shells. One of
their major harvests was people stranded in shipwrecks or on ships foundering in shallow waters, who became fair game as part of the flotsam and
jetsam from the sea. These chance finds were augmented by actual raids on
passing ships and on coastal settlements to seize people to be sold as slaves.
The growing demand for slave labor was one of the major causes for the
increase in piracy from the late seventeenth century. Because of the difficulty
in employing local workers, the Dutch East India Company turned to slave
labor to build and service its cities and major posts.55 The slave trade was further encouraged because status in many urban centers was measured by the
number of domestic slaves one possessed. When kingdoms such as Palembang
and Jambi began to increase pepper gardens to satisfy increasing demand,
slaves were used for the clearing and the maintenance of the labor-intensive
crop. The Orang Laut were thus sent by their Malayu lords to scour the seas
and the coasts for slaves, and both Palembang and Jambi became noted slave
markets.56

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The Orang Laut raids extended as far east as the north coast of Java and
as far west as Ujung Salang (Junk Ceylon), but their primary hunting grounds
were the shores of the Straits of Melaka and the islands to the south. In February, March, and April, the Orang Laut collected edible seaweed for the China
market. By June, with the change of monsoons and the onset of fine weather,
they set off in different directions grouped according to individual settlement
units or by suku. A group normally consisted of about twenty boats, each capable of carrying about a hundred people, though even larger expeditions have
been recorded. Some notion of the scale of these Orang Laut raiding activities can be obtained from a 1669 Dutch report, which claimed that the Jambi
Orang Laut alone had seized and brought back more than twenty-five hundred
people. The Orang Laut then returned to their respective settlements in October to await more favorable weather in February to resume a new cycle.57
The valuable service performed by the Orang Laut gave them considerable leverage in their dealings with the Malayu lords. The rulers of the Malayu
kingdoms on both sides of the Straits of Melaka competed for the loyalty of the
Orang Laut and had to be ever vigilant in preventing their being poached by
a neighboring lord. One way the Malayu lords sought to strengthen their relationship was in satisfying the desire of Orang Laut leaders for Malayu titles
and accoutrements of office to legitimize their activities. Equally important
was the assurance that the Malayu lord would provide a reliable market for
their goods. The turmoil that followed the 1699 regicide in Johor encouraged some of the Orang Laut to abandon the usurping Bendahara family
and to seek new legitimation from the Palembang ruler.58 After the upheaval
in Johor, Palembangs stable marketplace would have been appealing to the
Orang Laut.
The valuable but at times volatile relationship between the Orang Laut
and the Malayu lords was part of the politics of the Straits of Melaka. The
Malayu kingdoms that bordered the straits were all reliant on the services
of the Orang Laut as guides for ships maneuvering through the dangerous
waterway or seeking a safe channel through treacherous sandbars and hidden entrances to rivers leading to the Malayu royal capitals. This function of
the Orang Laut was perhaps the most valuable to the Malayu lords because
it assured that foreign traders would continue to patronize their ports and
therefore guarantee the prosperity of the polity. In addition, the Orang Laut
constituted the major naval force of the rulers and an important supplier of
export products and slaves. Understandably, therefore, there was a stiff rivalry
among the Malayu lords in the vicinity of the straits to seek the cooperation
of Orang Laut groups.
Raids on passing ships in the northern end of the Straits of Melaka would
have been conducted by the Urak Lawoik and the Moken, particularly in ear-

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lier centuries when the transpeninsular routes were heavily used by traders.
A 1644 Dutch reference mentions the seizure of Johor subjects on the Perak
River by Orang Laut.59 The latter were obviously not under the ruler of Johor
but may have been serving Perak or another of the northern kingdoms. These
may have been Urak Lawoik, but there is no way of knowing. Both the Urak
Lawoik and the Moken would have seen the value of strengthening their
mutually beneficial exchange arrangement with the local rulers. One way that
this was done was through marriage. Ivanoff makes an intriguing comment
that among the Moken such a practice was an attempt to imprison their
overlords in kinship relations.60 Whether the wording was intentional or not,
it suggests that the initiative came from the Moken. More specific information, however, is simply unavailable in the sources, unlike the situation of the
Orang Laut in the southern half of the straits.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there are numerous references to raids and counter raids by Orang Laut serving the rulers of Jambi,
Palembang, or Johor. The Orang Laut serving Jambi were prominent in the
destruction of the Johor capital in 1673, while Johors Orang Laut played an
equally important part in the subsequent retaliation against Jambi.61 The first
few decades of the eighteenth century were particularly tumultuous because
of the upheaval in Johor after 1699. Soon after the regicide, many of the
Orang Laut abandoned the new Bendahara ruler of Johor to serve Raja Kecil,
who claimed to be the son of the murdered ruler. According to the Tuhfat
al-Nafis, Raja Kecil later sought to make peace with the new Johor dynasty
by offering to return Johors Sea People and those from Johors outlying territories (memulangkan rakyat Johor dan teluk rantau Johor).62 In 1717 ten
boatloads of Orang Laut left Lingga to seek service in Jambi.63 But not all the
Orang Laut had abandoned Johor, for there were groups who assisted Raja
Sulaiman in 1723 in the attempt to rescue his family from Raja Kecil.64 Shifting allegiances among the Orang Laut continued into the nineteenth century.
When the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 created a British and Dutch sphere of
influence, some 270 boatloads of the suku Galang moved to Singapore from
the Dutch sphere so they could continue to offer allegiance to their lord, the
Temenggong of Johor.65
The ability of the Orang Laut to transfer their loyalties because of perceived mistreatment by their Malayu lord or because their best interests were
served by such moves made it imperative that the Malayu lord continue to
offer rewards and recognition to the Orang Laut. How such a relationship
was formed is described in early nineteenth-century Lingga. The head of an
Orang Laut group would approach an individual of means, such as an orang
kaya, and offer his services. If the orang kaya accepted the offer, he would then
fund the expedition and be promised two-thirds of the booty. The sultan was

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later compensated by the orang kaya with a prized rarity seized in the raid,
which in the nineteenth century was anything European. Some arrangements
were seasonal, as was the case between one orang kaya and the Mapar Orang
Laut, where the latter were expected to go on extended raids along the coast
of Java at the end of the west monsoon. Generally the Orang Laut conducted
their piratical activities at sea, but if they were unsuccessful, they would go
ashore at night to seize unsuspecting men, women, and children for the slave
market.66 The Orang Laut would also fish so that if the raids were unsuccessful
they did not return empty-handed.67 At times, groups cooperated in trapping
unsuspecting ships passing through the notorious Bolang Straits in the RiauLingga archipelagoes.68 This widespread practice of cooperation between
Malayu lords and the Orang Laut in raiding expeditions was one reason the
VOC fostered a close relationship with the Johor ruler in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. The Dutch believed that the ruler of Johor was the key to
maintaining control over Orang Laut activities and hence assure the peaceful
flow of trade through the Straits of Melaka.69
The arrangements made in the early nineteenth century between the
Temenggong of Johor and his Orang Laut clients offer another view of this
relationship. The Temenggong provided an advance in money, called ayuman,
to enable the leader of the expedition to defray costs for equipment, etc. At
the successful conclusion of an expedition, the Orang Laut were expected to
return the amount plus a 50 percent interest. In addition, the Temenggong was
given a present, artillery, guns above a certain size, ammunition, kerisses and
other weapons, female captives, and the hull of any boat seized. The Orang
Laut for their part retained all other booty, but more importantly they were
provided legitimacy for their activities and protection by the Temenggong.70
While the patron-client relationship between Malayu rulers and notables
with specific Orang Laut groups appears to have been the norm, there are also
frequent examples of Orang Laut acting on their own accord. In a volatile
maritime environment where the skills of the Orang Laut were valued and
even essential for the prosperity of Malayu polities, the Orang Laut were never
fully constrained by their loyalty to just one ruler. In 1629, the victims seized
from a Cambodian ship were divided between Jambi and Palembang. To
complicate matters further, the Orang Laut came to serve individual princes
and were at times even emboldened to attack royal vessels.71 Orang Laut violence at sea has been termed a legitimate form of Malayu statecraft when it
occurs as part of the patron-client arrangement, but as piracy without such
legitimation. These independent Orang Laut activities grew more frequent
during periods of upheaval in the Malayu kingdoms, when political conditions disrupted MalayuOrang Laut cooperation. Under such conditions, the
tendency was for Orang Laut groups to transfer their loyalties or to forgo any

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association with the Malayu and instead undertake activities on their own
account. European contemporary accounts suggest that there was a direct
correlation between upheaval in Malayu kingdoms and an increase in Orang
Laut piracy, or activities occurring outside the purview of a Malay patron.72
After the Johor regicide in 1699, the Dutch noted a great increase in piratical
activities in Johor waters.73
The great extent of piracy, whether under the auspices of a Malayu lord
or an Orang Laut batin, led to the decision by the British and the Dutch after
1824 to cooperate in stamping out this practice. Toward this end a number
of treaties and subsequent notes of modifications of provisions were made
between the Dutch government and the sultan of Riau-Lingga. The Dutch
told the sultan in the mid-nineteenth century that for eradication of piracy to
occur he had to increase the amount of money given to the sea people.74 Of
particular interest to the Europeans was the question of jurisdiction over the
numerous islands that dotted the area. In addition to the desire to fix permanent international boundaries, they hoped to be able to hold specific Orang
Laut groups responsible for piratical activities committed in their traditional
areas of exploitation. The Malayu rulers had never before known nor needed
to know the islands that were under their control because they left such affairs
in the hands of the Orang Laut chieftains. In the Malayu versions of the treaties, a few main islands are mentioned by name and the remainder simply
referred to as negeri-negeri takluknya, or the subject areas.75 Even after the
British and the Dutch formally split the kingdom of Johor in 1824, the ruler
now based in the islands and known as the Sultan Riau-Lingga continued to
exercise great influence in the detached part of his kingdom, such as Johor,
Pahang and other places on the Malay Peninsula.76 It mattered not that the
Europeans had created two separate divisions; the Orang Laut continued to
see the sultan of Riau-Lingga as their true lord. This was an ancient relationship that persisted despite the political vicissitudes of the Malayu kingdoms
in the Straits of Melaka.

The Orang Laut in the History of Sriwijaya and Its Heirs

The limited sources for the Sriwijaya/Malayu period provide too little information to describe the links between the Orang Laut and the rulers except
in general terms. It is believed that during the heyday of Sriwijaya from the
seventh to the eleventh centuries, the Orang Laut were responsible for guarding the shipping lanes and encouraging traders to frequent Sriwijayas ports.
The details and nature of the relationship are never explicitly stated and can
only be surmised from arrangements in a later period. In nineteenth-century
Johor, for example, it was said that the sea peoples possessed the seas and

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what floated on them by hereditary feudal right from the Sultan of Johor.77
But it is not known whether this statement is also applicable for the earlier
period. Only from the sixteenth century does material provide more than
simply a bare mention of the role of the Orang Laut in Malayu kingdoms.
The Sejarah Melayu and Suma Oriental indicate that the Orang Laut and
the Malayu shared the desire to find a suitable site for an entrepot (chapter 2).
The Palembang prince Sri Tri Buana/Permaisura was a refugee seeking a new
home, and the Orang Laut were searching for a new market for their goods and
a new lord to provide legitimacy to their activities. To cement their common
endeavor, marriages were arranged between their leading families.78 After the
decline of the Malayu kingdoms along the southeastern coast of Sumatra in
the fourteenth century, there was no single important entrepot that could reestablish the order and the facilities necessary to attract international trade.
The former Sriwijaya site in Palembang was in the hands of Chinese pirates,
and no powerful Malayu or any land-based ruler could offer the Orang Laut
a special place in the kingdom and provide a market for their goods. Any
member of the royal family, particularly from Palembang, would have raised
the hopes of the Orang Laut for the re-establishment of an entrepot and the
restoring of past relationships. It was such hopes that may have encouraged
the Orang Laut to take such an active role in the peregrinations of the Palembang prince. This partnership born of mutual needs and benefits informed
the long historical relationship between the Orang Laut and the Malayu.
The valuable function of the Orang Laut in protecting and promoting
Sriwijaya and Malayu trade is documented in early Chinese and Arab sources.
A similar function would have probably been played by the Urak Lawoik and
the Moken at the northern end of the Straits of Melaka, though direct evidence is more difficult to obtain. The origin tale of the Urak Lawoik and the
Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa from Kedah imply a close relationship between
the rulers of Kedah and the sea people. Since it is known that the ports in
Kalah formed the western termini of the transisthmian/transpeninsular
route, it is likely that the Urak Lawoik and the Moken had a role in promoting
this trade in the first millennium and a half CE. With their presence on Langkawi and the neighboring coastline, they would have been ideally situated to
patrol the northern entrance to the straits.
In a recent archaeological reconstruction of the early indigenous inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, Bulbeck draws an intriguing conclusion regarding
the offshore islands (known collectively as Pulau Kelumpang) near the mouth
of Kuala Selinsing in Perak. These islands were occupied from the beginning
of the Common Era and their inhabitants had access to imported beads and
ceramics. Sometime after 500 CE they themselves produced beads made of
glass and semiprecious stones. Bulbeck believes that a maritime exchange net-

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work must have existed to account for the islands access to imported goods
and their ability to exchange their own bead production for food from the
mainland. The presence of canoe burials for both men and women further
suggests the existence of a maritime ideology. The islanders were possibly
the forerunners of the sea people who still survive in the northern end of
the Straits of Melaka, and the Kuala Selinsing community would have helped
open the maritime trade in the Indian Ocean as part of a seafaring population
with links to the Nicobar and Andaman Islands.79
If Bulbeck is correct in assuming a Nicobar and Andaman connection
with the ancestors of the Urak Lawoik and Moken, then it is possible that ships
coming from the west would have first encountered the sea people on these
islands before making landfall on the Isthmus of Kra or the northern Malay
Peninsula. As with their southern counterparts, these ancestors of the Urak
Lawoik/Moken would have helped patrol and guide ships into the dominant
port at the time, which in the north was anywhere along the Kalah coast,
including the well-known sites in southern Kedah. Based on archaeological
evidence, other beneficiaries of this trade were the civilizations in peninsular
Burma and Thailand. The Urak Lawoik/Moken would have also been valuable
as trade intermediaries between the Orang Asli and the lowland communities
and as gatherers of sea products. Pearls are found in the waters of the Mergui
archipelago, and the skill of the Moken as pearl divers was still recognized in
the early 1920s.80
In the Hikayat Hang Tuah, the role of the Orang Laut in the success of
the Malayu venture on the Malay Peninsula is freely acknowledged. There
is frequent mention of the sakai, which is used in this text to refer to the
Orang Laut inhabitants in the islands lying south of the Malay Peninsula.
The Hikayat describes the sakai performing a number of tasks in the kingdom, such as building the rulers palace, repairing the citys canals, protecting
Melakas traders from enemies, patrolling the seas, transporting the ruler and
the nobility of Melaka to the islands for pleasure trips, forming the fighting fleets for Melaka, and defending the city.81 They undertake these tasks
together with the people of Melaka (i.e., the Malayu), and there is no hint of
antagonism or subservience of one group to another. Among those that are
mentioned as offering their support to the first Malayu ruler of Melaka are the
batin (Orang Asli or Orang Laut heads), who with their followers control the
tributaries, and the penghulu (a Malay title used for those with some authority over the Orang Asli communities) and their sakai.82 The Syair Perang
Johor, too, explicitly mentions the role of the sakai in the defense of the kingdom of Johor against its enemies.83 The nineteenth-century Tuhfat al-Nafis
repeats a story in the earlier Sejarah Melayu of the legendary strongman
named Badang. While in the latter text Badang is simply called a Sayung

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subject (hamba orang Sayung), the Tuhfat states that Badang was one of the
sea people.84 The authors of the Tuhfat, Raja Ahmad and his son Raja Ali Haji,
were prominent members of the Raja Muda court in Riau and were probably
repeating a popular tale current in the islands.
The Orang Laut also figure prominently in Pires Suma Oriental, which
relied on both Malayu traditions collected after the Portuguese conquest
of Melaka in 1511, as well as on the experiences of the Portuguese in Asia,
including Pires own. Pires writes that the Celates [Orang Laut]85 . . . are corsairs [corsairos] in small light craft . . . who go out pillaging in their boats and
fish, and are sometimes on land and sometimes at sea, of whom there are a
large number now in our time. They carry blow-pipes with their small arrows
of black hellebore which, as they touch blood, kill, as they often did to our
Portuguese in the enterprise and destruction of the famous city of Malacca
[Melaka], which is very famous among the nations. He further explains that
they lived near Singapore and also near Palembang, and when they accompanied the Palembang prince in exile they came to live also in Karimun and
Melaka.86
This is the first time direct mention is made of the Orang Laut role in
assisting the Melaka ruler to defend the citadel. What impressed Pires was their
use of blowguns and poison darts, which he describes as being highly lethal,
thus adding to the Orang Lauts reputation as feared fighters.87 The Orang
Lauts specific responsibility was the rulers safety, for Pires states that when
Paramjura [Permaisura] fled from Palembang the Orang Laut followed his
company and thirty of them went along together protecting his life.88 Safeguarding the ruler was a task the Orang Laut would have considered essential
to re-establishing the conditions for the revival of a successful entrepot. The
relatively rapid emergence of Melaka as a leading entrepot could very well
have been the result of the experience brought by the Palembang prince and
his followers as heirs of Sriwijaya. Wheatley earlier proposed such a link when
he concluded that Malacca [Melaka] was founded as, rather than developed
into, a trading port.89
In the Suma Oriental, the prince who succeeds his father as ruler in Palembang refuses to assume the Javanese title of sangaji, which was imposed on
Palembang rulers by Majapahit. His influence in neighboring lands, indicating the many islands that were part of the Orang Laut domain, encourages
him to declare his independence from Majapahit and to assume the new title
of Permaisura.90 The impending arrival of a Majapahit punitive expedition
forces him to place a thousand men and their wives on junks and native boats,
while he remains on land with some six thousand men to resist the Javanese.
When the battle is clearly lost, the Permaisura sails off with his followers to
the islands.91

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The same tale of the flight of the prince and his followers is rendered
in a much more poetic fashion in the Sejarah Melayu, captured nicely in
C. C. Browns English translation:
So vast was the fleet that there seemed to be no counting it; the masts of the
ships were like a forest of trees, their pennons and streamers were like driving
clouds and the state umbrellas of the Rajas like cirrus. So many were the craft
that accompanied Sri Tri Buana [the Permaisura in the Suma Oriental] that
the sea seemed to be nothing but ships.92

The ships carrying the Palembang prince are met by a fleet of four hundred
sails sent by Wan Sri Benian, the great queen of Bintan, one of the largest
islands in the Riau archipelago and a major center of the Orang Laut populations. The queens intention is to marry the prince, but when she learns how
young he is, she instead adopts him as a son. She later installs him as her
successor with the drums of sovereignty. When he decides to leave Bintan,
he asks her ministers to convey the following message to the queen: If she
wishes to show her affection for us, she will furnish us with men, elephants
and horses, as we propose to establish a city here at Temasek [Singapore].
The queen agrees to his request by explaining that we will never oppose any
wish of our son.93
The move to Singapore may not have been as peaceful as depicted in the
sources. Singapore was under a sangaji, as was Palembang, and thus would
have been part of Majapahits mandala. After only eight days in Singapore,
according to Pires, the Permaisura has the sangaji killed. He then remains in
Singapore for five years and then flees to escape a powerful Siamese expedition sent from Patani under the command of the father-in-law of the murdered sangaji. The Permaisura and his followers go to Muar, where they clear
the jungle for their gardens and orchards, fish, and plunder boats from Java
and China that come to the Muar River to obtain drinking water.94
The Muar River is linked to the Pahang River via the Penarikan passage.
Gold from upriver Pahang and forest products brought by Orang Asli communities were transported by water to the Muar River and sold to foreign
traders. Muar, like Singapore and later Melaka, was ideally suited for international trade, which had been the lifeblood of the Malayu rulers since the days
of Sriwijaya. The Orang Laut, therefore, were crucial to the success of any
prospective entrepot. This is confirmed by Pires account of the final stages of
the peregrination. A group of eighteen Orang Laut informs the Permaisura
of a site up the Bertam River suitable for agriculture and animal husbandry
sufficient to support a sizable population. They say to the Permaisura: We
too belong to thy ancient lordship of Palembang; we have always gone with

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thee; if the land [in Bertam] seem good to thee, it is right that thou shouldst
give us alms for our good intentions, and that our work should not be without
reward. He should then call himself king and give them honor and assistance. Once the Permaisura is established and becomes ruler in Bertam, he
makes hereditary nobles of the eighteen Orang Laut, plus their sons and wives.
Hence it is, says Pires, that all the mandarins [fidallguos, nobles] of Malacca
are descended from these.95 At the time of the arrival of the first Portuguese
to Melaka in 1509, according to Pires, the Laksamana and the Bendahara of
the kingdom were the fifth grandson descended of the original Orang Laut
ennobled by the Permaisura.96 The Permaisura is succeeded by his son, Iskandar Syah, who moves downriver to the coast with his Orang Laut father-in-law
and three hundred followers to participate in international trade. He establishes the port city of Melaka, and within three years the population increases
to two thousand and Melaka begins its transformation into the most important entrepot in the region.97
It is this unique relationship between the Orang Laut and the ancient
rulers of Sriwijaya/Malayu, reaffirmed by their descendants in Melaka and in
subsequent Malayu kingdoms, that proved a lasting legacy well into the nineteenth century. What is striking in Pires account is the claim that a sizeable
number of Orang Laut were ennobled by the Melaka ruler and that the two
most important offices of the Melaka kingdom, the Laksamana and the Bendahara, were held by Orang Laut and their descendants until 1509, or just two
years prior to the seizure of Melaka by the Portuguese. If, as argued earlier,
Pires relied on Malayu sources in reconstructing this early period of Melaka,
the important role of the Orang Laut in the kingdom was still acknowledged
at the time of the Portuguese conquest and may have been edited out in subsequent Malayu histories.
The Bendahara was the highest nonroyal position in the land, and the
early rulers of Melaka married the daughters of the Bendahara to reaffirm the
special ties between the the Malayu and the Orang Laut at a very precarious
time in the history of the kingdom. There was the ongoing threat from Majapahit, but the more immediate danger was Ayutthaya, which was founded in
1351. It rose to become the leading entrepot in the region and rightly regarded
Melaka as a threat to its status. The intervention of the Chinese emperor, who
warned Ayutthaya against attacking Melaka, was probably a key factor in
ensuring Melakas continuing existence.98 Under these circumstances, maintaining the Orang Laut as loyal subjects would have been a major priority of
the Melaka rulers.
After the fall of Melaka to the Portuguese in 1511, the last ruler of the
kingdom fled upriver to the royal residence in Bertam. From there he went to
Muar, then upriver via the Penarikan route to the Pahang River, then down-

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river to the coast, and finally by sea to Bintan.99 Except for the flight to Pahang,
it was a retracing in the opposite direction of the very route taken by the Sri
Tri Buana/Permaisura in the founding of Melaka. The route was deliberately
chosen because it offered protection by the Orang Laut, who demonstrated
a fierce loyalty to their Malayu lord. But even in the stronghold of the Orang
Laut the fugitive ruler had to flee into the jungle to escape capture by the
Portuguese. In the Sejarah Melayu version of these events, one of the sultans
officials summons his son and tells him: Go and collect all the people living on the coast, and we will then go and fetch the Ruler, and so he calls
the coast tribesmen who thereupon assembled. These coast tribesmen, or
Orang Laut, then bring Sultan Mahmud to Kampar.100
According to the Sejarah Melayu, Sultan Mahmud dies in Kampar and
is succeeded by his son, who takes the title Sultan Alauddin Syah. He moves
from Kampar to Pahang, where he stays for a while, and then makes his permanent residence at Pekan Tua in Johor. The Portuguese pursue the new ruler
at his new capital, where he is fiercely defended by the Orang Laut but is
forced to flee further upriver to Sayong.101 For the remainder of the sixteenth
century the new kingdom of Johor ruled by the Melaka royal line maintains a
precarious existence as a result of periodic attacks by the Portuguese and the
Acehnese, the new power in the Straits of Melaka.
The decision of Sultan Alauddin and many of his successors to establish
their capital somewhere up the Johor River was a sensible one. The Orang
Laut patrolling the mouth of the river could give adequate warning of any
approaching enemy fleet, as well as assemble Orang Laut in the neighboring
islands to help defend the ruler. Equally important was that the river empties
into one of the busiest waterways in the region. Between the Hook of Barbukit
on the Johor mainland and the island of Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Putih)
were three channels through which ships could sail between the South China
Sea and the southern entrance of the Straits of Melaka. This was a particularly
dangerous stretch that claimed many ships even in the nineteenth century.102
The task of the Orang Laut was to guide traders through these treacherous
straits and up the Johor River to the capital, and to attack those considered
Johors competitors or enemies.103
The most crucial task of the Orang Laut remained the safety of the person of the ruler. Both the Suma Oriental and the Sejarah Melayu describe
the Orang Laut in the role of transporting the ruler to safety or defending
the ruler against enemy attack. But there were also enemies within from
whom the ruler needed protection, and in times of serious internal disorder
the Orang Laut could prove decisive. In the seventeenth century there was a
serious rivalry between the Laksamana and the Bendahara families of Johor.
The office of Bendahara was traditionally the most important in the kingdom

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and, according to Pires, was initially filled by an important Orang Laut leader.
In the Sejarah Melayu, one of the Bendaharas was such an influential figure
that he rose for no one but the ruler, and ships captains from the regions
above the wind prayed for a safe voyage to Melaka and for the Bendahara Sri
Maharaja.104 The Laksamana was another powerful official in the Melaka and
Johor kingdoms whose function was often likened to an admiral of the fleet.
Since the fleets of both Melaka and Johor were predominantly manned by
Orang Laut, it is not surprising that the most famous Laksamana in Malayu
history, Hang Tuah, is depicted in the Hikayat Hang Tuah as being originally
a member of the sakai, a reference in the Hikayat to the Orang Laut.
In the major confrontation between the Bendahara and the Laksamana
in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the role of the Orang Laut as
guardians of the ruler is made abundantly clear. The Laksamana and his sons
had managed to arrogate all the major positions of power in the kingdom,
thereby relegating the Bendahara family to a minor subsidiary role. As regent
to the young Johor ruler, the Laksamana was placed in an ideal position to
pursue the goals of both the kingdom and his family. What became apparent
in the episode was the importance of the person of the ruler. As long as the
Laksamana retained official as well as physical control of the young ruler, he
remained unopposed in the kingdom. A graphic account in contemporary
Dutch accounts describes how the Laksamana and his family were removed
from power. One day the Bendahara faction somehow managed to kidnap the
young ruler. When the Laksamana family realized what had happened, they
understood the gravity of the situation and sought to escape by boat with
all their accumulated riches and the kingdoms regalia. The Bendahara then
had the royal drums (nobat) and the reed pipes (nafiri) played to indicate to
the Orang Laut crew of the Laksamanas boat that the ruler of the kingdom
was with the Bendahara. The Orang Laut crews thus abandoned the Laksamana and his family and came over to protect their lord. The abandonment
of the Laksamana and his family sealed their fate, and the last we hear of the
Laksamana is of his desperate attempt to ward off the attacking Orang Laut
by firing coins from his cannon once his ammunition had been exhausted.105
The dramatic intervention of the Orang Laut in this affair highlights their recognition that the Malayu ruler was indispensable to their livelihood. He not
only provided legitimation for their activities, but he also assured a reliable
international market for their products.

Conclusion: Maintaining Ethnic Boundaries

The lifestyle and economic pursuits of the Orang Laut formed a meaningful
and appropriate ethnic boundary distinguishing them from the Malayu. In

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the Suma Oriental, the distinction is implied in the Permaisuras search for a
secure and favorable place to settle. When the Permaisura flees Palembang, he
is accompanied by a thousand Malayu and thirty Orang Laut. Their economic
activities are clearly distinguished in the search for a permanent settlement. In
Singapore his people planted rice and fished and plundered their enemies,
and at Muar the Permaisura, with a thousand men, cleared the jungle to
plant rice and orchards. But at Muar they also fished and sometimes robbed
and plundered the sampans that came to the Muar River. It was the Orang
Laut who recommend Bertam to Permaisura because they saw how well this
place was adapted for a large town, and that they [the Malayu] could sow large
fields of rice there, plant gardens, pasture herd. Upon considering a move to
Bertam, the Permaisura explains that he plans to leave the fourth part of my
people in Muar to profit from the land where we have devoted so much work
to reclaiming.106
Although Pires does not explicitly identify farming with the Malayu and
fishing/raiding/trading with the Orang Laut, the pattern of settlement in Bertam and Melaka imply this division. While the Permaisura settles with his
subjects in Bertam because it is ideal for agricultural pursuits, his son and successor Iskandar Syah decides to move his residence downstream. He ordered
the people of Bretam [Bertam] to come, and only left people like farmers
there, and he sent all the Celate [Orang Laut] mandarins [nobles] to live on
the slopes of the Malacca hill to act as his guards. Among these are his fatherin-law, an important Orang Laut leader who had been made the chief mandarin in the Permaisuras government, and three hundred of his Orang Laut.
In keeping with an old relationship dating back to the days of Sriwijaya, the
Orang Laut flock to the new settlement to forge links with a Malayu lord who
promises to create a new entrepot and restore trade stability in the area after
years of turmoil. According to Pires, people began to come from the Aru side
and from other places, men such as Celates robbers and also fishermen, in
such numbers that three years after his coming Malacca was a place with two
thousand inhabitants.107
The obvious economic and political benefits accruing to the Orang Laut
community in a Malayu entrepot in the past would have encouraged the preservation and even accentuation of their distinctive lifeways and identity. In
more recent times, however, the Orang Laut would have less reason to maintain difference because of the change in circumstances. Some may nevertheless adopt the strategy of the Urak Lawoik and the Moken, who may not see
any political or economic advantage in their way of life yet strongly hold to
practices that define them in opposition to the landed communities. The
main reason for enforcing difference is to retain a way of life that promises
far greater freedom and independence than any other. Therefore, they make a

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deliberate effort to emphasize their nomadic lifestyle by using boats and technologies distinct from those found among the inhabitants on land. As one
scholar noted, despite the use of metal tools in the building of their boats, the
Moken retain the long-held tradition of lashing the planks with rattan. The
metal blade of the adze is also bound with rattan, and the design of the adze is
the same as the stone implements found in museums.108 They also consciously
avoid using various modern means of catching fish and reject accumulation
and storage. All these are technically within their means and capability, but
they refuse to employ them, preferring to maintain their ethnic boundary
with the more sedentary coastal dwellers.109 Even the deprecatory views of
outsiders are repeated because they reaffirm the Urak Lawoik/Mokens chosen
way of life.110
For the sea peoples in general the seascape remains the source of knowledge for survival in their environment and a living history of their past.
Each of the islands provides not only shelter and sustenance, but represents
a groups specific storehouse of information for present and future generations. Inhabiting an island claimed by an Orang Laut group, or preventing
that group from visiting its islands, is tantamount to denying the Orang Laut
access to their ancestors, their history, and their source of knowledge. These
form the building blocks of their ethnic identity and distinguish them from
others.
Because of the crucial role played by the Orang Laut (and most likely
the Urak Lawoik and Moken in the period when the northern Sea of Malayu
routes were favored by traders) in maintaining the power of a Malayu ruler,
the ruler sought to bind them closer to him through intermarriage, the linking of traditions, and the awarding of titles. All three methods were used in
the establishment of Melaka and continued to be the policy of the Malayu rulers in subsequent centuries. So important were the Orang Laut to the Malayu
ruler that in the Sejarah Melayu the Orang Laut remind the Permaisura that
[w]e too belong to thy ancient lordship of Palembang; we have always gone
with thee.111 In this Malayu document there is no evidence of the denigration of the Orang Laut, which is so often found in more recent accounts.
Moreover, many of the Orang Laut leaders were granted spouses from the
Malayu royal family and presented with major offices in the Melaka kingdom.
Intermarriage as a policy continued to be a strategy pursued by wealthy, landbased patrons seeking the services of the Orang Laut.112
As the Orang Laut became less useful to the Malayu or the land-based
societies, this avenue for establishing strong relationships disappeared. While
in earlier centuries they could bargain from a position of strength and therefore preserve a much more equitable relationship with the Malayu, the readiness with which they are willing to recite self-demeaning tales to outsiders is

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a subtle form of erecting ethnic boundaries to distinguish themselves from

those on land and even to forestall hostile action from them. The Orang Laut
and the Moken may have lost their economic and strategic importance to
the dominant ethnic land communities and their rulers, but they continue to
reinforce difference as a strategy for survival of their chosen way of life. Their
situation bears a strong resemblance to that of a closely related group, the
interior forest dwellers known collectively as Orang Asli/Suku Terasing.

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Chapter 7

The Orang Asli/Suku Terasing

and the Malayu

he interior of the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra is home

to numerous groups who are distinguished from the
Malayu by their nomadic or seminomadic lifestyles. In
the past they were referred to by distinctive names or more generally by the
areas where they lived or which they exploited. Only in the twentieth century were names such as Orang Asli (indigenous people) in Malaysia and
Suku Terasing (isolated tribes) in Indonesia applied to all such groups as an
administrative convenience.1 While such terms convey marginality, this was
not always the case in the long history of intercourse between these interior
communities and the Malayu. For many centuries the complementarity of
their economies encouraged the maintenance of their differing lifeways. The
interior groups were the principal collectors of forest products in demand
in the international marketplace, while the Malayu provided the facilities for
international trade and were the source of the iron, salt, cloth, ceramics, and
other necessary and prestige goods desired by the interior communities. There
was every reason to encourage the preservation of these complementary and
mutually beneficial lifestyles.
This chapter provides another example of the manner in which a shift
in trade affected relationships between groups, leading to a reassessment of
ethnic boundaries. Prior to the late nineteenth century, the relations between
the Malayu and the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing were marked by profitable economic arrangements. But the transformation of the land from forests to agricultural export plantations in the nineteenth century removed the relevance
and value of the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing as the suppliers of highly desired
forest products. Pressures of modernity, the nation-state, and the competitive
global economy made the lifestyle and economic pursuits of the forest and
hill people increasingly irrelevant and undervalued. While some succumbed
to the pressures, others fought a dispiriting battle to retain their unique lifestyles and ethnic identities.

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Orang Asli on the Malay Peninsula and the Suku Terasing

in Sumatra
The Orang Asli are generally divided into three broad divisions: the Semang
or Negrito, the Senoi, and the Orang Asli Malayu (Aboriginal Malayu).2 Today
the Semang rarely occupy lands above one thousand meters (3,280 feet) in
elevation and live in the coastal foothills and inland river valleys of Perak,
interior Pahang, Ulu Kelantan, and across into southern Thailand in Ulu
Patani and Phattalung/Trang.3 Most are found on the fringes of the forest and
maintain links with Malayu farmers and Chinese shopkeepers. In the past they
appear to have also frequented the coasts. Excavations in the early part of the
twentieth century of a settlement site on the Perak coast believed to be dated
to Hindu times (most likely sometime in the early first millennium CE)
revealed the presence of skeletons showing distinct Negro affinities.4 The
Semang appear to have had a long association with farmers and merchants
and were favorably placed to exploit the resources of both the forest and the
lowlands.5 In addition to being collectors of forest products for international
trade, they also sought wage labor with the lowland communities.6
Unlike their Malayu and Senoi neighbors, who focus primarily on farming with a little hunting and fishing, the Semang adapt themselves to whatever ecological space is left by surrounding communities. This fact was
also noted early in the twentieth century by Schebesta, who commented
that it is a condition of Negrito [Semang] life that they should be able to
attach themselves at will to their technologically more dominant neighbours
whenever there is some bounty to be gained.7 Among the Senoi, the Temiar
occupy the upper reaches of the rivers in the remote interior mountains of
the Main Range and have limited contact with the lowlands, while the Semai
live mainly in the plains and the foothills of Perak. The Orang Malayu Asli are
found from Selangor southward. Through long association with their more
numerous Malayu neighbors, they have increasingly become acculturated to
Malayu ways.
Geoffrey Benjamin suggests that the conventionalized three-category division of the Orang Asli be regarded as part of institutionalised societal patterns, which he calls Semang, Senoi, and Malayic, with the last incorporating
a spectrum from the Orang Asli Malayu to the Malayu themselves. The
Semang are mainly involved in foraging activities, the Senoi practice swidden agriculture and a more sedentary lifestyle while engaging in some trade
and trapping, and the Malayic combine a basic farming or fishing subsistence
with the more important collection and trade of forest and marine products.8
The three major Orang Asli categories arose, Benjamin argues, from a conscious decision by certain individuals or groups to avoid becoming part of

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the state, thus being labeled tribal. These tribals then adopted a style of
life that came to be termed Semang, Senoi, and Melayu Asli.9 In the following discussion the three generalized categories of Semang, Senoi, and Orang
Asli Malayu will be maintained with the awareness that these are not fixed or
inflexible categories but instead merge into one another. Despite perceived
differences between groups, they would likely echo the sentiments of the
Orang Asli and Orang Laut in Johor who previously regarded themselves as
leaves of the same tree.10
A common belief persists that the Orang Asli practice a nomadic lifestyle
and roam the forests without any fixed territorial base. But already in the late
nineteenth century Swettenham observed that a Senoi group kept exclusively
to its own valley and was frequently at odds with neighbors on either side.11
The Senoi on the Kampar River in the Kinta district of Perak were reported in
1915 to move within a small radius of the foothills and regarded the Pahang
border area as an unknown, unexplored land.12 In his observations of the
Semang early last century, Schebesta noted that they did not wander randomly in the forest but as far as possible remained within their own territories.13 The Semang Batek will move beyond their lands in search of spouses,
but they tend to operate within their own familiar landscape because they
know where food and other resources are found and where their close kin are
located.14 Having occupied a specific bounded area of exploitation for generations enables an Orang Asli community to gain an intimate knowledge of its
resources.15 Such knowledge is indispensable in locating and extracting the
valuable resins, aromatic woods, and rattans for international trade.16 Moreover, traditional lands nurture physical and emotional well-being among the
Orang Asli and reinforce their unique identity.17
In Sumatra, the term Suku Terasing, or isolated ethnic groups, is officially used for those whose lifestyle is regarded as not yet fully integrated in
the process of national development.18 The term rejects any claim to indigeny
and subsumes official and public attitude toward the groups backwardness
(terkebelakang) in relation to mainstream Indonesians.19 Although the term
is now widely used, the people continue to refer to themselves by what they
believe are more accurate and less offensive names.
The Suku Terasing communities in Sumatra live either between the
major rivers or between tributaries of a river, and they collect forest products
for the downstream Malayu polities. In east coast Sumatra the main Malayu
kingdoms in the past had their core population living along riverbanks, peat
swamps, and peneplain zones of Palembang, Jambi, Indragiri, Kampar, Siak,
and the downstream areas of Rokan. More heavily populated were the piedmont floodplains in the Rokan, Siak, Kampar, the Indragiri basin, and the
northernmost parts of the Batang Hari River, where many of the Minang-

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kabau came to settle. Within the forests in the peneplain zone, where the lands
between the rivers were particularly large, lived the Petalangan (between the
Siak, Kampar, and Indragiri Rivers), the Talang Mamak (along the Indragiri
River in Bukit 30 National Park), and the Orang Batin and Orang Rimba
(between the Batang Hari and the Musi). As collectors of forest products for
former Malayu kingdoms, they filled a complementary economic niche that
helped them to maintain a distinctive lifestyle and ethnic identity.20
Among the most well-known of the Suku Terasing is a group referred to
in ethnographic literature and in public discourse as Kubu, an exonym that
members of the group themselves reject. One suggestion is that it is a Malayu
term used for the forest people who had contact with the Malayu polities in
southeastern Sumatra over the centuries. The term itself, so the Sumatran
Malayu claim, is the same word as fortification because of the resistance
of the Kubu to becoming Malayu (masuk Malayu). Early last century van
Dongen collected tales of the origins of the Kubu and claimed that the word
derived from ngubu, meaning forest.21 Whatever the derivation of the
word, Kubu is often associated in many peoples minds with primitive,
dirty, stupid, etc., and is therefore rejected by the group.22 Instead, the term
Orang Batin, people of the batin [title of Suku Terasing leaders], is used by
the former tame Kubu, and Orang Rimba, or people of the forest, for those
formerly known in the literature as wild Kubu.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a distinction was made
between the Kubu based on differing subsistence patterns, language, beliefs,
and boundary mechanisms to distinguish the group from the Malayu.23 Early
characterizations used the measure of the Malayu to distinguish between the
tame and the wild Kubu. Such characterizations were based on a belief in
a linear progression from the primitive nomadic forest hunting-gathering
lifestyle to the more civilized sedentary agricultural existence. In reality,
however, only the tame Kubu, enjoyed both worlds because of their ability to move easily between these two different ways of life. They interacted
frequently with the Malayu and could move into the Malayu world with little
difficulty by acquiring the outward signs of ethnicity defined by language,
dress, and diet. Those who intended to stay longer among the Malayu could
also quietly absorb and apply Malayu customary laws and practices (adat).
Upon returning to the forest, they could then revert to their own ways.24
Early studies have tended to focus on the tame Kubu, who are regarded as
the oldest communities in Jambi. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
the Batin Duabelas (the Twelve Batin), the most accessible groups along the
Batang Hari, were subject to corve labor. Their varied tasks included preparing
for a royal wedding, outfitting a ship to carry envoys to the Dutch in Batavia,
providing timber and rattan to build defenses, and serving when summoned

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downstream by the ruler to defend the kingdom from attack.25 Similar duties
would have been expected of other groups, such as the Batin Sembilan (the
Nine Batin),26 who generally live east of the Tembesi River in Jambi.
The degree of contact between the forest groups and the Malayu was
greatest in the nineteenth century. A dipati of the Orang Batin Sembilan in
Jambi informed a Dutch expedition sent to the interior of Sumatra in 18779
that he, his father, and grandfather had always spoken the language of the
Malayu. He even admitted that he could not understand the Forest Kubu
(Orang Rimba), whose language, he said, was purer.27 The dipati lived only
some twenty miles from Jambi, and members of his community could speak
Malayu. It was noted, too, that in Palembang the Forest Kubu had already
adopted Malayu clothing and cuisine to a great extent. When a Kubu family dressed as Malayu went to Jambi to sell rubber, they were indistinguishable from the Jambi people. For the Orang Batin Sembilan groups, becoming
Malayu was not difficult since it was not an uncommon practice for Malayu
men from Jambi and Palembang to take one and sometimes even two Batin
Sembilan wives.28
While the Jambi and Palembang men would have appreciated the value
of such marriages in assuring a successful exchange with the local community,
the Orang Batin Sembilan families would have regarded the addition of a foreign trader favorably, as a useful mediator with the outside world. Although it
was necessary in international trade to have intermediaries who could operate comfortably and profitably in two or more cultural worlds, there would
have been strong pressure to maintain ethnic boundaries between the forest
people and the Malayu to assure the continuing success of the trade in forest
products. A change occurred in the relationship by the late nineteenth century when forest products were no longer a major source of revenue for the
Malayu kingdoms or the British and Dutch colonial states. The rationale for
the maintenance of ethnic boundaries between the forest groups and the outside world came to be less a function of economic benefits and more a matter
of ethnic pride. Among the Orang Rimba today, there is a strong avoidance
pattern in the culture, which makes any intimate relationship with an outsider a contravention of customary law (adat) punishable by both supernatural sanction and societal rejection.29
The Orang Rimba live west of the Tembesi River in the Bukit Duabelas
region and north to the borders of contemporary Riau province.30 They pursue a lifestyle based on hunting wild animals with spears and dogs, fishing,
and the gathering of wild fruits and roots, while the Orang Batin are more
likely to be semisedentary swidden agriculturalists. In the past, however,
they were reported to have used camouflaged pits to hunt large game, and
it was believed that their intensive hunting activities might have contributed

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to the disappearance of the elephant, rhinoceros, and the orangutan in their

lands. They were said to have abandoned their nomadic ways, settled down,
and adopted Malayu customs and clothing.31 The distinction between wild
and tame Kubu may not have been as sharp in earlier centuries, for Dutch
sources in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries refer to all the forest people in southeast Sumatra as Kubu (Koeboe). The distinction between those
more or less acculturated to Malayu culture also appears among the Sakai in
Siak, who distinguish between the Sakai dalam (inner Sakai) and the Sakai
luar (outer Sakai).32 Such distinctions among the Kubu and the Sakai would
have been accentuated in later centuries when there was a greater tendency to
adopt the ways of the dominant lowland cultures.
In earlier centuries international trade encouraged a greater disposition
to preserve a lifestyle that strengthened certain skills and knowledge of the
forests as well as an ability to operate in the Malayu world. There were always
leaders, some offspring of MalayuOrang Asli unions, who acquired the necessary knowledge of downstream communities in order to facilitate their
tasks. When forest products became less desirable to the outside world, there
were interior communities such as the Orang Rimba in southeast Sumatra
who actively rejected any infusion of outside influences as a defensive mechanism to preserve their way of life. Others, subject to increasing pressures of
development, maneuvered between two cultural worlds. Despite the tendency
at different periods for the Malayu to make Islam the defining feature of their
ethnicity, there were groups that followed the path of some of the Batak,
whose adoption of Islam did not mean the rejection of their own way of life.
As the Dutch discovered in the late nineteenth century, male members of
Kubu families were already moving comfortably as Malayu while in Malayu
communities and then reverted to being a Kubu back in their home villages.
It was at the edges of these two worlds that the dynamism of ethnic identity was clearly evident. The fluidity of ideas and porosity of ethnic identities
at the periphery paradoxically accentuated ethnic difference. The reason is
that the economic complementarity of the groups made the ethnic boundaries clear, while the porosity of these boundaries provided individuals with
unimpeded access to well-defined options. As a case in point, as long as the
tame and the wild Kubu fulfilled the important function of collecting valuable forest products for the Malayu, their way of life was respected and even
encouraged. Economic interdependency in earlier centuries had fostered a
respect between the two communities. With the shift in international demand
away from forest products, beginning with the introduction of pepper as a
major cash crop in the seventeenth century, the interior collectors of forest
products became increasingly irrelevant to the Malayu.33 They became the
target of derision and contempt because they were everything that the Malayu

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were not: they had no settled existence, ate unclean (haram) food, and left
their bodies uncovered except for breechcloths. Regarded as little more than
animals, they were then hunted and sold as slaves, with some eventually working for the Malayu in the pepper plantations.34
As a result of these traumatic experiences, one Orang Rimba group came
to associate the name Malayu with layu, a root word in their language that
is used to indicate the death of growth tissue, hence to refer generally to anything that had a wasting effect on a living thing or soul. In this way the name
Malayu became a reminder of the danger of the Orang Malayu, or people
who cause a wasting effect. Even among their deities, the Orang Rimba distinguish between those from upstream (where the Orang Rimba themselves
live), who were benign, and those downstream (where the Malayu live), some
of whom were malicious.35
In earlier centuries the relationship between the Malayu and the Orang
Rimba was far more sanguine. Leaders of the Orang Rimba were given titles
and formally incorporated into the Malayu system of government. Their
principal tasks were to facilitate the movement of trade goods and to assure
the Orang Rimba of the protection of their Malayu lord. Of equal importance
to the Orang Rimba was the legitimizing role the lowland Malayu ruler could
provide in trade with the outside world, particularly in determining acceptable weights at a time when there were no fixed standard measurements. At
the turn of the twentieth century, some Orang Rimba continued to weigh
valuable goods with a copper plate said to have been given to the group by
the legendary Palembang queen Ratu Sinuhun. She reputedly presented them
with their first cloth and salt in return for forest products, thus initiating the
Orang Rimba to world trade.36
The importance of the relationship between the Kubu (Orang Batin/
Orang Rimba) and the Malayu is noted in various reports reaching VOC
officials. In one case in Jambi, the Kubu indicated their wish to follow one
particular Malayu official rather than another. Their wishes were taken seriously because they could physically threaten the Malayu subjects living in the
interior, but more importantly they could refuse to deliver the forest products that were key to the prosperity of the downriver kingdoms.37 The Orang
Batin, who were more acculturated to the Malayu than were the Orang Rimba,
found ways to continue to participate in beneficial economic arrangements.
Even after the demise of the Malayu kingdoms, former Malayu officials were
preferred as patrons and links to the outside world.38 The Orang Rimba followed a different path because of the devastating effects of diseases, unpleasant experiences with outsiders, and the threat of slave raiders. They chose to
erect ethnic boundaries strongly reinforced by customary law to limit and
even end further contact.39

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The Malayu kingdom of Jambi in the late seventeenth century was made
very much aware of the consequences of abusing the trust of the interior
groups. When three of the Orang Batin Sembilan children presented to the
Jambi ruler were later sold to a third party, the group viewed this as a grave
affront. They took up arms against the Jambi ruler and were joined by Orang
Batin Sembilan groups from the Lalang and Komering Rivers in Palembang.
They blocked the land route that passed through their land to the Jambi capital, forcing the Jambi court to seek a resolution of the conflict.40 A combined
Orang Batin force operating within their own areas of exploitation in the forest made them a formidable enemy. Also weighing on the mind of the ruler
was the real possibility that the Orang Batin would divert their forest products
to another river basin, thus favoring a rival Malayu lord. Since the major rivers were linked by their numerous tributaries and short land passages, moving ones products down another river basin would not have been difficult.41
What is also evident in this incident was the balanced relationship based on
economic self-interest between the downstream kingdom and the upstream
Orang Batin. Before the nineteenth century, there was little real attraction for
the Orang Batin to seek a lifestyle associated with the Malayu because it was
their specialized skill in the rain forest that assured their value to and respect
from the Malayu.
Another major group of forest people in Sumatra is the Petalangan,
whose traditional areas of exploitation are in the lowland tropical rain forest between the Siak, Kampar, and Indragiri Rivers. The Petalangan are said
to consist of twenty-nine Pebatinan (Pebatinan kuang oso tigo pulou, thirty
Batinates minus one), each headed by a batin. They were important forest
collectors and also engaged in dry rice agriculture (ladang) and horticulture.
In exchange for tribute of honey and wax to the Siak ruler, they obtained
iron, salt, and cloth, items of great value to the interior populations.42 The
Petalangan were typical of the forest peoples both on the Malay Peninsula and
in Sumatra who from early times established lucrative exchange agreements
with the Malayu.
The Petalangan are associated with two early kingdoms, about which very
little is known. The first was the kingdom of Gassip, which was established on
the Siak River and named after one of the interior groups that constituted the
realm. Each of the groups was headed by a leader who was given a title by the
ruler, such as batin, pembilang, jokerah, patih, anten-anten, panghulu, or tuatua. The Petalangan were the most important of the rulers subjects because
it is said that they and the progenitors of the royal family originated from
the Minangkabau highlands. There is, however, little evidence to support this
view, which may only have arisen because the Minangkabau and the Petalangan share similar matrilineal practices (adat kamanakan).43 Contact between

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the Petalangan and the Minangkabau may have intensified in the seventeenth
century with the large movements of Minangkabau out of their homeland
down the rivers to the east coast.44 According to Petalangan traditions, when
the last ruler died without a successor, the kingdom was dissolved and the
people fled to the forest (talang) and became the ancestors of the Petalangan.
No corroborating documents have been found that mention the Gassip kingdom, though one Dutch account claims that it existed only for a brief time
from the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries.45
The relationship between the Petalangan and the Malayu courts continued with the foundation of the Siak kingdom by Raja Kecil sometime in
17223.46 In the nineteenth century the Malayu offices of bintara kanan and
bintara kiri were appointed by the court to serve as intermediaries between
the sultan and the Petalangan. Among the duties requested of the Petalangan
were building fortifications when required, assisting in the rulers travels, and
delivering some of their rice harvests in exchange for salt and iron goods at
a price fixed by the ruler. Specific pengkalan, or posts, established at strategic
market crossroads in the interior, were designated as the points of exchange.
The Petalangan were exempt from participation in foreign wars but were
expected to maintain the security of the interior.47
The Petalangan are also linked to the kingdom of Pelalawan, located in
the area bearing that name on the Kampar River. Little is known about the
origins of this kingdom, which was autonomous but subordinate to the Siak
kingdom established by Raja Kecil in the early eighteenth century. Approval
of the four Pelalawan datu was essential for any claimant to the Siak throne,
and Pelalawan was one of only three areas where the descendants of Raja Kecil
originated.48 The Petalangan would have been valuable to the Pelalawan ruler
because of their role in collecting forest products.
Malayu rulers did not interfere in the customary laws of the forest people. Because the batin were believed to have an affinity with spirits and the
supernatural,49 they were given the authority to deal with land issues within
their jurisdiction. This was especially important among the Petalangan, who
distinguished between various types of land. There was the village land
(tanah kampong), where the homes of the people could be built; the orchard
land (tanah dusun) for their fruit trees; swidden land (tanah peladangan)
for dry rice cultivation, where a year of cultivation required a five-year fallow period; and the protected forests (rimba larangan), which were divided
into the reserved forest (rimba simpanan), the area of special fauna and
flora, and the reserved stands of sialang trees (rimba kepungan sialang), or
trees infested with honey bees. These lands were not simply to provide for
the physical well-being of the community but were a source of social and
spiritual knowledge.50 Rights to the land were determined by the tombo or

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terombo (genealogical histories), and it was these oral recollections that were
the basis for the rulers decisions regarding ownership, use, and preservation
of tribal lands. In the Petalangans nyanyian panjang (long songs), the aim is
not simply to entertain through the adventures of the main protagonists, but
also to instruct. Interspersed through the songs are customary prescriptions,
the wisdom of the elders, and the story of the ancestors who opened the lands
and built the village, the gardens, and the fields that form the heritage of the
group.51 In addition to the purely economic arrangements, the Petalangan
demonstrated their readiness to serve the ruler with fighting men because
they believed that the ruler could protect them from any outside threat.52
A recent ethnographic study of the Sakai in Siak underscores the complexity of Suku Terasing identity.53 Through intermarriage, there emerged an
intermediate ethnic identity, which the Sakai themselves term Sakai Malayu
or Sakai Cino to distinguish it from the Sakai Asli, or the Original Sakai.
Yet one professed Sakai Malayu was indistinguishable from the Sakai Asli, even
to the point of possessing similar shamanic practices. The Sakai Asli will admit
only of some minor differences in their language and the earlier adoption of
Islam as forming the boundaries between the two groups. The Sakai Malayu
regard both as Orang Riau (people of Riau), while some claim that they are all
Malayu or even Minangkabau.54 For the Sakai and many other groups in the
vicinity of the Straits of Melaka, ethnic affiliation is not a single fixed identity but a spectrum of identities. Nathan Porath explains this phenomenon
in terms of affiliation through association, in which there is a gradation of
affinal links that extend outward into other areas to incorporate a number
of different outsiders.55 It is therefore possible for one group to declare itself
Minangkabau or Malayu under one set of circumstances, as Orang Riau in
another, and Sakai Malayu or Sakai Asli in yet another. This fluid concept
of ethnicities is an important economic and political mechanism that can
be employed to advance the interests of individuals or the whole group. The
ethnic choice made at any one time along a spectrum could determine the
success or failure of an economic venture or a political relationship.
Among the Malayu in Sumatra, the Sakai in Siak are noted as possessing
the powers of black magic, which the Sakai call olemu tangan kii (left-hand
knowledge). The explanation given is that the Sakai and the Riau Suku Terasing are regarded as the magical left hand of the sultan. The Sakai believe
that only the sultan as an exemplary Muslim could use this left-hand knowledge or mystical power (sakti) derived from the land.56 This expression of the
special relationship between the Sakai and the Malayu ruler recalls an earlier
episode recorded in the Sejarah Melayu, where Demang Lebar Daun, believed
to be the leader of the indigenous community, enters into a social compact
with the Malayu ruler Sri Tri Buana.57

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There are other less numerous Suku Terasing groups in Sumatra, for
example the Bonai along the Rokan River, and the Orang Talang Kerumutan
and Orang Talang Napuh along the coasts. Off the coast of Sumatra is also
a group of islands that are valuable because they are a source of sago and
fresh water. The harvesters of the sago are the Suku Terasing inhabitants of
these islands and of the low marshy lands of the Sumatran coast, such as the
Akit and the Orang Utan.58 These and other small Suku Terasing communities often only appear in historical sources in relation to trade with the outside
world, but precisely which group is being discussed is often unclear.
Like the Orang Laut groups, smaller Suku Terasing tend to either merge or
be absorbed by a larger group. Numbers mean strength, and in disputes over
areas of exploitation, whether in the seas or in the rain forests, the numerically
dominant almost always emerge victorious. Among the Orang Laut and the
Suku Terasing, the groups that became the most influential were those that
had strong economic and social relationships with the Malayu polities downstream. These were the Orang Batin and the Orang Rimba in Palembang and
Jambi, and the Petalangan in Siak, Indragiri, and Kampar. Despite the great
benefits accruing from their special relationship with the Malayu, these Suku
Terasing groups (with the known exception of the Orang Rimba) were also
the most vulnerable because of the constant temptation to become increasingly Malayu at the expense of their own identity.
The forest peoples have been characterized as opportunistic foragers,
who follow a strategy of foraging widely and diffusely on a variety of plants
and animals rather than focusing only on a few species.59 This strategy is ideal
in the rain forest with its numerous species of plants but only limited quantities of each. The absence of larger animals as a source of protein is compensated by a rich variety of insects and other smaller creatures. In moving
through the landscape, the forest dwellers snack frequently on berries, small
fruit, and small insects or creatures found on or near their paths. As a survival
strategy, they do not limit themselves to forest foraging but also exploit the
littoral and riverine environments. On the Malay Peninsula and on Sumatra,
sago palms grow in lowland forests and at the edges of mangrove swamps.
These palms are a source of starch for the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing and occasionally a good hunting site for wild boar, which knock down the trees and
rip the trunks with their tusks to get at the edible soft fibrous core. The forest,
then, is not the green desert it is often depicted to be, but an integral part of
the forest dwellers larger food gathering and hunting economy that exploits
different ecozones in a strategy of survival.60
A symbiotic relationship existed at the edge of the forests between the
Malayu and the interior communities. Forest clearance by the Malayu for
slash and burn agriculture brought an unintended benefit for the more

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nomadic interior groups.61 Increased sunlight in the cleared Malayu land

enabled a variety of undergrowth to appear, attracting wild animals that
became another source of food for the forest and hill peoples. In hunting
these animals, they performed a service for the Malayu by controlling damage
to the crops. The Malayu also provided the interior groups with opportunities
to gain additional income by helping to clear the land, harvest the crops, and,
in the twentieth century, to tap the rubber trees.62 But the complementarity
of the economic roles of the interior forest and hill peoples and the Malayu
was far more important than simply for subsistence reasons. Until the late
nineteenth century, the interior forest and hill peoples were essential to the
economic success of the Malayu polities because of their ability to extract forest products that were in great demand in the international marketplace. This
was an ancient relationship that extended back to the prehistoric period.63

Prehistoric and Historic Relations

MalayuOrang Asli relations can be traced back to about 1000 BCE when the
ancestors of the two groups first confronted each other on the Malay Peninsula.64 This initial encounter favored the Orang Asli, who had settled the land
some five hundred to one thousand years previously and were numerically
the larger of the two. The Malayo-Polynesian speakers who remained were
therefore restricted to the coast. From the early Malayo-Polynesian speakers
in the south of the peninsula evolved some of the first Orang Malayu Asli,
while in the center and the north the Semang and the Senoi populations had
greater contact with the civilizations to the north and came to speak Aslian
languages belonging to the Austroasiatic family. The generally held belief
that the Semang and the Senoi populations developed from Hoabinhian and
Southern Mongoloid ancestors is disputed by Benjamin and Bulbeck, who
argue that local evolution rather than external migration accounts for differences among the Orang Asli communities. Both processes were probably
involved in the formation of the ethnic communities on the peninsula in this
early period.
The traditional view is that the Orang Asli can be traced to the migration of two major races in the past: the Australoid and the Southern Mongoloid, although there is a recognition that in situ evolution also had a role.65
The Semang population stemmed from the Australoid, while the Senoi were
descendants of the later Southern Mongoloid migration. The archaeological
record becomes more detailed later on the Malay Peninsula with assemblages
found in Hoabinhian sites dated between 16000 and 8000 BCE. The hunting and gathering Hoabinhians were ancestral to the Semang and to a lesser
extent to the Senoi. The Senois biological affinity was more with the Neolithic

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Southern Mongoloid population that migrated into the peninsula about 2000
BCE. There appears to have been a sharp transition from the Hoabinhian
to the Neolithic, with the change marked by the introduction of agriculture
and Austroasiatic languages.66 The Semang adopted Austroasiatic languages,
and so today both the Semang and the Senoi speak Austroasiatic languages in
the subgroup Aslian, which has distant relationships with Mon and Khmer.67
The Semang, however, continued to maintain their hunting and foraging lifestyle and did not adopt the agricultural developments of the Neolithic. In
this regard they were much more descendants of the Hoabinhians than of the
Neolithic Southern Mongoloids associated with the Senoi.68
An alternate reconstruction of the Orang Asli population on the peninsula has long been advocated by Geoffrey Benjamin, who basically shares
Solheims view (see chapter 1) in emphasizing local adaptation rather than
migration in explaining group differentiation. Benjamin believes that until
2500 to 2000 BP, the wet-zone Southeast Asian Neolithic enabled hunting and
gathering to be combined with vegeculture involving root crops, mainly yam,
and sago and bananas. With the principal emphasis on protein-gathering,
populations remained mobile and limited. Most technical activity was based
on cane, bamboo, or wood readily available to all, eliminating the need for
intercommunity trade. As a result, population increase was slow, and selfsufficient communities existed without any larger form of social organization.
By about 2000 BP, some became more efficient in farming, which became
their main economic activity. As they moved into lower altitudes, the areas left
to foragers were confined to the foothills, with a new area of exploitation at
the edges of the farmed areas. The foragers began to intensify their gathering
and hunting activities and gradually reduced their reliance on swidden farming. The rise in importance of the transisthmian/transpeninsular routes in the
north at about this time encouraged the foragers to concentrate on collecting
activities that were now a useful activity that complemented the more agricultural pursuits of their neighbors. To maintain their chosen way of life, the
various groups then created their specific forms of kinship patterns and social
relations.69 In a more recent paper, Benjamin claims that the indigenes of the
Malay Peninsula, which include the Malayu, shared the same gene pool and
body of ideas, and the differences can be accounted for by history, process,
and the sociocultural traditions they developed.70
The latest reconstruction of the Orang Asli past has been proposed by
David Bulbeck. In examining all extant Orang Asli skulls from peninsular
Malaysia, he concludes that there is no evidence of an original occupation
by an Australoid Hoabinhian hunter-gatherer population. Australoid
affinities only emerge during the Neolithic, although the accepted theory is
that this was the period of the arrival of the Southern Mongoloid. Affinities

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between the skulls of the Mongoloid, the African, and the Negrito (Andaman
Islander) groups, Bulbeck argues, refute any notion of a pristine Negrito
occupation of Malaya.71 He sees the transition to the Neolithic occurring
not through migration down into the peninsula from present-day Thailand,
but through the establishment of regularized trade relationships between the
interior and the coast. It was the surplus created by this international trade
in forest products, rather than craft or farming specialization, which would
account for the presence of prestige goods at the funerary site of Gua Cha and
in the slab graves in southern Perak dated to the first half of the first millennium CE. At the Changkat Menteri site, for example, were found carnelian
beads, glass fragments, a stone bark cloth beater, and a high-tin bronze bowl.
Such prestige items in the southern Perak slab graves would have been made
possible by the wealth generated by the trade in gold, alluvial tin, and highquality iron ores from the Bernam and adjacent valleys in Selangor. Bulbeck,
following Benjamin, concludes that there may have been a small elite Austronesian element, perhaps even early Malayu speakers from Sumatra, who
supervised the labor of the dominant Aslian commoner population.72
By a comparative analysis of Aslian languages, Benjamin suggests that a
common ancestry of Aslian speakers split into the northern Aslian-speaking
Semang and the central Aslian-speaking Senoi some five thousand years ago.73
Bellwood dates this division about a thousand years later, in 2000 BCE, with
the migration of a Neolithic agricultural community of Austroasiatic speakers
from central Thailand to the Malay Peninsula as far south as Selangor. Having
moved into areas where the incidence of malaria was far lower than in their
original homelands, the Austroasiatic-speaking population increased substantially and spread both to the coasts and the interior. Bellwood acknowledges, however, the possibility that both processesmigration and internal
peninsular developmentsaccounted for the differences of the Orang Asli
populations on the peninsula.74
The hope that historical genetics would help determine the early history
of those groups who are today referred to as the Orang Asli has largely been
dampened by Alan Fixs warning that the history of genetic loci is not equivalent to the history of populations and may tell us nothing useful about recent
human history. The findings regarding possible links of Orang Asli populations with other groups extend as far back as sixty million years ago and to
the more recent 58,000 years ago, far too early for any real use for the reconstruction of the early prehistory of any of the groups.75 A. Baer, nevertheless,
argues on the basis of genetic findings that Malayan prehistory cannot be
encapsulated in terms of separate waves of migrating peoples,76 supporting
Benjamins contention that the differentiation of Orang Asli groups occurred
within the Malay Peninsula itself.

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Interaction between the Malayu and the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing

becomes much clearer in the first millennium and a half CE. Strong international demand for forest products encouraged the coastal Malayu polities to
enlist the services of the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing, whose specialized knowledge was needed to locate the various varieties of rattan, the resin-bearing
trees, and the aromatic gaharuwood. The collection of gaharuwood was particularly difficult because not all trees contained the fragrant diseased core
that was used for perfumes and incense,77 and determining which tree contained the aromatic core required special skills. The Orang Asli/Suku Terasing
practice of roaming within a fixed territory enabled them to acquire an intimate knowledge of what the forest contained. As groups revisited sites, years
of practical experience passed down by oral tales helped to preserve community secrets in collecting elusive but profitable forest products.78 In addition,
the Orang Asli living on the Malay Peninsula and in the Isthmus of Kra region
acted as guides and porters in periods when traders preferred to use the principal transpeninsular or transisthmian routes linking the Bay of Bengal with
the Gulf of Siam.
The economic relationship between the Malayu and the Orang Asli/Suku
Terasing was formalized through the appointment of either Malayu representatives or the heads of the various Orang Asli suku as the intermediary between
the two communities. The Malayu ruler dispensed titles and gifts in return for
the forest products collected and presented as tribute. Such titles and gestures
of royal munificence were received with great pride and reverence, not only for
their practical value and prestige, but also because they contained the potent
spiritual powers of the Malayu ruler. When the Dutch replaced the Malayu
rulers as overlords in Sumatra, the Suku Terasing requested titles and other
paraphernalia of office for reasons that went beyond simply demonstrations of
status. Any object associated with the ruler was believed to contain supernatural powers. To force his interior subjects to comply with his wishes, the sultan
of Palembang in 1644 sent envoys armed only with his letter and seal.79
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing groups began to adapt to a changed economic situation. They became
employed in extracting tin and gold, performing casual labor, producing food
for mining communities, and working in pepper plantations and Malayu rice
fields. The economic and social intercourse that occurred at the perimeters
of these communities occasionally led to intermarriage and mixed offspring
who served as intermediaries. There was less hindrance to, and even encouragement of, unions between members of the two communities for a variety
of reasons, including economic and spiritual. This easy relationship is evident
in both the Malayu and Orang Asli oral and written traditions from an earlier
period.

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Once the colonial extractive and plantation industries were introduced

in the nineteenth century, forest products became only a minor part of the
total economy. As the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing became less important to the
Malayu, the former fruitful and respectful relationship disappeared. Orang
Asli reluctance to embrace Islam and to abandon their foraging and shifting
agricultural lifestyle confirmed the Malayu view that they lacked civilization. This is the dominant perception in Malayu and foreign accounts from
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Malayu then began to marginalize the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing, both as economic partners and as human
beings. The shift in attitude was reflected in the growing scorn and contempt
with which the Malayu began to treat the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing. Their way
of life, dress, and even their physical bodies became objects of ridicule. Contributing further to the weakening position of the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing
was the influx in the late nineteenth century of Chinese and European capital
for the development of the tin, rubber, palm oil, and timber industries. Orang
Asli/Suku Terasing lands were viewed as uninhabited and undeveloped and
were seized to accommodate the new industries. The transformation of the
forest landscape seriously threatened the lifestyle of many Orang Asli/Suku
Terasing groups. A simple but tragic tale told by a Kintak records a history of
cycles of withdrawal and return into an everchanging space in the effort to
maintain the lifeways that defined the group.80
The ultimate humiliation occurred when the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing
became commodities, slaves to be sold for domestic work or to labor in the
transformed colonial economy. Increasingly from the eighteenth century until
the abolition of slavery in the 1880s, the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing became
prey to Malayu slavers. Kirk Endicott argues that such raids forced the Orang
Asli to adopt silent trade practices81 and either follow a greater nomadic lifestyle in isolation from their neighbors or resort to communal longhouses for
protection. It also created a division between the lowland Semai, who became
more acculturated to the Malayu lifestyle, and the upland Semai, who fled
to the safety of the mountains. Later immigrants from Indonesia were even
responsible for killing some of the Orang Asli Malayu to seize their lands.82
The tales collected by Wazir Jahan Karim from an Orang Asli Malayu group
in Selangor, the Ma Betise, reflect the violent encounter with outsiders and a
pessimistic view of the future.83
The Semang, who tended to operate in areas with easy access to the non
Orang Asli communities for trade purposes, were probably most affected. The
Temiar, on the other hand, may have escaped much of the slave raiding for a
number of reasons. Unlike the Semang, almost all the Temiar occupy lands in
the difficult mountainous terrain in the headwaters of the rivers. Another reason may have been the institution of the mikong, or Malayu chiefs who acted

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as intermediaries between the Temiar and the outside world. They lived on the
borders of the two worlds, usually had Temiar wives, and appointed penghulu
among the Temiar to represent their people. Finally, the Temiar demonstrated
their willingness to defend themselves against the slave raiders.84
These disturbing accounts reflect the more recent past of the Orang Asli.
Prior to the nineteenth century, however, the Orang Asli and the Suku Terasing
were far more appreciated by the Malayu because of their vital tasks as collectors of forest products greatly valued in international trade.

The Forest People in International Trade

The forest people have an ancient tradition of exchange with the outside
world. Archaeologists have been able to determine that on the Malay Peninsula in the Hoabinhian period, the Orang Asli were involved in a trade of
coastal shells for forest products such as rattan, resin, tree bark, and stone for
making tools. By about 3000 BCE this trade extended to communities as far
away as northwestern and central Thailand, then increased briskly from about
2000 BCE. Maritime trade involving forest products continued to be strong
from about 500 BCE to the founding of Melaka at the turn of the fifteenth
century, promoted without a doubt by the important polities in southern
Thailand, the Isthmus of Kra, and the northern half of the Malay Peninsula
(see chapter 1).
In the north and center of the peninsula, the interior Senoi negotiated
the exchange of certain products with the Semang, who brought these goods
to the Malayu or Chinese traders at the fringe of the forest or on the coast.
The Semang exploited the forests within their territories, and studies of the
Semang have identified a particularly adaptive social system suited to shifts in
subsistence or economic situations.85 With the increase in external trade associated with Indianization, the Semang would have been ideally placed to participate and benefit from this new development. In the southern third of the
peninsula, forest products would have been collected by the Orang Malayu
Asli to be traded directly to the Malayu and to foreign traders.
The importance of the Orang Asli was further strengthened because they
occupied lands through which the transisthmian and transpeninsular routes
passed. Traders arriving from the west often used these routes leading from
the Bay of Bengal to the Gulf of Siam to avoid the dangers of pirates in the
Straits of Melaka. Even if traders successfully avoided piratical attacks, they
still faced the navigational dangers of islands and hidden reefs and sandbanks
in the waters off the Malay Peninsula. The narrow isthmus and the northern
part of the peninsula became favored crossing points, and ancient settlements
were found along these major trade routes or at the sites of gold mines.86

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These interior towns would have served as secondary centers feeding the
ports on the coast. Once the gold, tin, and aromatic woods and resins were
gathered from the peninsula and the isthmus, they were transported to the
coasts by a complex series of rivers and streams joined by short land routes
serving as portage areas. Wheatley has identified six such highways: the Kedah
River or the Perak River via the Perak valley into Patani; the Bernam valley
into the Pahang Basin; the Muar River across the Panarikan land portage to
Pahang; the Batu Pahat valley to the Endau; and the ancient route along the
Kelantan and Galas Rivers toward upper Pahang, which offered different river
routes to the west coast. In addition to these six peninsular routes, he has
listed another five through the isthmian region: the Three Pagoda and Three
Cedis; the Tenasserim River; the Isthmus of Kra; the Takuapa River; and the
Trang River. In the isthmian region, the historic routes went from the west
along rivers via low watersheds to the South China Sea.87
In describing the Orang Asli trade in a specific type of bamboo highly
prized for making blowguns, R. O. D. Noone mentions that the major routes
across the Malay Peninsula followed the tributaries which run east to west off
the major rivers flowing in a north-south direction. The main mountain range
posed no obstacle because the mountains could be crossed at various points
without difficulty.88 For the Semang Batek, for example, the tributary systems
are the true waterways and principal focus of their foraging activities.89 Following these tributaries as a major part of the transpeninsular routes would
therefore have been a natural decision by the Orang Asli in the delivery of forest products to the coasts or in the transshipment of goods between the coasts.
The choice of routes would also have been determined by the Orang Aslis
intimate knowledge of the lay of the land and the location of resins, aromatic
woods, and rattans. In this role as collectors of primary forest produce and
as laborers and guides in the transshipment of goods across their lands, the
Orang Asli became indispensable to the Malayu coastal trading kingdoms.
There is very little documentation of the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing before
the nineteenth century. VOC records provide only scattered information on
the Orang Asli communities. In 1642 the Dutch governor of Malacca wrote:
Upriver between the territory of Naning and Muar is a mountain called
Ledang, that is to say cursed land, because there are many ghosts there (so
the people say). Residing there is a nation of Malayu called Bouirousse
[Benuas], or wildmen, where the men and women go about completely
naked and live off tubers, fruit, and wild animals. Their huts are made of
leaves of trees, and they seldom stay in one place longer than two or three
days, settling mainly at the foot of the most important mountains. From the
coals of their fire they cook their food and keep warm against the cold nights.

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These wild folk have on occasion good bezoar stones, eaglewood [gaharuwood, Aquilaria Lam.] and kelembak [a medicinal rhubarb, Rheum officinale, Baillon].90

This information was based on a report by the Syahbandar Jan Menie, who
visited the Benuas and filed a report on 21 September 1642. He describes
meeting the Orang Asli, who carried spears or blowpipes with a quiver of
darts. Their leaders sat on a covered platform (balai), which was built by
the Malayu to conduct trade with the Orang Asli. They were naked except
for a cloth wound around their middle and between their legs. Some only
had bark cloth, which was also worn by the children, who were tied tightly
with cloth to their fathers or mothers, leaving their hands free to hold onto
their parents as they walked. At the balai were three heads, all of whom could
speak Malayu, but the person with greatest authority remained with the rest
of the group at the Kassang River. They hunted buffaloes, pigs, and elephants
and gave a detailed account of the elephant hunt. During the encounter, the
Orang Asli roasted some monkeys, which they ate with wild tubers. Although
there were some three thousand men, women, and children in total, they were
divided into groups. Those that Menie met had about forty in the band, with
some three hundred of the group scattered in various gardens. They could all
assemble within two days if summoned. He was told there were many others
scattered from Pahang to Patani.
Because of fear of foul play, they required each visitor to swear an oath
by taking two sips of salted water into which a keris had been placed. Anyone
breaking the oath was threatened with punishment by the sacred power of the
weapon.91 Menie wanted one of them to accompany him to Melaka, offering
to leave one of his Malayu companions as hostage, but they refused because of
an earlier disastrous encounter with the Minangkabau.92 The latter had come
with beguiling words and then had seized the women, children, and possessions, and so they no longer trusted outsiders. The women came with their
children and were dressed in the same way as the men. For the adults Menie
distributed cloth, salt, rice, a keris, six spears, a blowgun, and for the children
some Dutch coins, which they hung around their necks. It was Menies belief
that the Orang Asli could be encouraged to collect sufficient quantities of
bezoar stone, eaglewood, and kelembak to trade with the Dutch.93
The few and sporadic early accounts confirm the important Orang Asli
role in international trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Missing, however, is any description of the exchange and of the relationships
established. Maedas study of four Jakun or Orang Hulu (formerly known
as Benua) hamlets along the Endau River in Johor in the 1960s is therefore
instructive. The hamlets were permanent residences where the inhabitants

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were swidden farmers and forest collectors. Their headman, a batin, mediated between his people and outsiders and was an arbiter in the affairs of the
hamlet. While his most important task was officiating at disputes, his authority was circumscribed by the freedom exercised by the Jakun in interpersonal
and intercommunity relations.94 Economic exchange between the Jakun and
outsiders was based on the time in took for the process of payment (bayar). A
more important form of exchange was repaying or reciprocating (balas)
desired goods in order to establish and maintain a long-term relationship.
When Maeda tried to pay money to the Jakun headman for the cost of the
gasoline, the headman refused. A more appropriate gesture, he discovered,
was the purchase of the gasoline itself to repay the headman and thus maintain the relationship.95 This may also have been the practice in the barter trade
between the Orang Asli and the Malayu in earlier centuries.
These special relationships were necessary to assure the steady flow of
forest products downriver to the Malayu ports. Besides the much-desired
camphor and benzoin, the forest also yielded dammar and gaharuwood.
Dammar was produced in diseased dipterocarps, while gaharuwood formed a
diseased core of the Aquilaria malaccensis. Detecting these resins was a highly
skilled endeavor. The most effective collectors were the forest peoples because
of their intimate understanding of their area of exploitation and their tradition of transmitting knowledge about their surroundings to their offspring.
Other valuable forest products were a red resin known as dragons blood
and various types of rattans. Some of the rattans were also believed to be antidotes to poison, while dragons blood was highly prized as a dye.96 Less exotic
but equally profitable were the various types of rattan or climbing palms, as
well as wax and honey from beehives established on tall trees not of any specific species but known collectively as sialang.97
In addition to valuable aromatic woods and rattans, the exotic bezoar
stone, known as guliga in Malayu, was a particularly valued forest product.
One European observer in the early eighteenth century claimed that such a
stone, a concretion in the stomach of certain animals such as porcupines, pigs,
snakes, and even elephants, was worth ten times its weight in gold.98 Slivers
would be shaved off, immersed in liquid and consumed. Europeans believed
that the concoction would stimulate the appetite and cleanse the stomach and
blood. For Southeast Asians, the bezoar stone had a number of uses depending upon the animal from which it originated, with those from snakes and
porcupines considered to be potent antidotes to poison. But it was the belief
in its spiritual properties that made the bezoar stone so valuable among the
local populations. Many used it as a talisman, and some stones came to form
part of the rulers regalia. Realizing their value to local rulers, the VOC frequently sent bezoar stones as gifts.99

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These products were gathered principally by the forest people and brought
to traders, some of whom had married women of forest groups to foster this
trade. The Malayu were the principal buyers, though other groups competed
for the products. In return the forest people received iron, salt, cloth, exotic
objects obtained through international trade, and various types of food to supplement their diet. As long as forest products remained a major component of
international trade, Malayu rulers encouraged the lifestyle of the forest people
to ensure the continuing flow of interior products to their ports.100
The Malay Peninsula is rich with tales and legends from both the Orang
Asli communities and the Malayu, which reveal the shifting attitudes in their
relationships. Tales from both the peninsula and Sumatra provide an internal
interpretation of this relationship and are a useful complement to European
documentary accounts.

Malayu Boundary Making

The lowland Malayu view the interior forest peoples with awe because they
reside in a dangerous domain. To have tamed the forest, the Malayu reason,
its inhabitants must possess powerful black magic (ilmu hitam, lit. black
sciences/knowledge) that could be used against their enemies.101 Despite
this perception, the Malayu in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries began
to depict the forest people in demeaning ways, which reflected the latters
increasing economic and social marginalization. Yet in earlier centuries the
relationship was characterized by cooperation and respect. In the Sejarah
Melayu, the raja of Palembang named Demang Lebar Daun enters into a
covenant with Sri Tri Buana, the youngest of three supernatural princes who
had descended on Bukit Siguntang. In the agreement, Demang Lebar Daun
lays down one condition before granting permission for Sri Tri Buana to
marry his daughter:
Your Highness, the descendants of your humble servant shall be the subjects
of your Majestys throne, but they must be well treated by your descendants.
If they offend, they shall not, however grave be their offense, be disgraced or
reviled with evil words: if their offence is grave, let them be put to death.

Sri Tri Buana agrees only if Demang Lebar Dauns descendants shall never
for the rest of time be disloyal to my descendants, even if my descendants
oppress them and behave evilly. Demang Lebar Daun then abdicates his position to Sri Tri Buana and becomes his chief minister.102
This is the first indication of the special relationship established between
Malayu rulers (represented by Sri Tri Buana) and the people (represented by

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Demang Lebar Daun). Demang is a common title presented by a Malayu

lord to a Suku Terasing leader, and so the people in this document may
refer to the forest people (most likely the Orang Batin). The presentation of
Malayu titles to heads of interior groups was one important way the Malayu
lord would have maintained good relations and thus assured the uninterrupted delivery of forest products. In addition to demang, these leaders were
given such titles as dipati, jenang, batin, etc., and became the intermediaries
between their people and the Malayu. Because of their role in international
trade, these heads of the forest communities were honored with titles and
gifts from the Malayu court. Such formal arrangements were instrumental in
encouraging the distinction in lifestyle and hence economic function between
the Malayu and the forest peoples. According to the Suma Oriental, the Orang
Asli were among those who offered assistance to the Palembang prince and
his followers in the founding of Melaka.103
In the earliest extant recension of the Sejarah Malayu, dated 1612, the
term Sakai can be interpreted as synonymous with Orang Asli generally or
as subjects of one of the principal officials in Melaka.104 The ambiguity surrounding the term is removed in the Undang-Undang Melaka (Melaka Legal
Digest), which may have been compiled during the height of Melakas power
in the fifteenth century. In these legal prescriptions the Orang Asli are listed
among Melakas subjects and fighting force (Sakai bala tentara).105 The tenth
paragraph (fasal) refers to a law pertinent to the biduanda orang, mudamuda orang, hamba orang, Sakai orang, and the hamba raja. Liauw
explains that they refer to the various types of servants or slaves mentioned
in the digest.106 It is difficult to know what distinguished the various categories in the Melaka period. Early last century, Skeat and Blagden believed
that Sakai derived from the Sanskrit sakhi, meaning friend, which often
appears with seva or siva (propitious, friendly, dear) in Vedic hymns. Based on
this etymology, Couillard suggests that Sakai may have been used by Indian
traders for the Orang Asli who were their partners in a trading alliance.107
The ultimate derivation of the term is still undetermined and continues to
invite speculation.
Wilkinson believes that the distinction between the various types of
Malayu subjects was based on the extent of assimilation to Malayu culture.
He therefore proposes a hierarchy with the lowest being the sakai, who were
aborigines who did not speak Malayu; then the rakyat, who were aborigines
who did speak Malayu; and finally the biduanda, who were aborigines who
spoke Malayu, accepted Malayu culture, and had been received as equals into
the Malayu community.108 Despite the neatness of Wilkinsons conception,
there is evidence that such categories and even meanings were never static. In
the Hikayat Hang Tuah, the references to biduanda suggest that they were

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chosen from non-Malayu communities. When a prince from Palembang is sent

by his father to govern Bintan and Singapore, among his retinue are biduanda
composed of outsiders (orang keluaran). Upon arrival in Bintan, the prince
orders his minister to summon the people of the interior or local inhabitants
(anak orang dalam negeri) to become court biduanda.109 In these two episodes it
appears that the indigenous inhabitants of the land are referred to as biduanda,
or court followers who perform certain special functions for the ruler.
During the Melaka period it is already possible to detect a shift in the
meaning of the term biduanda. Melaka-born Chinese were given this honorary
title as a favor by the ruler, as were the sakai and the rakyat.110 The eighteenthcentury Malayu text from Perak, the Misa Malayu, makes a number of references to the sakai, which could be interpreted as either subject or Orang
Asli. There is, however, no doubt in one particular passage that the sakai
accompanying the Panglima Larut are Orang Asli. They are listed as the orang
bukit gantang (the people of Mt. Gantang), the orang pengkalan (people of the
pengkalan111), and the orang pematang (the people who inhabit the banks of
the marshlands).112
The text that perhaps best captures the tone of the early relationship
between the Orang Asli populations and the Malayu is the Hikayat Merong
Mahawangsa. Although the earliest known recension dates from the first half
of the nineteenth century, most scholars acknowledge the inclusion of oral
legends from the early history of Kedah and the northern areas of the Malay
Peninsula. The Hikayat recounts the arrival of a stranger prince, Raja Kelana
Hitam, who seeks to become ruler of Kedah because it has no king. He asks
the penghulu or leaders of the bangsa 113 Semang, Wila, rakyat bukit (people of
the hills), and sakai to meet in council to help him find good land to settle.
They accomplish this task, then come to serve him faithfully. When the Raja
Kelana Hitams kingdom is attacked by monsters (gergasi), these four bangsa
suffer the brunt of the fighting and their bravery is measured by the mounds
of those killed in battle.114
The use of the term bangsa to refer to different groups among the
Orang Asli is noteworthy. Sometime in the past each group was considered
to be a unique ethnic entity and often given an exonym related to their areas
of exploitation and the stage they had reached in achieving civilization as
understood by the lowland or coastal groups such as the Malayu. In this text
the Semang are located in the forests and maintain minimal contact with outsiders. The Wila or Semang Bila are lowland Semang in the vicinity of Gunung
Jerai (Kedah Peak) and in the swamps of Perai (Province Wellesley), with more
assimilation into lowland culture because of their greater interaction with the
Malayu. The rakyat bukit, or hill people, are the Senoi, most likely the Temiar,
and the sakai are the sea and riverine populations in the north.

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There is a striking similarity in the story of the foundation of Kedah as

told in the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa and that of Melaka in the Sejarah
Malayu. In both cases a stranger prince arrives seeking to become king over a
land without a ruler. The people of the land are the Orang Asli, whose cooperation enables the prince to establish his new settlement. It is the Orang Asli
who are also responsible for the economic well-being and protection of the
kingdom. This model of Orang AsliMalayu cooperation may have been a
generally accepted phenomenon among the Malayu. It is also the theme in
the penglipur lara (soother of care)115 tale known as the Hikayat Awang Sulong
Merah Muda. Although the penglipur lara characterizes the sakai as those
who live upriver and eat monkeys, he acknowledges the role played by the
batin in assisting the Malayu ruler to establish a new kingdom, a common
theme in MalayuOrang Asli relations.116
A crucial distinction is made in the tales regarding the roles played by the
indigenous populations in Kedah and Melaka. In Kedah it is the Orang Asli
populations of Semang and Senoi who assure the success of the royal venture;
whereas in Melaka the important indigenous populations are the Orang Laut,
with implied support from the Orang Asli. The greater contribution of the
Orang Laut in Melaka reflects their crucial function in helping create and
preserve Melakas position as a leading trade entrepot in the region. In these
texts, the Orang Asli are never denigrated but openly acknowledged for their
sacrifices on behalf of the Malayu rulers.
For the Malayu kingdoms of Sumatra, the importance of the forest groups
was always recognized because of their role in supplying forest products to the
downstream kingdoms. The relationship was more formalized than on the
Malay Peninsula, with the issuing of copper plate inscriptions and letters to the
interior groups of Suku Terasing to assure the flow of goods. Stories of marriages between a Suku Terasing princess and a downstream Malayu prince were
not uncommon, but a more telling measure of the close relationship between
the two communities is the intertwining of their cultural heroes. Barbara
Andaya describes a thought world in which spiritually powerful figures move
easily in and out of the different communities, providing points of intersection
which help bind the groups together. Heroic figures in Malayu folklore, such as
Iskandar Zulkarnain (Alexander of the Two Horns, i.e., Alexander the Great)
and Arya Damar, have also become incorporated into the tales of the interior
groups. The cross-fertilization of cultural heroes occurs not only between the
Malayu and the Suku Terasing, but also among the different groups of Suku Terasing. It is common to have well-known poyang, or ancestors of a clan or a tribal
group, be equally important in the legends and traditions of other groups.117
One striking example of the sharing of culture heroes is that of Si Pahit
Lidah (He of the Bitter Tongue). There are various version of this tale of a

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poyang of the Pasemah people, but the thread linking all the versions is Si
Pahit Lidahs supernatural birth and extraordinary powers. His adventures
throughout southeast Sumatra provided the material for localized interpretations and opportunities to create links with other groups.118 Another significant cultural hero was Puteri Pinang Masak, a Minangkabau princess, who
is courted by Tun Telanai of a downriver kingdom. In the tale the suitor is
unsuccessful, but the relations between the two remain cordial and the princess is accepted as a daughter and her brothers come to settle along upriver
tributaries. The princess eventually marries a Turk, and from their union
comes Orang Kaya Hitam, one of Jambis greatest ancestors. The story of his
rejecting Majapahit overlordship, obtaining supernatural objects for his kingdom, and establishing the Jambi royal house contribute to the popularity of
this figure. In these tales there is an acceptance of the interconnectedness of
all the groups through common ancestors.119
In the folklore and earlier literature of the Malayu in both Sumatra
and the Malay Peninsula, the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing communities were
regarded with respect and even awe. As noted above, their association with
the forests, which held such terror for most Malayu, reinforced the belief in
their spiritual potency and ability to wield supernatural powers against their
enemies. The relationship was also characterized by economic interdependency. The downriver Malayu kingdoms provided the essential iron, salt, and
cloth for the interior communities. In exchange, the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing
delivered forest resins, aromatic woods, and rattans, which were highly valued
in the international trade conducted in the Malayu port cities. In addition
to collecting forest products, the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing provided a useful
function in safeguarding the trade routes. All these factors contributed to the
positive portrayal of the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing in early Malayu tales and
legends. The recognition of the necessary link between the two groups is also
evident in early Orang Asli/Suku Terasing portrayals of the Malayu.

Orang Asli/Suku Terasing Boundary Making

The oral tales of the interior forest and hill communities are a storehouse of
societal knowledge regarding great deities, the origins of the world and of the
group, proper behavior, and customary laws that use avoidance to strengthen
ethnic boundaries. Despite local differences, certain themes emerge in many
of these tales. One of the most important is the depiction of the Orang Asli
and the Malayu as siblings, with the former being the first to settle the region.
Juli Edo, a Semai anthropologist, collected a number of true tales (chermor)
from his people. According to one of these, the Orang Asli are the younger
siblings of the Malayu, both of whom are children of Adam living in Meng-

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kah (Mecca), the land created by God. The Orang Asli are the first to leave
Mengkah to go to Sumatra and then eventually to the Malay Peninsula, while
the Malayu follow a similar trajectory but centuries later.120 In a Semelai origin
tale, the Orang Asli and the Malayu arrive on the peninsula from Pagaruyung
in Sumatra as one people, but become separate because of an incident. During a feast, the Malayu, who are sitting outside (hence the outside people)
on the verandah (balai), ask the Semelai seated inside the house (hence the
inside people) for more of the dishes. The Semelai refuse, and so the Malayu
become angry and vow never again to eat Semelai food. After leaving the feast,
the Semelai begin to cross over a large river on a fallen tree trunk led by their
batin, who is carrying on his head a scroll with the peoples genealogies. He
lifts his head upon hearing a cock crow, causing the scroll to fall into the water.
For this reason the only memory of the genealogies is retained by the batin.
The family relationship and the split are also explained by the Semelai in
a tale of the origins of the positions of sultan, penghulu, and batin. As three
of Adams boys are descending from heaven on a rope, a strong gust of wind
causes the rope to twist until it finally breaks, sending them tumbling to the
ground. The youngest lands on his feet and comes to be called raja (i.e., the
sultan), the middle brother falls on his knees and becomes the penghulu,
and the eldest drops to a sitting position and becomes the batin. During the
descent, the tale also informs the listeners that the youngest has on a yellow
sarong (color of Malayu royalty), and both he and the middle brother wear
songkok (a fez-like cap worn by Muslim men).121 The Semelai thus see their
earlier familial ties with the Malayu being broken and replaced by distinctive
ethnic boundaries based on food preferences, literacy, and religion.
A similar tale of a former unity that dissolves into two separate and irreconcilable groups can be found among the Orang Rimba in Jambi. Their stories, called dongen, relate the origins of the group and the activities of the
ancestors. One such tale tells of a time before the introduction of Islam when
their people and the Malayu were one. The Prophet Adam and the Prophet
Muhammad snare a wild pig and share the meat, as is customary among the
Orang Rimba, When Muhammad returns to ask for more, Adam replies that
there is none left. But Muhammad later discovers that Adam is hoarding the
remainder of the meat. As a result of this unpardonable act in the eyes of the
Orang Rimba, Muhammad declares that he and Adam will have to go their
separate ways. He explains: I will leave the forest to form a village, where it will
be forbidden (haram) to eat pork. On his departure he extends the food ban
to all forest animals. For this reason the forest people, descendants of Adam,
also institute a food ban on domesticated animals. The angels then give Adam
and Muhammad different customary laws (adat), with Muhammad introducing Islam and the Orang Rimba retaining their adat as an equal to Islam.122

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A major theme of this and many of the Orang Rimba dongen is the maintenance of a separate adat from that of the Malayu. In the stories of the creation of the people, the forests, and the animals that inhabit them, a strong
underlying theme is the uniqueness of the Orang Rimba and the sacred duty
to maintain their chosen way of life. These stories are constructed deliberately
in opposition to the dominant downstream Malayu culture. Distinctions are
clearly drawn between the forest and the village dweller: their homes are constructed of different materials and their diet consists of domesticated animals
for the Malayu and wild forest animals for the Orang Rimba. The forest is said
to be inhabited by many dangerous spirits, the most powerful of which is the
Mato Merego, the Tiger God spirit. But none of the spirits would ever harm
an Orang Rimba who adheres strictly to his or her own customary laws, with
their unique beliefs, dietary restrictions, housing requirements, technology,
and religion. According to tradition, the laws of the Malayu and the Orang
Rimba were given by two different angels and sanctioned by a curse. Contravening the adat or ignoring the separation between the realm of the forest and
that of the village would cause the deities to abandon the Orang Rimba and
end their life in the forest. Maintenance of Orang Rimba customary practices
is of the greatest importance and rigidly enforced by supernatural sanction.123
Although the tales speak of a primordial unity of the Orang Asli/Suku
Terasing and the Malayu, which is eventually broken to form two distinct
groups, intermarriage helps to maintain the relationship. In the above Semai
chermor collected by Edo, after the Malayu leave Mengkah to join their
younger siblings, the Orang Asli, they land first in Sumatra and occupy the
entire island. After many years they move to Melaka. The royal shaman then
advises the prince to marry an Orang Asli woman from Gunung Ledang who
is said to be the bearer of luck and fortune (bertuah). He follows this advice
and acquires the support of the Orang Asli in the establishment of Melaka.124
The chermor continues and describes an episode involving a Johor prince, Tok
Betangkuk (or Nakhoda Kassim according to others), who marries a Semang
girl with white blood and establishes the kingdom of Perak.125
While most commentators on MalayuOrang Asli relationships have
emphasized intermarriage and trade, Marina Roseman has also highlighted
ritual practice. She convincingly argues that the color white among the
Orang Asli was associated with the sacred forces of nature, the supernatural, and the heavens. The tale of the Semang girl with white blood marrying
a Johor prince can therefore be regarded as one of the vessels imbuing the
Malay royalty with divine qualities.126 The direct link between the whiteblooded Semang girl and royalty may have a Bugis origin. Among the Bugis in
South Sulawesi, white-blooded beings descend (tomanurung) from the upper
world and become the progenitors of the royal houses.127 In 1766, Raja Lumu,

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the son of the powerful Bugis Raja Muda of Johor, was installed by the Perak
ruler as the first sultan of Selangor.128 Peraks close relations with the Bugis
dynasty in Selangor may have added a Bugis interpretation to the significance
of white blood.
The close relationship between the Orang Asli and the Malayu depicted
in the tales may account for the sharing of legendary heroes. Writing in the
early twentieth century, Skeat and Blagden describe an Orang Asli tale from
the Malay Peninsula of a batin called Chief Iron Claws (Batin Berchanggei
Besi). After his death, his position is taken by Hang Tuah, the batin of Pengkalan Tampoi in Kelang. He and his sons, Hang Jebat and Hang Ketuwi (Kasturi in Malayu), and their descendants become the founding batin in Sungai
Ujong, Kelang, Johor, and Melaka.129 In the Semai chermor, among the retainers of the Malayu ruler of Melaka are the Orang Asli brothers, Hang Tuah
and Hang Jebat. Later there is a quarrel between the brothers, which results
in the death of Hang Jebat. Hang Tuah, accompanied by his wifes family and
those of Hang Jebat, as well as the Orang Asli from Gunung Ledang, moves
northward and settles in the area. Part of the group remains in central Perak
and comes to be known as mai bareh (i.e., the lowland Semai), while Hang
Tuah proceeds farther northward and becomes the leader of the Orang Asli
in upper Perak. The last group eventually settles in an area now called Lambor.130 In these Orang Asli stories, Hang Tuah, Hang Jebat, and Hang Kasturi
are important early leaders of the Orang Asli community. They are also well
known in Malayu folklore and in two of the most popular works of Malayu
literature, the Sejarah Malayu and the Hikayat Hang Tuah. In the former they
are archetypal Malayu heroes, while in the latter they are associated with the
islands and implied to be of sakai or Orang Laut origins.
Another notable feature in Orang Asli tales is the role of Sumatra, particularly Minangkabau and the legendary royal center of Pagaruyung. According
to the tale collected by Skeat and Blagden, Chief Iron Claws leaves Minangkabau with his followers and goes first to Java, where some of his people remain
behind, and then to Melaka, which was then uninhabited. One of his descendants in Kelang gives his daughter in marriage to a downriver Minangkabau
chief.131 A Biduanda creation myth collected by Hood Salleh also has a Sumatran connection. According to this tale, the origin of the group is attributed
to Batin Sri Alam who seized a walking tree trunk and kept it in captivity.
The trunk then produced forty-four eggs, which the batin then buried until
they hatched into forty-four children. When they grew up he supplied them
with bark cloth for clothes. Half of these children he sent to Sumatra, where
they colonized the coast as far as the borders of the Batak country (i.e., in
the interior of Sumatra), while the other half remained on the peninsula and
became the Biduanda.132

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In one of the Semai chermor, the ancestors of the Orang Asli leave Mengkah and first land in Sumatra, where some leave the raft and establish the settlement of Pagaruyung. Others of the group go ashore at Siam or Siap on the
Maluk mountain (said to be in the northern part of the Malay Peninsula), a
third continues southward to the Sahine mountain (believed to be in the eastern side of central Perak), and the remaining members disembark at Melaka
and settle at Gunung (Mt.) Ledang.133 The Malayu follow much later to join
their younger brothers, the Orang Asli. They land in Sumatra and occupy the
entire island. Initially, they reside among the earlier settlers at Pagaruyung,
but their aggressive ways force the Pagaruyung people to flee to Melaka. At
Gunung Ledang the people from Pagaruyung reunite with their relatives from
the first exodus, and they become known as Temuan because they had met
(temu). The Temuan decide not to stay at Gunung Ledang but to occupy the
coastal areas of Melaka.134 Origin tales from another Orang Asli group, the
Semelai, depict Pagaruyung as a sacred place at the time of creation, when
there was no differentiation between the Malayu and the Semelai.135
The Minangkabau also figure prominently in other stories. The Sakai in
Siak trace their ancestors to Minangkabau and Mentawai,136 and an Orang
Rimba dongen sees Minangkabau as the home of the principal god, Tuhan
Kuaso, who creates the earth, the forest, the human beings, and the animals.137
For the Orang Rimba, the Minangkabau kingdom possesses stronger magic
and sacred power, and hence greater stability, than any other Malayu polity.
Nevertheless, they seek to maintain common cause with the Malayu, which is
reflected not only in their origin stories but also in their tendency to share
cultural heroes with the Malayu and other Sumatran groups. Ultimately, of
greatest importance to the Orang Rimba is the emphasis on difference, that
though they share a common origin with the Malayu, they are the elder sibling and hence have precedence over the Malayu. This precedence is the legitimacy they claim for occupying various tracts of forest lands.138
These stories of origin from Minangkabau are also found among the
Talang Mamak, who live along the tributaries of the Indragiri River and were
once closely linked to the coastal Indragiri kingdoms. While their subsistence
is based more on swidden rice agriculture, they are also forest collectors,
which explains their relationship with the Malayu kingdoms on the coast.139
According to their langkah lama (lit. old behavior or conduct, i.e., adat),
three sons of the Parapatih nan Sebatang (one of the two Minangkabau lawgivers) leave Pagaruyung because of a family quarrel and become leaders of
the Talang Mamak in Indragiri.140
The identification of Pagaruyung and Minangkabau as the place of origins of many of the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing groups may be explained by
the extraordinary spiritual reputation of the Pagaruyung rulers among the

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people in the region (see chapter 3). Stories of the sacred powers of these rulers would have arrived in the Malay Peninsula during the Malayu immigration of the late fourteenth century or even earlier as a result of the free flow of
goods and information across the Straits of Melaka. The Orang Asli may have
absorbed the traditions from the Minangkabau settlers, but it is more likely
that the reputation of the Minangkabau sacred center preceded the immigrants. This reputation facilitated marriage between the Minangkabau and
the Orang Asli, particularly in Negeri Sembilan, which has often been seen as
a way in which the early Minangkabau settlers obtained access to the land.141
Yet for the Orang Asli communities there was much to gain spiritually from
such unions. Their tales of the spiritual potency of Pagaruyung, reinforced
by the reputation of its rulers sacred words,142 would have made the idea of
marriage with the Minangkabau attractive indeed.
Perhaps the most poignant theme in these Orang Asli/Suku Terasing tales
is the nostalgia for the time when their relationship with the Malayu was good.
In the Semai chermor, the marriage of the prince from Sumatra and the Orang
Asli princess living on Gunung Ledang results in the assistance of the Orang
Asli communities in the establishment of Melaka. The Orang Asli then become
the princes palace workers, guards, and army, tasks they continue to perform
for the descendants of this first Melakan ruler.143 A similar development is
described in the Semai chermor. After the foundation of the Perak kingdom
following the marriage of the Johor prince Tok Betangkuk to an Orang Asli
woman of white blood, the Orang Asli come to perform such tasks as palace
workers, guards, and hunting partners of the ruler. In this and other Semai
tales, the Malayu ruler dreams of the supernatural partner among the Orang
Asli and goes in search of her. Before the marriage is contracted, the Orang Asli
always ask and obtain a commitment from the Malayu prince to assure that he
will treat them well and accept them as subjects.144 The past is thus depicted as
a time when the Orang Asli and the Malayu were related by blood or by agreements of mutual assistance. In many Orang Asli tales involving the Malayu,
the latter is useful as a counterpoint to a groups creation of ethnic boundaries
while still retaining what Rosemary Gianno calls a sense of relatedness.145
The reality of more recent times is baldly described in the tales of the Ma
Betise. According to their trimbow, or origin tales, the Ma Betise are pushed
out of Merekah (Mecca) and go to Mahdinah (Medina), where they are again
deprived of their land by the Malayu. From here they go to Batak country in
Sumatra where they are well treated, but the harshness of Batak law, particularly regarding adultery, convince them to leave. They move to peninsular
country at Batu Pahat, where the group divides to become the Semai, the
Temiar, and the Ma Betise. The Ma Betise remain on the coast, with one
group later splitting off to form the Blanda, today known as the Temuan.146

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This trimbow clearly stresses the aggression of the Malayu toward the Ma
Betise. Perhaps for this reason, the Ma Betise make a deliberate distinction
between people like themselves, who are called Ma Meri (people of the forest), and the Malayu.147
In many of these tales the Straits of Melaka do not form a boundary but
a causeway linking the various communities, further undermining the view
that forest groups were isolated. A related theme also contained in these stories is the family links between the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing and the Malayu.
Despite having opted for different ways of life, they remain leaves of the same
tree. The strong relationship depicted in the tales, however, underwent a significant shift when the importance of forest products declined in the overall
economy of the Malayu. Trust was then replaced by suspicion and increasing
depredations perpetrated by the Malayu on the interior forest and hill communities. Unlike earlier tales where complementarity between the two groups
is emphasized, in the more modern tales the theme is more of aggression and
violence committed by the Malayu on the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing.148

Conclusion
The nature of oral tales enables the reciter to adjust the message to current
concerns. This is obvious among the animal tales collected from the various
Orang Asli communities in Perak, Pahang, Kelantan, Negeri Sembilan, and
Johor. Despite slight variations, a common factor is the problems the Orang
Asli face in a Malayu-dominated world. In tales involving the bamboo rat
(dekan) and the porcupine (landak raya), for instance, the message is that
all can live peaceably together despite their differing needs. A well-known
story of the elephant and the mouse emphasizes that despite the latters small
size, he is so clever that he can force the more powerful animal to behave
properly. In another tale with an obvious modern twist, animals seek to prevent the destruction of their world by explaining that they pose no danger
to humans.149 These tales reflect the weak and desperate position of Orang
Asli (and the Suku Terasing in Sumatra) who see their lifeways rapidly being
destroyed by a modernizing Malayu society. The respect that characterized
earlier narratives is clearly missing in modern retellings. Increasingly, these
tales stress the importance of maintaining the adat or customary laws and
the ethnic boundaries that protect the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing way of life.
Through the ongoing process of ethnic formation, the weaker ethnic units are
able to regroup in a variety of ways to assure their survival against the incursions of larger and more dominant ethnicities.
The tales and other traditions of both the Malayu and the Orang Asli/
Suku Terasing trace the evolution of their relationship from one of affinity

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and equality in earlier centuries to one of distrust in the present. The decline
in the economic and social position of the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing is clearly
a major factor in this shift in attitude. The Malayu now regard the Orang
Asli lifestyle as an impediment to the countrys economic and social development. The earlier more amenable relations between the two groups have
been conveniently forgotten in the drive toward modernity. The Orang Asli/
Suku Terasing, therefore, have responded with a reaffirmation of their way of
life and have resorted to both politics and the dissemination of their traditional lore to remind the dominant Malayu of their once useful and beneficial
relationship.
A diachronic framework best reveals the shifting ethnic relationship
between the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing and the Malayu. From such an examination it is possible to see how closely related ethnicities and reinforcing lifestyles and traditions were forced by new economic circumstances to move
from complementarity to opposition. In the process, new ethnic boundaries
were erected to reflect the change in relationship and the readjustment of
what it meant to be a Malayu or an Orang Asli/Suku Terasing. Their tales,
particularly those of the latter group, bear the imprint of these changes from
a nostalgic past to the harsh realities of more recent times.

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Conclusion

Framing the Southeast Asian

Past in Ethnic Terms

well-established principle in ethnic theory is that ethnicity only emerges when one community encounters a
distinct other. Such encounters produce separate ethnic
affiliations that are identified by a name given by their members and/or a
name imposed by outsiders. These ethnic names, however, do not determine
their membership for all times. At some historical point a name attached to
an ethnic community may incorporate a different membership because of
the tendency for ethnic groups to redefine themselves periodically to maximize their advantage. Ethnic labels often survive, but they may represent an
expanded or more restricted membership in accordance with the times and
circumstances. Even the most isolated communities have undergone this process, albeit more slowly and less spectacularly, because of the need to maintain
a specific lifestyle for survival in difficult ecological conditions or to facilitate
the gathering and export of products for international trade. Ethnicity, therefore, is far more than simply a form of identification; it is also a protective
mechanism that is readily invoked to assure the well-being of the group. When
a community redefines itself in ethnic terms, certain practices and beliefs are
declared sacred traditions, old cultural heroes are reaffirmed and new ones
proposed, values are reinterpreted, and membership is restructured.
Social scientists have long acknowledged this process in ethnic formation, but historians have been slow to appreciate its implications for the interpretation of Southeast Asian history. If ethnic labels, membership, and even
attributes undergo change as a result of significant encounters with the other,
then it becomes necessary for historians to examine much more critically who
we mean when we write about a specific ethnicity in the past. Southeast Asian
history has been shaped to a considerable extent by an emphasis on ethnic
struggles: the Mons against the Tai and the Burmese, the Khmer against the

235

Vietnamese and the Tai, the Javanese and the Acehnese against the Malayu,
etc. This interpretation of the past is very much influenced by present-day
realities of legal boundaries, ethnicities determined by censuses and reinforced by societal values of the dominant group, and conflicts characterized
as ethnic.1
In these pages I have examined the process of ethnic formation by focusing on the changing perceptions of Malayu ethnicity in the precolonial period
and the role of the Malayu in instigating the ethnicization of other communities. Underlying much of the discussion is the idea of ethnicization, which is
a conscious political decision by the group to adopt a particular ethnic identity for some perceived advantage. Group consciousness beyond the immediate kinship community, village, and village clusters is often the result of
a common perception of greater advantage to be gained by forming larger
unities. The most important motivating factor for this decision, I argue, is the
economic opportunities that arose from international trade flowing through
the Straits of Melaka for more than two thousand years. Ports on both shores
of the straits, particularly on the Sumatran side, prospered from this trade,
and ripples of this new economic development extended throughout the
region.
The most important regional network that emerged in the first millennium and a half of the Common Era was what I have called the Sea of Malayu.
This network consisted of a swath of lands and waterways from southern
India and Sri Lanka to northern Sumatra, across the Straits of Melaka to the
Isthmus of Kra and the northern Malay Peninsula, then through the South
China Sea to the settlements along the Gulf of Siam, the Lower Mekong, and
central Vietnam. There emerged a commonality of outlook based on the flow
of goods and ideas along this trajectory, enabling leaders and ordinary individuals to move easily within a single world. The use of the term Malayu
for this extensive regional trade and cultural network is arbitrary; indeed, the
surrounding waters could as easily have been called the Sea of Cham or the
Sea of Funan. My decision to use Malayu is based on the prominent role
played by Malayu (or Malayic) language shippers and traders in their extensive network stretching from China to the east coast of Africa.
But as is the nature of ethnic identity, Malayu was continually being reinterpreted. From at least the second half of the seventh century CE, it referred
to the subjects of polities such as Sriwijaya and Malayu, where Malayu was
the language of government and of the marketplace. But in later centuries the
term also incorporated those groups that used Malayu as a language of choice
or as a trade language, and adopted the customs and dress of those identified
as Malayu. By the early nineteenth century, T. Stamford Raffles recognized a
Malayu identity among communities scattered throughout the region under

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different political leaders but all sharing a single language, customs, and even
character.2 European observers at the time commented on dress, manners,
lifestyle, oral and written traditions, and even literary style that they believed
to be distinctive to the Malayu.3
Unlike the period since the late nineteenth century, however, the decision to be Malayu was not irrevocable. The ease of movement in and out
of Malayu ethnicity can be attributed to the soft boundaries listed above,
many of which were shared by neighboring communities. It was a common
practice for an individual to remain Malayu or Batak or Minangkabau when
it was most advantageous to do so, but to adopt another ethnic identity when
operating in a different environment. In the area of the Straits of Melaka,
making such choices was primarily a decision faced by interior groups seeking
to maximize profits in the trading environment of the coast and the islands,
the acknowledged world of the Malayu.
The Straits of Melaka provided an ideal laboratory for the study of the
process of ethnic formation. All maritime routes linking the major civilizations to the east and west of Southeast Asia led through the Straits of Melaka.
The straits also served as a safe haven throughout the year because the parallel
mountain ranges in the center of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula acted as
protective barriers against the strong monsoon winds. International traders
moving between the east and west found ideal conditions in the entrepots
established by communities along the straits. One of the earliest known and
most prominent of the groups identified in the straits was the Malayu. The
emergence and eventual dominance of the Malayu paradoxically encouraged
specific communities to break away to form the new ethnicities of the Acehnese, the Batak, and the Minangkabau. But many individuals who decided
to identify with these new ethnic communities never totally abandoned the
Malayu but moved between them when such movements promised greater
advantage under specific circumstances.
In the case of the Orang Laut and Orang Asli/Suku Terasing, economic
considerations actually promoted the maintenance of their ethnic identities.
Their lifestyle based on the sea and in the forests equipped them to be the
primary collectors of products from their environment, which were highly
prized by international traders. In addition, both groups had an intimate
knowledge of their surroundings and were thus invaluable as guardians of the
sea lanes and the forest routes. The Malayu valued the special skills of these
groups and were willing to offer titles, legitimation, and exotic and practical
goods to maintain this relationship. The sea and forest peoples themselves
saw little reason to abandon their way of life, and in fact were encouraged to
reinforce their unique identity to gain the greatest advantage in their relations
with the Malayu.

Framing the Southeast Asian Past in Ethnic Terms

237

Even though the Orang Laut and the Orang Asli/Suku Terasing were primarily small independent communities under their own leaders and regarded
themselves as distinct ethnic units, they acted as one under a Malayu official
whenever summoned for service. Through these circumstances, the Malayu
applied the general exonyms Orang Laut for all those who followed a lifestyle associated with the sea. The exonyms Orang Asli and Suku Terasing
for those in the interior forests and mountains are modern labels applied by
the Malaysian and Indonesian governments, respectively. In the past, these
latter groups were classified by a variety of exonyms that reflected the more
localized nature of the relations between the forest and hill peoples with the
Malayu. These exonyms were not rejected but adopted by the groups themselves because they were in a sense badges that distinguished them favorably
from others. But when the forest and sea peoples were no longer viewed as
necessary for the economic advancement and security of the Malayu, they
suffered the ignominy of having their way of life ridiculed, and their once
proud exonym become a term of alienation and abuse.
By privileging ethnicity as a perspective, I have attempted to understand
the context in which particular ethnic groups emerged. The presence of a dominant ethnic community, such as the Malayu, may not necessarily result in the
absorption of smaller or weaker communities. On the contrary, some groups
may split off from the dominant ethnicity, as occurred with the Minangkabau
and Acehnese and to a certain extent with the Batak. The smaller communities, on the other hand, may survive simply because their distinctive lifestyles
complement that of the dominant group, as was the case with the Orang Laut
and the many forest and hill communities that later made up the Orang Asli/
Suku Terasing.
In all these cases, what is important to reiterate is the porosity and flexibility of ethnic communities. Groups were never rigid, and even if an ethnic name survived, the ethnic boundaries could very likely have shifted over
time in response to circumstances. The dynamics of ethnic formation help
to explain the functioning of the mandala/galactic model of early Southeast
Asian polities. In this model, borders were porous and the polity was maintained through personal relationships established between the ruler and his
subject lords. Within the domains of these subject lords, a similar arrangement would have been made with the local leaders. Any mandala/galactic
polity, therefore, consisted of a congeries of such relationships, and any part
of the system could easily move and re-form in a new arrangement. For this
reason it was imperative that leaders find a means to maintain the loyalty of
groups, whether through a mythomoteur legitimizing the use of supernatural
punishment or through establishing kinship links via marriage, milk mothers, and adoption. Only if these measures proved inadequate would groups

238

Conclusion

be tempted to reorganize and perhaps form new ethnic identities. Historians,

therefore, should be alerted to the fact that the rise or decline of an ethnic
group may be the consequence of significant shifts in economic or political
opportunities encouraging the re-formation of old or formation of new ethnic identities.
Being aware of the dynamics of ethnic formation may help historians
avoid the temptation to view aspects of the past in terms of ethnic struggles
and instead to seek other more tangible reasons for difference. Problematizing
ethnicity would enable the historian to offer a nuanced view of ethnic relations in a region that boasts one of the greatest diversities of languages and
cultures in the world.

Framing the Southeast Asian Past in Ethnic Terms

239

Notes

Introduction
1. Comaroff and Comaroff, Ethnography, 4967.
2. Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism, 232.
3. Throughout this study I have decided to retain the Malay word and spelling Malayu to refer to the Malays, in preference to the current usage of Melayu.
The former was the way the name was more commonly transcribed in inscriptions
and early historical documents. Adopting this spelling also avoids the association of
the term with the dominant ethnic group in Malaysia today. By using Malayu I am
including not only those in Malaysia but also those living in various parts of Indonesia, particularly on the east coast of Sumatra and the offshore islands to the south of
the Malay Peninsula. I have, however, retained the English usage of Malay Peninsula
because of its familiarity to English speakers.
4. Kahn, Constituting Minangkabau.
5. Barth, Enduring and Emerging Issues, 16.
6. Logan, Orang Benua, 247.
7. Lieberman demonstrates the ethnic complexity of mainland Southeast Asia
in the fifteenth century before the standardization imposed by the dominant ethnic groups in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Lieberman, Strange Parallels,
379.
8. Leach, Political Systems.
9. Nagel, Constructing Ethnicity, 15860.
10. Keyes, Presidential Address, 1171.
11. See, for example, Espiritu, Asian American Panethnicity, and Calderon, Hispanic and Latino.
12. OConnor, Agricultural Change, 987.
13. Wyatt, Relics, Oaths.
14. Lieberman, Strange Parallels.
15. The term invention of traditions comes from Hobsbawm and Rangers

241

edited volume The Invention of Tradition. Equally well known is Andersons term
imagined communities from his book of the same name. These scholars focused on
the manner in which new nations, or even those not particularly new, invented traditions or found commonalities in order to emphasize their shared identity and hence
unity.
16. Smith, Ethnic Origins of Nations, 2130.
17. Rousseau, Central Borneo, 3.
18. Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism, 112.
19. Barth, Introduction, 11; Barth, Pathan Identity, 11923.
20. Banks, Ethnicity, 14.
21. Barth, Enduring and Emerging Issues, 15.
22. Shils, Primordial, Personal; Isaacs, Idols of the Tribe.
23. See for example Okamura, Situational Ethnicity. The classic and influential examples of this approach are associated with the Manchester School, such as
J. C. Mitchells The Kalela Dance and A. L. Epsteins Politics in an Urban African Community. Most recent studies of ethnicity tend to borrow aspects from both the primordialist and the situationalist approach.
24. Hobsbawm and Rogers, Invention of Tradition, 1.
25. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups, 185, 2267.
26. Nagel, Constructing Ethnicity, 154.
27. Appadurai, Global Ethnoscapes, 192.
28. Appadurai, Global Ethnoscapes, 1967.
29. In many societies Creation is a time of great spiritual potency. For this reason, shamanic healing practices rely on trances or dreams to journey back to the time
of Creation to restore wholeness and purity to an individual or to the whole society.
E. Florescano, Memory, Myth,and Time in Mexico, 257; Hamonic, Le Langage, 356.
30. Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism, xxii, 89; Smith, Ethnic Origins, 15.
31. Smith, Ethnic Origins, 5770.
32. Barth describes a similar situation among a Persian nomadic group, the Basseri. The creation of larger units among the Basseri is accomplished through submission to the same chief, thus bonding to his imperium of authority and protection.
Barth, Boundaries and Connections, 234.
33. By soft boundaries, Duara means such cultural practices as rituals, language, dialect, music, kinship rules, or culinary habits that may identify a group but
not prevent it from sharing or adopting cultural practices of another group. Duara,
Rescuing History, 65.
34. The Hikayat Hang Tuah may have begun as an oral tradition in fifteenthcentury Melaka but was recorded in its present form sometime in the late eighteenth
century. The Malayu text has not been translated into English. In citing sections from
the Hikayat, I have used Kassim Ahmads transliteration.
35. Kassim Ahmad, Hikayat Hang Tuah, 175. See also Maiers discussion on
kacukan and the real Malayu (Malayu sungguh) in Maier, We Are Playing Relatives,
6735.
36. Liaw, Sejarah Kesusasteraan, vol. 2, 50.

242

Notes to Pages 610

37. Benjamin, On Being Tribal, 21.

38. White has argued for a similar polysemy in the kastom (customs, traditions)
in Melanesian political histories. White, Three Discourses, 477. On hybridity, see
Abu-Lughod, Writing against Culture, and Bhabha, Location of Culture.
39. Wolters, History, Culture, 2740, passim; Tambiah, Galactic Polity.
40. This metaphor was first used by Benedict Anderson in reference to the Javanese ideas of power. Anderson, Idea of Power, 22.
41. Kubitscheck, Horja and Bius, 1923.
42. Perret, La formation, 1378.
43. Kahn, Constituting Minangkabau, 32. As noted above, Barth in 1998 emphasized this very same point.
44. See, for example, Timothy Barnard, ed., Contesting Malayness.
45. A recent volume of essays recognizes the intercourse in the late eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries of areas principally on the Lower Mekong region, from modern south Vietnam to eastern Cambodia and southwest Thailand. To avoid reference to
national borders, the participants in that volume agreed to call this functioning entity
the Water Frontier. Cooke and Li, Water Frontier, xixiii.

Chapter 1: Malayu Antecedents

1. The meaning of Malayu is not known, despite the various folk etymologies that have been proposed over time. One popular reasoning is that it derives from
malaju, meaning to flee, because the Malays had fled presumably to their new
homes on the Malay Peninsula.
2. For an instructive discussion of the dangers of nationalistic conceptualization
of ethnicities that elevate one particular group over others, as in Nazi Germany, see
Jones, Archaeology of Ethnicity, 13.
3. Irwin, Prehistoric Exploration, 56, 19; Tanudirjo, Structure of Austronesian
Migration, 87.
4. For a summary of the changing views of what constituted Funan, see Chandler, History of Cambodia, 1321.
5. Al-Masudi (d. 956) called the network of maritime communities from the
shores of present-day Mozambique to Vietnam the Cham Sea. Michael Laffan, personal communication.
6. See, for example, the contributions to Barnard, Contesting Malayness.
7. Bellwood, Prehistory, 97127, passim.
8. Thurgood, From Ancient Cham, 346.
9. Bellwood, Prehistory, 1202.
10. Thurgood, From Ancient Cham, 5, 423.
11. Bellwood, Prehistory, 1201.
12. In the Sejarah Melayu, a chronicle of events in the fifteenth- and early sixteenthcentury Malayu kingdom of Melaka, there is a reference to a Cham prince who flees to
Aceh after Champa is destroyed by the Vietnamese. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 110.
13. Bellwood, Austronesian Prehistory in Southeast Asia, 1034.

Notes to Pages 1120

243

14. Bellwood, Hierarchy, Founder Ideology and Austronesian Expansion, 1840.

15. Solheim, The Nusantao, 79; Tanudirjo, Structure of Austronesian Migration, 87.
16. Solheim, The Nusantao, 456.
17. Tibbetts, Study of the Arabic Texts, 43, 182.
18. Mills, Eredias Description, 42.
19. A similar conception was found among the Chinese who in early centuries
conceived of a single ocean linking all of maritime Asia and saw the Malay Peninsula
as a major obstacle. Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya, 21.
20. Glover, Southern Silk Road, 79; Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula, 81;
Higham, Early Culture, 1812.
21. Glover, Southern Silk Road; Bellina, Beads, Social Change, 2869.
22. Higham, Early Cultures, 1812.
23. Glover, Early Trade, 31, 47; Glover, Southern Silk Road, 62, 74, 79.
24. Leong, Collecting Centres, 2930; Francis, Asias Maritime Bead Trade,
2167.
25. Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula, 8992.
26. Bulbeck, Indigenous Traditions, 3234.
27. Smith, Indianization, 124.
28. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 323.
29. McPherson, Indian Ocean, 835, 90.
30. The Periplus mentions a place called Malai-oo Kolon, which the editor
believes so positively intimates the country of the Malays. Vincent, Commerce and
Navigation, 609. If Vincent is correct in his identification, then this would have been
the first known reference to the name Malayu, far earlier than the seventh-century
Chinese transcription of Malayu.
31. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 337; McPherson, Indian Ocean, 967.
32. Coeds, Indianized States of Southeast Asia, 36.
33. Thurgood, From Ancient Cham, 1718.
34. OConnor, Introduction, 810.
35. Glover, Southern Silk Road, 58, 63, 74, 79.
36. Ray, Early Trans-Oceanic, 43, 45, 50, 534; Ray, Winds of Change, 15461.
37. Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade, 165, 17882.
38. Guy, Pan-Asian Buddhist, 34.
39. Manguin, Archaeology of Early Maritime Polities, 2978, 3035.
40. Smith, Indianization.
41. Hourani, Arab Seafaring, 6975; Flecker, Archaeological Excavation, 33, 37.
42. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 34.
43. Lubeigt, Ancient Trans-peninsular, 50, 524, 61.
44. Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, xxvi.
45. Lubeigt, Ancient Trans-peninsular, 60, 623, 68.
46. Miksic, Entrepots, 117; Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 15.
47. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation, 39, 102.
48. Leong, Collecting Centres, 23.

244

Notes to Pages 2032

49. Francis, Asias Maritime Bead Trade, 5.

50. Lubeigt, Ancient Trans-peninsular, 489, 64, 66.
51. Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, 1521.
52. Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula, 103.
53. Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, 4851; Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula,
104, 107.
54. Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula, 104, 1145, 128, 141, 159 (quote), 1601.
55. Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, 25265.
56. Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula, 17188.
57. Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, 2636; Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula,
22931.
58. Wolters, Tambralinga, 588; OConnor, Si Chon, 125; OConnor, Tambralinga, 135, 591; Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula, 114, 362.
59. Stargardt, Hydraulic Works, 245, 28, 30.
60. Allen, In Support of Trade, 63, 701. After examining the pedological, sedimentological, geomorphological, and historical evidence, Allen concludes that overly
intensive dry-land farming of the inland slopes to meet the requirements of a burgeoning population in the urban areas led to progradation and the creation of the
plains. Allen, In Support of Trade, 73.
61. Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, 423, 46, 2224, 27980.
62. Lamb, Takuapa, 834.
63. Allen, In Support of Trade, 145.
64. Allen, In Support of Trade, 6374.
65. Allen, Trade, Transportation, and Tributaries, 585, 590, 592; Jacq-Hergoualch,
Malay Peninsula, 197202.
66. Red Earth, or Tanah Merah in Malayu, is a name frequently encountered on
the Malay Peninsula. There are differing opinions as to its location, and places in India
as well as on the peninsula have been suggested.
67. Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula, 216.
68. Leong, Collecting Centres, 278; Jacq-Hergoualch, La Civilization, 300.
69. Allen, In Support of Trade, 6971.
70. Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula, 216, 2212, 2289.
71. Hourani, Arab Seafaring, 78, 83, 146.
72. Jacq-Hergoualch, La Civilization, 3004.
73. Jacq-Hergoualch, Malay Peninsula, 240.
74. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 1801.
75. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 181, 1845, 193.
76. Donkin, Dragons Brain Perfume, 131.
77. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 183.
78. Miksic, Trade Routes, 78.
79. Malleret, LArchologie du Delta.
80. Ray, Early Maritime Contacts, 51.
81. Vickery, Society, 2828.
82. Manguin, Archaeology of Early Maritime Polities, 298300.

Notes to Pages 3341

245

83. Stark et al., Results, 8, 12, 267, 30; Bishop et al., A 3.5 ka Record, 364,
3878; Stark and Sovath, Recent Research, 914; Bishop, Sanderson, and Stark, OSL
and Radiocarbon, 3334.
84. Southworth, River Settlement, 4.
85. Hall, Maritime Trade, 178.
86. Vickery, Society, 325. This traffic appears to have continued into later centuries. Vickery suggests that the rise of the Cham port polity of Vijaya in the twelfth
century was due to the desire of Angkorian rulers to take part in the lucrative international trade flowing to the Cham coast. Vickery, Revising Champa History, 47.
87. Thurgood, From Ancient Cham, 5.
88. Ray, South and Southeast Asia, 412.
89. Diem, Significance of Cham Ceramic Evidence, 3.
90. Bellwood, Prehistory, 2715.
91. Thurgood, From Ancient Cham, 1617.
92. Southworth, River Settlement, 3.
93. Vickery argues that there is no strong evidence to indicate the language or the
ethnicity of the people of Lin Yi. He believes it is more likely that Lin Yi was a MonKhmer speaking polity. Vickery, Revising Champa History, 6, 11, 14.
94. Southworth, Notes on the Political Geography.
95. Vickery, Revising Champa History, 49.
96. Aoyagi, Champa Ceramics, 3.
97. Vickery, Revising Champa History, 26.
98. Manguin, Archaeology of Early Maritime Polities, 2923.
99. Marrison, Early Cham, 53.
100. Li, Nguyen Cochinchina, 312.
101. Hickey, Sons of the Mountains, 1067.
102. Thurgood, From Ancient Cham, 202.
103. The dates of the Ming dynasty are 13681644, but the records of a dynasty
were written by its successors and are of a later date than the dynasty.
104. Wade, Ming Shi-lu, 388.
105. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 238 fn 427. The word Kuchi is very likely the
Malay rendering of Cochin or Cochin China, the name given by the Portuguese to
the southern portion of Vietnam.
106. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 110.
107. Wade, Ming Shi-lu, 389.
108. Although the Chams continued to survive, particularly in the south, their
civilization and language underwent major changes over the centuries as a result of
contact with the dominant Vietnamese. Most of the Chamic languages today are spoken in the highlands among the hill tribes. Thurgood, From Ancient Cham, 269.
109. Wade, Ming Shi-lu, 226, 3512.
110. Cooke and Li, Water Frontier, 2.
111. The remnants of this earlier civilization still present in the northern states
of the Malay Peninsula have become the basis of what Malaysians today refer to as
traditional Malay culture.

246

Notes to Pages 4248

Chapter 2: Emergence of Malayu

1. Christie, Trade and State Formation, 501.
2. Manguin, Archaeology of Early Maritime Polities, 2878.
3. At various times in the past the Chinese have used kunlun to refer to the
most prominent of Southeast Asian inhabitants, including the Malayu.
4. Manguin, Southeast Asian Ship, 2745; Manguin, Trading Ships, 25863.
5. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 153, 199200; I-Tsing, Record of the Buddhist Religion.
6. Wade, Ming Shi-lu, 353.
7. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, ch. 13.
8. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 165.
9. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 2205; Manguin, Archaeology of Early
Maritime Polities, 3034.
10. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 106, 111, 1267, 129, 1813.
11. Donkin, Dragons Brain Perfume, 127. In the nineteenth century it was estimated that anywhere from 280 grams to 8.38 kilograms of camphor could be collected
per tree, and one picul (56 kilograms) of camphor could cost four thousand guilders,
a considerable sum in that period. Zeijlstra, Boschproducten, 826.
12. References abound on the multiple uses to which camphor and benzoin were
used among early societies. They range from a cure for nasal polyps to a deterrent to
plagues and epidemics to preventing voluntary emissions by males. Wolters, Early
Indonesian Commerce, 1189; Ptak Possible Chinese References, 138; Stphan, Le
Camphre, 2349; Marsden, History of Sumatra, 153, 155.
13. Wang, Nanhai Trade, 96; Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 230, 235.
14. The transcription used by Takakusu, who translated Yijings account, is Sribogha, which is another way of transcribing the Chinese characters for Sriwijaya.
Although Yijing used Sribogha indiscriminately to refer to both the capital city and
the country, only Bhoga was used for the capital city. I-Tsing, Record of the Buddhist
Religion, xxx, xlxli; Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 2401.
15. Wolters, Studying Srivijaya, 17.
16. Casparis, Some Notes, 29.
17. Coeds, Les Incriptions Malaises, 34, 35, 37, 53, 58.
18. Coeds, Indianized States, 823. Chhabra has challenged this interpretation,
arguing that siddhayatra simply refers to a successful undertaking and had no association with magic. Chhabra, Expansion of Indo-Aryan Culture, 246. In an effort to
reconcile these two positions, Stutterheim suggested that the term in the inscription be
translated as a pilgrimage of victory, meaning that it was a pilgrimage to obtain magical powers to gain victory. Nilakanta Sastri then entered the debate by reinterpreting
the texts used by Chhabra to demonstrate that the references to siddhayatra in these
texts did indeed have an element of the search for magical powers to gain success.
Nilakanta Sastri, South India and South-East Asia, 2139.
19. Boechari, New Investigations.
20. Casparis, Prasasti Indonesia, 146.

Notes to Pages 5055

247

21. Damais, Bibliographie Indonsienne, 555.

22. Casparis, Some Notes, 29, 34.
23. Boechari dated the inscription to the seventh century and believed that this
Dapunta Selendra was the founder of the Sailendra dynasty in central Java. Boechari,
Preliminary Report, 2423, 2456. It is now generally accepted that this inscription
originated much later in the ninth century.
24. Christie, State Formation, 273.
25. Bosch, Een Maleische Inscriptie, 4950.
26. Casparis, Some Notes, 34.
27. Postma, Laguna, 185, 187, 190, 195, 197.
28. The transformation of the name from Sriwijaya to Zabag is due to an old
Arabic system of transcription. Early Arab geographers who relied on purported eyewitness accounts applied the name to a town, an island, a bay, a sea, and an empire.
Tibbett supports Coeds view that Zabag was first applied to the Sailendras in Java
and later became equated with the Chinese Sanfoqi, or Sriwijaya. Coeds, Indianized
States, 1301, 320 fn 173; Tibbetts, Study of the Arabic Texts, 1027.
29. Tibbetts, Study of the Arabic Texts, 334.
30. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 17, 185, 192, 238.
31. Ferrand, Relations, 914, 99100; Coeds, Indianized States, 2423.
32. Tibbetts, Study of the Arabic Texts, 52; Ferrand, Relations, 175.
33. Manguin, Archaeology of Early Maritime Polities, 308.
34. Manguin, Trading Ships, 2704.
35. I-Tsing, Record of the Buddhist Religion, 34.
36. Coeds has even identified the source of the Tantric school in Bengal, where
the first guru would have been the head of the Nalanda monastery. Coeds and Damais, Srivijaya, 502, 5960. The significance of this connection appears later in the
Nalanda Charter of 860. In that year King Devapala of the Pala dynasty in Bengal
dedicated a number of villages for the upkeep of a monastery built at Nalanda by
Balaputra, the first Sailendra ruler of Sriwijaya. Coeds, Indianized States, 1089.
37. Casparis, Prasasti Indonesia, 29.
38. Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya, 1289.
39. Coeds and Damais, Srivijaya, 50.
40. I would like to thank Geoffrey Wade for sharing the information via Michael
Laffan of the earliest mention of Chan-pei in Chinese sources.
41. Wang, Nanhai Trade, 96; Hirth and Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua, 66 fn 18.
42. Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya, 45, 194 fn 9; Hirth and Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua,
66 fn 18.
43. Most scholars agree that the name refers to Malayu, the objective of the
expedition. It is unclear, however, whether the name refers to the Malayu polity in
Jambi or to a wider area in Sumatra associated with the Malayu.
45. Berg, Pril Majapahit I, 485; Casparis, Sriwijaya and Malayu, 2478.
45. C. C. Berg argues that the sending of the Amoghapasa Buddha statue to
Dharmasraya was equivalent to the presenting of his real/sacred daughter Tapasi to

248

Notes to Pages 5659

Champa. In both cases it was a sign of great favor in the transferal of sakti or sacred
power. Berg, Pril Majapahit I, 501; Berg Pril Majapahit II, 195.
46. Krom, Hindoe-Javaansche, 2356, 3934.
47. Schnitger, Archaeology, 8; Casparis, Kerajaan Malayu, 9.
48. Adelaar, Borneo at a Cross-Roads, 84; Robert Blust, personal communication, 15 May 2001.
49. Blust, Austronesian Settlement.
50. Damais, Language B.
51. Bellwood, Aslian, Austronesian, 351.
52. In 2005 John Miksic conducted a survey of the Batang Hari but found no
preeleventh-century sites downstream from the Jambi capital. Perhaps, he suggested,
a survey conducted further upriver would reveal earlier sites. Personal communication, 2 August 2005.
53. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 156.
54. This is a variation of Bronsons model, where he located the chief port along
the coast. See Bronson, Exchange, 42. Although Sumatra served as the basis for his
model, the southeastern Sumatran principal settlements, or Bronsons A settlements,
were further inland because of the mangrove swamps along the coast. Miksic also
suggests that the major site would have been where the tides did not penetrate, nipah
palms (a source of food and housing materials) could flourish, and large vessels could
not proceed further upriver because of the shallow waters. The city of Palembang is
the first high ground encountered in going up the Musi River. Miksic, personal communication, 2 August 2005.
55. Collins, Malay, 5. John Miksic believes that the finds would more likely date
to the ninth or even tenth century. Personal communication.
56. Adelaar, Borneo as the Homeland, 2.
57. Blust, The Linguistic Macrohistory of the Philippines: Some Speculations.
58. For a period in the early 1970s there was some skepticism expressed concerning Palembang as the site of Sriwijaya and the extent of its power. See Bronson et
al., Laporan Penelitian. Subsequent archaeological expeditions led by P.-Y. Manguin,
O. W. Wolters, E. Edwards-McKinnon, and Satyawati Suleiman have left little doubt not
only of Sriwijayas location in Palembang but also of its extensive influence. See especially Manguin, tudes Sumatranaises, Palembang and Sriwijaya, and Bibliography
for Srivijayan Studies.
59. These comments are based on Wolters two major works, Early Indonesian
Commerce and Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History, as well as later refinements and
reassessments of some of his early ideas. See bibliography for a list of the works by
Wolters.
60. Casparis, Prasasti Indonesia, 146. Even in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the Palembang and Jambi courts downriver devoted much time and effort
to woo upstream communities. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, passim.
61. Woodward, Esoteric Buddhism, 3306.
62. Wolters, History, Culture and Region, 11821.

Notes to Pages 5962

249

63. Casparis, Prasasti Indonesia, 28.

64. Coeds and Damais, Sriwijaya, 526.
65. Christie, State Formation, 267.
66. Smith, Indianization.
67. See Kulke for the original Sanskrit for these occupations. Kulke, Epigraphical References, 8.
68. Blust, Early Austronesian Social Organization, 2167.
69. This is one of the most beloved of the Malayu tales. Though the printed version dates from the nineteenth century, the stories occur during the period of greatness of the kingdom of Melaka in the fifteenth century.
70. Kassim, Hikayat Hang Tuah, 329. In Malaysia, where grass practically grows
in front of ones eyes because of ideal conditions of sun, rain, and temperature, grass
becomes a metaphor for life and fecundity.
71. Muhammad Yusoff, Hikayat Siak, 112.
72. Kozok, A 14th Century Malay Manuscript, 3745.
73. Kozok, Tanjung Tanah Code, 279.
74. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 146.
75. Mus discussion of the religious ideas of the early Chams contains one of the
clearest expositions of the relationship between the chief/ruler and fertility. Mus, India
Seen from the East.
76. Coeds and Damais, Sriwijaya, 55; Casparis, Prasasti Indonesia, 435.
77. Apparently it is the equivalent of the Javanese kawula-gusti, in which kawula
refers specifically to a bondsman or retainer, and gusti to a master or lord. I am grateful
to John Miksic for alerting me to this comparison.
78. Casparis, Prasasti Indonesia, 26, 42 fn 49; Kulke, Epigraphical References, 8;
Christie, State Formation, 267 fn 2.
79. The glosses are those of Christie, State Formation, 2678. Coeds compiled
a glossary of words found in four Sriwijayan inscriptions he had studied, with crossreferences to previous interpretations by his Dutch and English colleagues. Based on
this glossary, the term punta hiyang or dapunta hiyang can be translated literally as
Our Holy Master. Coeds and Damais, Sriwijaya, 71, 76, 84.
80. Christie, State Formation, 2678.
81. Casparis, Prasasti Indonesia, 26.
82. For a provocative discussion of how kinship acts upon political processes, see
Day, Fluid Iron, ch. 2.
83. White, Incorporating Heterarchy, 1136.
84. The above reconstruction is based on Kulke, Kedatuan Sriwijaya.
85. Wolters, History, Culture, 2731; Anderson, Idea of Power, 22.
86. Kulke, Kedatuan Srivijaya, 1625.
87. Kulke, Epigraphical References, 10.
88. Christie, State Formation, 270; Christie, Trade and State Formation,
467.
89. Barendregt, Representing, 281, 294.

250

Notes to Pages 6267

90. Although the traditions from which many of the stories in the Sejarah Melayu
were taken may have originated in the fifteenth century, the earliest extant recension
is the Raffles 18 manuscript dating from 1612. For a detailed study of the various versions, see Roolvink, Variant Versions. A useful compendium of articles about the
Sejarah Melayu and the full Malay text in romanized script of the Raffles 18 can be
found in Cheah, Sejarah Malayu. The author refers to his work as Sulalatul-Salatin or
in Malayu Penurunan Segala Raja-Raja (The Genealogy of Kings). Roolvink believes
that what we now know as the Sejarah Melayu began as a list of kings with dates, but
the dates were later dropped as various stories were added at various places and at different times to produce the current version. Roolvink, Variant Versions, 3046.
91. Corteso, Suma Oriental.
92. Wade, Ming Shi-lu.
93. Wade, Ming Shi-lu, 262.
94. Both titles are linked to Siva, with Permaisura meaning Lord of All and
Sri Tri Buana meaning Lord of the Three Worlds. The latter appears to have been
a favored title linked to royalty and kingship in early Southeast Asia. Wolters, Fall of
Srivijaya, 232 fn 18; Wilkinson, Malay English Dictionary, vol. 2, 890.
95. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 231.
96. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 201, 401.
97. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 232.
98. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 356.
99. Wade, Ming Shi-lu, 4134.
100. Wang, Opening of Relations.
101. Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya, ch. 13.
102. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 265.
103. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 14857.
104. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 245.
105. Milner, Kerajaan, 10411, passim.
106. Bowen cites Louis Dumont in formulating the following distinction: While
descent theory views marriage as largely the consequence of negative prohibitions
between already constituted groups, alliance theory emphasizes the contribution made
by the exchange of women to the interrelation and definition of social units. Bowen,
Cultural Models, 164.
107. Bowen, Cultural Models, 173.
108. In the Malay world a copyists task was to improve a text to accord with
current social and political realities. It often resulted in the expunging and inserting of
information to support the genealogical claims of powerful families.
109. Schulte Nordholt describes the situation in Bali in the mid-nineteenth century when Dutch officials were overwhelmed by the conflicting representations of the
competing factions. But it was by means of such histories (babad) that some families
were able to regain their positions of authority on the island. Schulte Nordholt, Spell
of Power, 1; Schulte Nordholt, Origin, 545.
110. Andaya, Bugis Diaspora, Identity.

Notes to Pages 6873

251

111. Brown, Malay Sayings, 126.

112. http://online.anu.edu.au/asianstudies/ahcen/proudfoot/MCP/.
113. This particular role of powerful ancestors is a general phenomenon. In
Palembang the eighteenth-century sultan Mahmud Badaruddin fulfilled this role,
while in seventeenth-century South Sulawesi it was Arung Palakka. See Andaya, To
Live as Brothers, ch. 6; Andaya, Heritage of Arung Palakka.
114. Cheah, Sejarah Melayu, 193.
115. Khalid, Taj al-Salatin, 147, line 38.
116. Mohd. Yusof, Salasilah Melayu dan Bugis, 120, line 16.
117. Kassim, Hikayat Hang Tuah, 1701.
118. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 35.
119. Farah, Marriage and Sexuality in Islam, 81, 154.
120. Lai, Settled, 148.
121. Lai, Settled, 189.
122. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 289.
123. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor; Barnard, Raja Kecil. The event is mentioned both
in contemporary Dutch accounts as well as in the Hikayat Siak, the Salasilah Melayu
dan Bugis, and the Tuhfat al-Nafis.
124. Muhammad Yusoff, Hikayat Siak, 122
125. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor. See also Drakard, Kingdom of Words.
126. Kassim, Hikayat Hang Tuah, 32.
127. Kassim, Hikayat Hang Tuah, 1701.
128. Kassim, Hikayat Hang Tuah, 331 (1975 edition)
129. Brown, Sejarah Malayu, 157; Cheah, Sejarah Malayu, 254.
130. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 60, 217.
131. Winstedt, Hikayat Bayan Budiman, 185, line 14: yang suka beranak angkat,
maulah pilih bangsanya serta ditatap af alnya pada hal yang baik, maka sempurnalah
orang itu beranak angkat.
132. Mohd. Yusof, Salasilah Malayu dan Bugis, 229, line 33.
133. Brown, Sejarah Malayu, 61.
134. Foreest and Booy, De Vierde Schipvaert, vol. 1, 225; Hamilton, A New
Account, vol. 2, 28, 96.
135. Andaya, Orality, Contracts, 25.
136. Berg, Pril Majapahit I, 501; Berg, Pril Majapahit II, 195.
137. Kiefer, Taosug, 29; Warren, Sulu Zone, 93, passim.
138. Kiefer, Taosug, 423; Junker, Raiding, Trading, 6873.
139. Cheah, Sejarah Malayu, 179 istiadat hamba Melayu tiada pernah durhaka.
140. Brown, Sejarah Malayu, 1112.
141. See Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, for evidence of the roles of the Bendahara and
Laksamana families in the Malay world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
142. Brown, Sejarah Malayu, 68, 88, 92, 1578, passim; Cheah, Sejarah Malayu,
170, 254, passim.
143. Duara, Rescuing History, 65; Barth, Introduction, 1011.
144. Brown, Sejarah Malayu, 802, 90; Cheah, Sejarah Malayu, 179.

252

Notes to Pages 7381

Chapter 3: Ethnicization of the Minangkabau

1. Kahn reminds us that it is important to determine when and why individuals
or groups decide it is necessary to make these decisions. Kahn, Constituting Minangkabau, 15. In the case of the Minangkabau, the contemporary records of the Dutch
East India Company have made it possible to answer the when. The why, however,
is more problematic and can only be inferred by a close reading of the circumstances
described in the records.
2. This twin concept is discussed in Kato, Matrilineality and Migration. See also
the classic formulation of these characteristics in Josselin de Jong, Minangkabau and
Negri Sembilan.
3. Taufik Abdullah in his writings has stressed that the interplay of adat and
Islam is a major feature of Minangkabau identity. Yet this has not often been cited as
a distinctive Minangkabau quality, and therefore it has not been used as a marker of
ethnic identity. For one of the earliest exposition of Taufiks ideas on the subject, see
Taufik, Adat and Islam.
4. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 41.
5. Kapferer, Legends of People, 211.
6. Barendregt, Representing.
7. Robson, Desawarnana, 33.
8. Westenenk, Opstellen II, 2612.
9. Berg, Pril Majapahit I, 501; Pril Majapahit II, 195.
10. Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 612.
11. Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya, 578, 75.
12. Casparis, Kerajaan Malayu, 69. De Casparis suggestion accords with a seventeenth-century practice where the line of succession of the Minangkabau kings of
Pagaruyung followed the matrilineal pattern. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 32932.
13. Casparis, Kerajaan Malayu, 910, 15, 17.
14. Coeds, Indianized States, 232.
15. Krom, Hindoe-Javaansche, 3934; Kern, Verspreide Geschriften, vol. 7, 16575.
One of the principal functions of Tantrism has always been the protection of the state.
Woodward, Esoteric Buddhism, 331.
16. In Sumatra there is still a belief in the sacred nature of sharpening knives.
Status was also measured by the number of rice mortars owned by an individual, and
the importance of rice mortars is still evident in funerary ceremonies. Reichle, Violence and Serenity, 2956.
17. Reichle, Violence and Serenity, 289.
18. Satyawati, Archaeology and History, 910.
19. Kern, Verspreide Geschriften, vol. 7, 174.
20. Krom, Hindoe-Javaansche, 394 fn 4.
21. Sjafiroeddin, Pre-Islamic, 44, 51.
22. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 239, passim.
23. Krom, Hindoe-Javaansche, 3934; Westenenk, Opstellen II, 2612.
24. Casparis, Sriwijaya and Malayu, 2467.

Notes to Pages 8286

253

25. Coeds, Indianized States, 232; Kern, Verspreide Geschriften, vol. VII, 172.
26. Kern, Verspreide Geschriften, vol. VII, 219; see also Krom, Hindoe-Javaansche,
413.
27. Moens, Buddhisme, 579; Schnitger, Forgotten Kingdoms, 31; Krom, HindoeJavaansche, 394.
28. It is believed that the Bhairawa, like the standing Ganesa statues in east Java,
was placed on an open public platform easily accessible to devotees. Reichle, Violence
and Serenity, 2845 fn 88.
29. Krom, Hindoe-Javaansche, 4145.
30. Nilakanta Sastri, Takuapa, 2530; Miksic, Cola Attacks, 1201; Edwards
McKinnon, New Light, 87.
31. Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 602.
32. Edwards McKinnon, Kota Cina, 313.
33. Parkin, Batak Fruits, 846; Schnitger, Forgotten Kingdoms, 96.
34. Miksic, Archaeology, 93; Parkin, Batak Fruit, 87.
35. Satyawati, Archaeology and History, 6.
36. Krom, Hindoe-Javaansche, 415; Satyawati, Archaeology and History, 56;
Reichle, Violence and Serenity, 2078.
37. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 32932.
38. Josselin de Jong, Minangkabau and Negri Sembilan, 93.
39. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 164.
40. Kato, Matriliny and Migration, 78.
41. James Fox has argued that all Austronesian-speaking societies (which includes
the Minangkabau) make use of precedence as a means of social and individual differentiation. Fox, Austronesian Societies and Their Transformations. This would
have encouraged ambitious individuals to found new communities and hence gain
the prestige and privileges of a founder status. Bellwood, Hierarchy, 2831.
42. Kato, Matriliny and Migration, 22, 2931.
43. Taufik, Studi tentang Minangkabau, 1923; Kato, Social Change, v. 75.
44. Josselin de Jong, Minangkabau and Negri Sembilan, 69. A study based on a
survey made in the 1970s and on statistics gathered in 1955 show the suku Malayu with
the second largest representation among the Minangkabau nagari (unit of settlement
consisting of the mother village and its associated children villages) after Caniago.
A Minangkabau source even claims that the oldest suku (matrilineage) in West Sumatra is Malayu. Kato, Matriliny and Migration, 801.
45. Willinck, Rechtsleven, 66.
46. Numerous examples can be found in Andaya, To Live as Brothers; Barnard,
Multiple Centres; Andaya, Kingdom of Johor; Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism; and Drakard,
Kingdom of Words.
47. Willinck, Rechtsleven, 334. The mamak, or mothers brother, plays the dominant role in the lives of the kemanakan, or his sisters children. In the rantau one often
finds a modification of this customary practice.
48. Peletz advances this idea in discussing the situation of the Minangkabau
families in Rembau in the Malay Peninsula. Peletz, Share of the Harvest, 22.

254

Notes to Pages 8690

49. Hadler believes there are multiple concepts of rantau and that the colonial
state may need to be examined as a factor in the increasing patrilineal tendencies in the
rantau. Jeffrey Hadler, personal communication.
50. Drakard, Kingdom of Words, 101.
51. In the Dutch translation of these letters kept in the National Archives in The
Netherlands, the Dutch term keizer or emperor was used for maharajadiraja, the
great king of kings.
52. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 154.
53. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 164.
54. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 1525.
55. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 667.
56. Coolhaas, Generale Missiven, vol. 1, 351.
57. This was a pattern continued in the later centuries. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor;
Barnard, Multiple Centers; Andaya, To Live as Brothers; Oki, River Trade.
58. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 161.
59. Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 623.
60. Boxer, Further Selections, 98103.
61. Benjamin, Issues in the Ethnohistory of Pahang, 92, 97.
62. NA, VOC 1151 Malaka, van Vliet, 14 January 1645, fols. 538v539r.
63. Buxbaum, Family Law, 25. I have retranslated the original Malay into English.
64. NA, VOC 1157 Atjeh, Diary of Arnold de Vlamingh v. Outshoorn, 1644, fol.
606r.
65. Hale, Adventures, 163.
66. Mills, Eredias Description, 22.
67. With the growing strength of Islam in the interior, the Arabic term alam
came to replace the Sanskrit bhumi for world.
68. Haan, Naar Midden Sumatra, 3556; Andaya, History of Johor, 111. Part of
Naar Midden Sumatra, which was a journal of Tomas Dias, has been translated by
Drakard, A Mission, 15261.
69. Joustra, Batakspiegel 20, 239.
70. Kathirithamby-Wells, Acehnese Control, 4767.
71. Basel, Begin en Voortgang, 246.
72. Satyawati, Archaeology and History, 3. In an early nineteenth-century letter
written in Malay from Pagaruyung, the term maharajadiraja was still being used to
refer to the ruler. Drakard, Kingdom of Words, 1567, Appendix I, 273.
73. The name comes from the words pagar (fence) and ruyung (the outer portion
of a palm trunk, which can be used for fences or palisades). According to legend, a fence
made of the palm trunk was erected in the river to protect the royal child from crocodile
attacks while bathing. It was a well-known story and would have reinforced the perceived role of rulers as parents offering protection for their Minangkabau children.
74. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 331
75. The mission itself consisted solely of Minangkabau leaders from the west coast
settlement of Padang acting on behalf of the VOC. It did not include any Europeans.
76. NA, VOC 1272, Mission to Pagaruyung, fols. 1027rv.

Notes to Pages 9097

255

77. NA, VOC 1272, Diary of a Mission to Pagaruyung, fols. 1032rv.

78. Basel, Begin en Voortgang, 478.
79. NA, VOC 1237, Bort, fol. 340v.
80. NA, VOC 1191, Truijtman, fols. 751r, 752v.
81. NA, VOC 1272, Letter from Pagaruyung, fol. 1039.
82. Andaya, Heritage of Arung Palakka, 44.
83. Drakard, Kingdom of Words, 2219.
84. Drakard, Kingdom of Words, 327.
85. Taufik, Some Notes, 14.
86. Drakard, Kingdom of Words, 22930. Iskandar Zul-Karnain in Malay traditions is the legendary Islamic hero, Alexander the Great of Macedonia. While the
Perso-Islamic tradition of the Romance of Alexander the Great emphasizes his role as
conqueror, seer, and prophet in search of the Water of Life, the crucial message is his
destiny to establish a universal kingdom, a kingdom of Islam. Subrahmanyam, Persianization, 7983.
87. Drakard, Kingdom of Words, 253 fn 80.
88. Wolters argues that the compilers of the Sejarah Melayu attempted to eliminate all references to the Malayu-Jambi past in order to demonstrate an unbroken line
in the Palembang-Melaka family. Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya, 945. The aim, I believe,
was not to eradicate references to Malayu-Jambi but to appropriate the whole Sumatran tradition of Sriwijaya Malayu for itself and thus shift the center of Malayu identity
to the Malay Peninsula.
89. Shellabear, Sejarah Melayu, 31, 37.
90. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 401.
91. Angelbeek, Korte Schets, 18, 20; Newbold, British Settlements, 2156;
Wilkinson, Malay Adat Laws, 7.
92. Although the Dutch translation of Pagaruyung letters tended to refer to
Minangkabau subject, the Malay would have been anak Minangkabau or Minangkabau child. A common way of referring to a patron-client or lord-subject relationship throughout the Malay-Indonesian region is by the kinship terms of bapak-anak
(father-child).
93. Basel, Begin en Voortgang, 656, 769, 81, 87; Coolhaas, Generale Missiven, 15.
94. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 1112.
95. Begbie, Malayan Peninsula, 137.
96. Andaya and Andaya, History of Malaysia, 132. There are other examples in
Sumatra where rulers were sought from Pagaruyung, including Rau and Kuantan.
97. Begbie, Malayan Peninsula, 137.
98. NA, VOC 1895, Malacca, 30 January 1718, fols. 556; Andaya, Kingdom of
Johor, 2512.
99. Barnard, Multiple Centers; Drakard, Kingdom of Words, 196200; Andaya,
Kingdom of Johor, ch. 9.
100. This manuscript, Cod. Or. 7304 from the Leiden University Library, is a version of the Sejarah Melayu with an additional section devoted entirely to the kingdom
of Siak. It has been called Hikayat Siak, or the Siak Chronicles, because of its Siak

256

Notes to Pages 97102

viewpoint. A romanized version of the text was published in 1992. Muhammad Yusoff
Hashim, Hikayat Siak.
101. In Asahan there is a tradition of the father of the founder of the Asahan
kingdom being a child born of a princess impregnated and then given away by the
ruler of Aceh. Once the child is born, a member of the royal family in Pagaruyung
is brought to Asahan to raise the child. Kroesen, Geschiedenis van Asahan, 878.
Pagaruyung was obviously regarded as the source of great legitimizing power, which
enabled these fatherless children to be enveloped into the parentship/guardianship
of Pagaruyungs rulers.
102. In Malay skins of lice is kulit tuma. Leyds suggests that this was a misreading of kulit umo, not tumo (-a). Umo, he was told, was a cat-sized animal once found
everywhere in the forests. It had a thin skin that tore at the slightest contact. Leyds
identified it as the Sumatran hare (Neosolagus Nescheri). Leyds, Larassen, 401.
103. Muhammad Yusoff Hashim, Hikayat Siak, 11127; Andaya, Kingdom of
Johor, 15865.
104. The role of the Putri Jamilan in this Hikayat is very similar to that of the
Bundo Kanduang (Real Mother) in the well-known Minangkabau Kaba Cindua Mata.
In this kaba it is the Bundo Kanduang who is the repository of knowledge of the history and customs of the Minangkabau. She conveys this knowledge to her son, the Raja
Pagaruyung. See Syamsuddin, Cindua Mato. In both cases, the queen mothers occupy
an elevated position in keeping with matrilineal emphasis in Minangkabau society. It
is also part of the idea of the protective parent, in this case a mother figure, who not
only protects but nurtures the child.
105. The Hikayat Siak, which was written sometime in the early nineteenth century, and the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century letters from Pagaruyung use the
metaphor of seas or coasts to refer to the rantau. By contrast the Minangkabau
heartland is known as the land (darek).
106. Kratz, Peringatan, 50.
107. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, ch. 9.
108. A letter from the king of Jambi in 1694 informed the Dutch that the ruler
of Pagaruyung was present to witness the establishing of peace between the warring
Jambi and Minangkabau communities in the upper reaches of the Batang Hari River
in Jambi. NA, VOC 1557, Jambi, 1 April 1694, fols. 356.
109. NA, VOC 1609, Jambi, 28 October 1698, fol. 20.
110. Drakard, Kingdom of Words, 233.
111. Willinck, Rechtsleven, 69.
112. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 133, 140, passim; NA, VOC 1557, Jambi,
15 March 1694, fol. 51v; NA, VOC 1596, Jambi, 28 January 1697, fol. 33.
113. Anon, Mededelingen, 130.

Chapter 4: From Malayu to Aceh

1. Although Arab and Malayu commentators tend to attribute the other for the
origin of the term below the winds, Laffan suggests that both below the winds

Notes to Pages 102108

257

and above the winds may have been a Malayu creation. The seventeenth-century
Persian author of The Ship of Sulaiman used the Arabic term Zirbadat (below the
winds) to distinguish Siam, Java, Makassar, and Aceh from India and Sri Lanka. In
the fifteenth century the word Zirbad was used in a more restricted sense of region.
Two Malay sources, the Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai and the Sulalat al-Salatin, referring
to events in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, use the Malay term bawah angin,
below the winds, to refer to a region of mainly Muslim kingdoms stretching from
northern Sumatra to Maluku. The lands above the winds would then presumably
be those lands to the west of northern Sumatra. Although it is possible to cite Malayu
letters written from the sixteenth century using the term bawah angin, the earliest
usage cannot be determined from extant material. Laffan, Finding Java, 4, 5962.
2. Alam Malayu, or the Malayu world, is the direct translation of bhumi
Malayu but with the Sanskrit bhumi replaced by the Arabic alam. The change
would have occurred at the time of the Islamization of northern Sumatra beginning
sometime in the late thirteenth century.
3. Iskandar, Kesusasteraan Klasik Melayu, 317.
4. Taufik, Formation of a Political Tradition, 468, 52.
5. It is generally believed that this work was composed by Syams al-Din al-Sumatrani, but Braginsky has recently disputed his authorship. Braginsky, Structure, 4512.
6. Iskandar, Hikajat Atjeh, 17, 224.
7. Riddell, Islam, 112. Calling a monarch a Sufi ruler must have been regarded as
the highest compliment in the seventeenth century when Sufism was so prominent in the
archipelago. In a panegyric written about the great Bugis ruler Arung Palakka (167296),
he is referred to as The Heroic Ruler of the Sufists. Bugis Manuscript 183, 7.
8. Snouck Hurgronje, Atjehers, 2 vols.
9. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 181, 1845, 193; Andaya, Trans-Sumatra
Trade.
10. Alves, O Dominio.
11. Alves, Princes contre marchands.
12. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce.
13. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 143.
14. For a discussion on Portuguese commentaries on local politics in Maluku,
see Andaya, World of Maluku, 1435.
15. Wolters, History, Culture and Region, 935, 1123.
16. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 144.
17. Kathirithamby-Wells, British West Sumatran, 16, 60, 724; Andaya, To Live as
Brothers, 438; Bulbeck, Southeast Asian Exports, 60.
18. Masefield, Travels of Marco Polo, 3389.
19. Jones, Hikayat Raja Pasai, v.
20. Jones, Hikayat Raja Pasai, 136, 21.
21. Jones, Hikayat Raja Pasai, 6075.
22. While the Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai recounts two invasions of Pasai by Majapahit, Sweeney has argued on the basis of language and style that the episodes involving Majapahit were a later addition to the text. Sweeney, Connection, 1101.

258

Notes to Pages 108114

23. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 144; vol. 2, 241.

24. Teeuw, Hikayat, 231.
25. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 36.
26. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 144.
27. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 1468.
28. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 1459.
29. Nik Hassan, Art, Archaeology, 110; Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce,
187, 193, 220; Milner, Edwards McKinnon, and Tengku Luckman, Note on Aru,189;
Tengku Luckman, Sari Sejarah Serdang, 39; Hirosue, Prophets and Followers, 401.
30. Rice, which was ordinarily scarce in Aceh, was available in great abundance
under Sultan Iskandar Muda. A major source of Acehs supply was the east coast polities of Tamiang, Deli, and Asahan, which he seized in order to gain control of the rice
grown in their hinterlands mainly by Batak. By the mid-seventeenth century, Aceh
was importing about four hundred metric tons of rice from Deli alone. Lombard, Le
Sultanat dAtjeh, 73; Hirosue, Port Polities, 21.
31. Brown translates the passage to read that Sultan Sajak was descended from
the Rock, which is totally unreferenced and appears meaningless. In his footnote
he provides the Jawi, which can be read as daripada Batak, or from Batak, which
makes more sense in the context. See Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 112, 239.
32. In 1891, Malayu horse traders from the east coast were going to the Karo
highlands and presenting offerings at the tombs of Batak lords. Westenberg, Aanteekeningen, 227.
33. Robson, Desawarnana, 33; Pigeaud, Java in the Fourteenth Century, vol. 4, 30.
34. Alves, O Dominio, 157, quoting Castanhedas phrase, povoao de pescadores.
35. Iskandar, Hikajat Atjeh, 314.
36. Lombard, Le Sultanat dAtjeh, 37.
37. Alves, O Dominio, 60, 1734.
38. Catz, Travels of Mendes Pinto, 54.
39. Drakard, Kingdom of Words.
40. Alves, O Dominio, 165.
41. The above account of Aceh is based principally on Djajadiningrat, Critisch overzicht, 1523, 15760, 167, 1912; and Lombard, Le Sultanat dAtjeh, 358,
6970.
42. Alves, Une Ville, 96. Alves does not give the actual years that Gil was in
Aceh.
43. Alves, Une Ville, 1025, 111 fn 84.
44. Lombard, Le Sultanat dAtjeh, 324; Alves, O Dominio, 159, 171, 176; Alves,
Princes contre marchands, 128, 175.
45. Masefield, Travels of Marco Polo, 338.
46. Gibb, Travels of Ibn Battuta, 8767.
47. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 143.
48. Djajadiningrat, Critisch overzicht, 157, 15960.
49. Mughal is the Indo-Persian form of the word Mongol. The conquering
armies that established the so-called Mughal dynasty, however, were not Mongols but

Notes to Pages 114119

259

Chaghatay Turks. As descendants of Timur, they should properly be referred to as

Timuris rather than Mughals. The correct name of the dynasty founded by Babur in
1526 is Timurid, acknowledging the ancestry of Timur. Those who came to serve the
dynasty were a mixed group that should be called the Timuri or Indo-Timuri. But
the term Mughal came to be used incorrectly for the Chaghatay and others who
served the Timurids. See Hodgson, Venture of Islam, 62. Because of the greater familiarity of the name, Mughal will be used to refer to this powerful Muslim kingdom and
its subjects in India.
50. Hodgson, Venture of Islam, 47.
51. Reid, Sixteenth Century, 395414; Boxer, Achinese Attack, 10921; Reid,
Southeast Asia, vol. 2, 1467.
52. Andaya, World of Maluku, 1345.
53. Lombard, Martin de Vitr, 8.
54. Aubin, Marchands, 89.
55. Hodgson, Venture of Islam, 81.
56. Andaya, Ayudhya and the Persian, 13341.
57. NA, VOC 1240, Malacca, Missive, fols. 11423. The ties between Aceh and
Siam appear to have been fairly close. When the Englishman James Lancaster was in
Aceh in 1602, he mentioned the arrival of an envoy from the ruler of Siam asking what
help Aceh required for the conquest of Portuguese Melaka. Markham, Voyages, 87.
58. Braginsky, System, 71; Iskandar, Kesusasteraan; Winstedt, History of Classical
Malay, 1969.
59. Lombard, Martin de Vitr, 8.
60. For some examples, see Reid, Southeast Asia, vol. 2, 144, 1467; and Andaya,
World of Maluku, 1357.
61. Lombard, Le Sultanat dAtjeh; Ricklefs, History of Modern Indonesia, 326.
62. Alam and Subrahmanyam, Southeast Asia as Seen from Mughal India,
214.
63. Arasaratnam, Maritime India, 40, 46, 59, 678, 723.
64. Subrahmanyam, Persians, 5045.
65. Arasaratnam and Ray, Masulipatnam and Cambay, 26; Arasaratnam, Chulia, 1289.
66. Arasaratnam, Maritime India, 11922, 1556.
67. Arasaratnam, Maritime India, 124, 128, 137; Arasaratnam and Ray, Masulipatnam and Cambay, 11, 269; Subrahmanyam, Persians, 511, 51316, 52425.
68. NA, VOC 1157, Atjeh, Relaas Arnold de Vlamingh van Oudthoorn, fols.
547r548v, 570v; NA, VOC 1237, Atjeh, Verbaal Bort, fols. 345v, 350r352v.
69. Leeuw, Het Painansch Contract.
70. NA, VOC 1200, Atjeh, Advijs Arnold de Vlamingh van Oudtshoorn, fol.
225v; NA, VOC 1214, Atjeh, Missive Thijssen, 126v; VOC 1237, Batavia, Verbael Bort,
351rv373rv; VOC 1240, Malacca, Memorie Thyssen, fols. 1144v1450v; VOC 1258,
Malacca, Missive, fol. 2007.
71. Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail, Teks/Text of the Raffles MS. No. 18, 6773. The
description of the marriage between Iskandar and the daughter of the Raja Kida Hindi

260

Notes to Pages 119123

in the Sejarah Melayu is borrowed almost word for word from the Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain, a Malay version of an Arabic copy of the Romance of Alexander the
Great. According to Winstedt, the Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain was a popular tale in
the Melaka kingdom. Winstedt, Date, Authorship, 135.
72. For a brief but informative discussion of the Iskandar legend in the PersoIslamic tradition, see Subrahmanyam, Persianization, 7983.
73. Al-Attas, Oldest Known Malay Manuscript, 33, 612, 734.
74. Andaya, Interactions, 345401.
75. Azra, Origins of Islamic Reformism; Riddell, Islam.
76. Alam and Subrahmanyam, Southeast Asia as Seen from Mughal India, 211.
77. Alam and Subrahmanyam, Southeast Asia as Seen from Mughal India,
21625.
78. Works collected by a trader in Aceh in 1604 for a Dutch Orientalist in Leiden
suggests that in the second half of the sixteenth century the bulk of Malayu literary
output in Aceh consisted of Islamic texts. Iskandar, Kesusasteraan, 317, 320.
79. Braginsky, System, 23.
80. Riddell, Islam, 1013, 139, 1667.
81. This appears to have been a common process, for in the early seventeenth
century, themes from Persian and Indo-Persian literature were also being transmitted
and reinterpreted in Bengali. Equally noteworthy is that this process of transmission
gave rise to a local language in the late fourteenth century. See Subrahmanyam, Persianization, 77.
82. Azra, Origins of Islamic Reformism, 523.
83. Azra, Origins of Islamic Reformism, 54.
84. Iskandar, Kesusasteraan, 389.
85. Winstedt, Date, Authorship, 54.
86. Djajadiningrat, Critisch overzicht, 17980 fn 4.
87. The Englishman James Lancaster was in Aceh when the Acehnese army
returned on 28 June 1613 after its victory over Johor. Markham, Voyages, 255.
88. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 24.
89. Episodes 35 to 38 are the story of the flight and are among eight episodes that
were omitted from the printed version. Liaw, Sejarah Kesusasteraan, vol. 2, 97.
90. Andaya, Perak, 41.
91. This idea is advanced by Braginsky in his reconstruction of the development
of what he terms medieval Malay literature. He minimizes the influence of social
and economic factors on Malay culture in general because they were mutatis mutandis
fairly unchanging. Instead, he attaches greater importance to ideology as the determining factor in Malay society and hence the key to the periodization of its literary
output. Braginsky, System, 510.
92. Such a development was noted in the transition to literacy in the Makassar
kingdom of Gowa. Cummings, Making Blood White.
93. Parnickel, Penth, and Johns reject the notion that the Hikayat Aceh was
modeled after the Persian Akbar Nama, apparently on the basis of the latters greater
sophistication. Iskandar, Kesusasteraan, 393. Johns believes that the Hikayat Aceh is

Notes to Pages 124127

261

far more similar to the Hikayat Malim Deman and the Hikayat Awang Sulung Merah
Muda. Liaw, Sejarah Kesusasteraan, 115. Braginsky suggests that the model was most
likely the Malfuzat-I Timuri (Autobiography of Timur) by Abu Talib al-Husayni, who
presented it to the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (162858). Braginsky, Structure,
4468.
94. NA, VOC 1143, Atjeh, Daghregister Pieter Sourij, fol. 565v.
95. Azra, Origins of Islamic Reformism, 545, 59.
96. Iskandar, Bustanus-Salatin, 3.
97. Hooykaas, Over Maleise Literatuur, 1734.
98. Iskandar, Bustanus-Salatin, 57.
99. Azra, Origins of Islamic Reformism, 658.
100. Liaw, Sejarah Kesusasteraan, 627; Azra, Origins of Islamic Reformism,
7780.
101. Iskandar, Kesusasteraan, 3807, 41820.
102. Schrieke attributes many Acehnese practices to influences from the Mughal
court, from palace and garden architecture to names of officials, though he simply
cites a variety of sources without providing any detail. Schrieke, Penetration of Islam,
24953.
103. Winstedt, The Malay Magician.
104. Bulliet, Shaikh al-Islam, 534, 667; Hadi, Islam and State, 14861.
105. Ito, World, 164, 250, 25960; Nieuwenhuijze, Samsu -Din van Pasai, 3601;
Azra, Origins of Islamic Reformism, 579, passim; Hadi, Islam and State, 14866.
106. NA, VOC 1144, Atjeh, Daghregister Soury, fols. 668v, passim; Ito, World,
42 fn 92.
107. Andaya, Indian Saudagar Raja.
108. Strachan and Penrose, The East India Company Journals, 137; NA, VOC
1157, Atjeh, Relaas De Vlamingh van Oudtshoorn, fol. 546v; NA, VOC 1237, Batavia,
Verbael Bort, fols. 346v, 366v.
109. NA, VOC 1157, Atjeh, Dagregister Arnold ve Vlamingh van Oudtshoorn,
fol. 574r.
110. NA, VOC 1144, Atjeh, Daghregister Soury, fols. 664v665rv; NA, VOC
1155, Atjeh, Daghregister De Vlamingh van Outshoorn, fols. 441r, 443r, 445v, passim.
111. Ramli and Tjut Rahma, Adat Aceh, 734; Ito, World, 2878; MeilinkRoelofsz, Asian Trade, ch. 3.
112. Richards, Mughal Empire, 58. For a discussion of the differences in Melakas
and Acehs principal ministers, see Andaya, Acehs Contribution, 524.
113. Hodgson, Venture of Islam, 64, 99, 1012.
114. Ramli and Tjut Rahma, Adat Aceh, 99, passim, ch. 4.
115. Ramli and Tjut Rahma, Adat Aceh, ch. 4.
116. NA, VOC 1237, Batavia, Verbael Bort, fol. 340v.
117. NA, VOC 1191, Atjeh, Rapport Truijtman, fols. 751r, 752v.
118. NA, VOC 1241, Westkust Sumatra, Daghregister Groenewegen, fol. 378v.
The royal messengers sent to the rantau from the Pagaruyung court bearing the sacred

262

Notes to Pages 127133

word of the ruler in a formalized missive may have been a practice borrowed from
Aceh. See chapter 3.
119. Bowrey, Geographical Account, 300.
120. Colenbrander, Jan Pietersz. Coen, 129, under date 22 October 1615.
121. Large harems were not limited to Muslim societies but were also found elsewhere. See Introduction in Walthall, Servants of the Dynasty. Nevertheless, Aceh was
unusual among Malayu polities in maintaining large numbers of palace women, a
practice undoubtedly borrowed from the Islamic lands.
122. Expedition of Commodore Beaulieu, 744.
123. Bowrey, Geographical Account, 310.
124. These were the actual functions of the palace women in the Ottoman
Empire. See, for example, Lybyers study, The Government of the Ottoman Empire,
56.
125. Wilkinson, Malay-English Dictionary, vol. 2, 1103; Klinkert, Nieuw MaleischNederlandsch Woordenboek, 418.
126. Winstedt, Raffles Ms. No. 18, 115. Stuart Robson, in a personal communication, has suggested that it could refer to the fact that Tun Indera Segara may have
come from a family that provided sida-sida.
127. Alves, Une Ville, 111 fn 84.
128. Lombard, Le Spraeck ende Woord-Boek, 14.
129. Abdul Samad Ahmad, Sulalatus Salatin, 75.
130. Raja Chulan bin Hamid, Misa Melayu, 89.
131. Abdul Samad Ahmad, Sulalatus Salatin, 71.
132. Alves, Une Ville, 103.
133. Ayalon, On the Eunuchs, 68.
134. Temple, Travels, vol. 3, pts 1 & 2, 1919; NA, Atjeh, VOC 1143, Daghregister
Willemsz., fol. 512r; VOC 1143, Atjeh, Daghregister Soury, fol. 563rv.
135. Bowrey, Geographical Account, 3256.
136. Bowrey, Geographical Account, 3002.
137. NA, VOC 1237, Batavia, Verbael Bort, fols. 354rv.
138. NA, VOC 1143, Atjeh, Daghregister Willemsz., fol. 503r; Memorie Willemsz.,
594v; NA, VOC 1157, Atjeh, Rapport Arnold de Vlamingh van Oudtshoorn, fol. 546v;
NA, VOC 1157, Atjeh, Journaal Arnold de Vlamingh van Oudtshoorn, fol. 599r.
139. Such indigenous priests can be found in many parts of the Austronesian
world. They are particularly well known in South Sulawesi, where they are called bissu
and continue to perform rituals at various rites of passage. Andaya, The Bissu; Peletz,
Transgenderism, 3124, 322.
140. Strachan and Penrose, The East India Company Journals, 138.
141. Richards, Mughal, 62.
142. Subrahmanyam, Persianization, 77.
143. Gibb and Bowen, Islamic Society and the West, vol. 1, pt. 1, 32933; Lybyer.
The Government of the Ottoman Empire, 57; Peirce, Imperial Harem, 11, 46, 49,
passim.

Notes to Pages 133135

263

144. NA, VOC 1226, Malacca, Missive Thyssen, fol. 592v.

145. Ramli and Tjut Rahma, Adat Aceh, 45, 51.
146. A syair is a long poem composed of verses of four lines rhyming together,
with the best-known syair focusing on romantic tales.
147. Abdul Rahman, Sjair Puteri Hidjau, 15.
148. Reid, Elephants and Water, 27.
149. NA, VOC 1214, Atjeh, Missive Truijtman, fol. 171v.
150. NA, VOC 1214, Atjeh, Missive Truijtman, 171v; VOC 1177, Perak, Missive, fol. 82v. The title Lord of the White Elephant is prominent in the Theravada
Buddhist lands and may be a borrowing from mainland Southeast Asia. On the other
hand, so many of Acehs institutions in this period were based on Islamic models that
it is more likely the practice was patterned after Muslim courts in India.
151. Iskandar, Bustanus-Salatin, 40.
152. Hadi, Islam and State, 12042.
153. Liaw, Undang-Undang Melaka, 312; Hadi, Islam and State, 21720.
154. It was common for a frontier area to accept suzerainty from more than one
overlord. Thongchai, Siam Mapped, 848. Kedah was a typical frontier area, located
between two powerful cultural zones and loyalties: the Siamese and the Malayu.
155. NA, VOC 1157, Atjeh, Relaas De Vlamingh van Outshoorn, fol. 549v; NA,
VOC 1194, Malacca, Missive Thyssen, fol. 318r; NA, VOC 1221, Malacca, Daghregister
Pitts, fol. 451v; NA, VOC 1229, Atjeh, Missive Keyser, fol. 297r.
156. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor.
157. Liaw, Sejarah Kesusasteraan, 79.
158. Drewes, Hikajat Potjut Muhamat, 167, 169.
159. Djajadiningrat, Critisch Overzicht, 191, 1979.
160. In contemporary Dutch accounts from the western half of the archipelago,
no distinction is made between the Bugis, Makassar, and Mandar people. Whichever
group made the greatest impression on an area tended to be the generalized term for
the others. On Java, for example, all people from South Sulawesi were regarded by the
Javanese and the Dutch as Makassar, whereas in alam Malayu, Bugis was used for
all ethnic groups from South Sulawesi. Andaya, Bugis-Makassar Diasporas.
161. Andaya and Andaya, History of Malaysia, chs. 34; Matheson and Andaya,
Precious Gift.
162. NA, VOC 1157, Atjeh, Daghregister De Vlamingh v. Oudtshoorn, fol. 554r.
163. Lombard, Le Spraeck ende Woord-Boek.
164. In the Hikayat Hang Tuah, for example, there is an explicit reference to the
Malayu language of Melaka being mixed with Javanisms. See Kassim Ahmad, Hikayat
Hang Tuah, 175.
165. Commentaries, vol. 3, 114.
166. Andaya, Historicising Modernity, 391409.
167. A certain Muhamat Arsyad al-Banjari in Borneo composed the Sabil alHuhtadin as a companion volume to Nur al-Dins Sirat al-Mustakim, considered to be
the oldest work on jurisprudence (fikh) in the Malayu language. He did this because

264

Notes to Pages 135140

he claimed that the Sirat contained too many Acehnese words and expressions. Liaw,
Sejarah Kesusastraan, vol. 2, 1993, 50.
168. Snouck Hurgronje, The Achehnese, vol. 2, 69.
169. Hooykaas, Over Maleise Literatuur, 95.
170. Cowan, Hikayat Malm Dagang, 12, 75.
171. Cowan, Hikajat Malm Dagang, 11, 78, 80.
172. Aceh did not emerge as a power in the Straits of Melaka until after the fall of
Malayu Melaka in 1511. The name Melaka remained because the rulers re-established
the center of the kingdom on the Johor River. In subsequent centuries, other names
were used for the kingdom to refer to a new site, but it was still possible to call all of
them Melaka or Johor after the mother kingdom.
173. Cowan, Hikajat Malm Dagang, 789.
174. Cowan, Hikajat Malm Dagang, 912.
175. The text is strongly antiIskandar Muda, and at least four episodes depict
Iskandar Muda as abandoning the field of battle or quaking from fear in battle. Drewes,
Hikayat Potjut Muhamat, 15.
176. Levtzion, Eighteenth Century Sufi Brotherhoods, 151.
177. Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 1257.
178. Ritter, Korte Aanteekingen, 446.
179. Drewes, Hikajat Potjut Muhamat, 83, 167.
180. Drewes, Hikajat Potjut Muhamat, 43.
181. Andaya, Very Good-Natured, 70.
182. Drewes, Hikajat Potjut Muhamat, 163.
183. Drewes, Hikajat Potjut Muhamat, 101.
184. Drewes, Hikajat Potjut Muhamat, 125, 127.
185. Andaya, Very Good-Natured, 64, 756.
186. Snouck Hurgronje, Atjehers, vol. 2, 4.

Chapter 5: The Batak Malayu

1. The major Batak groups today are listed as the Karo, the Simalungun, the
Pakpak-Dairi, the Toba, and the Angkola-Mandailing. It was the Europeans who first
identified the Toba as those who lived in and around Lake Toba, spoke a similar dialect, and shared customary practices. Following this usage, I apply the term Toba to
refer to the communities living on Samosir and the surrounding lands of Lake Toba,
including those of Silindung. There is a growing tendency to use the word Batak only
for the Toba, since many of the other groups prefer to be regarded as non-Batak and
simply as Mandailing, Karo, Simalungun, etc., in the ongoing process of redefinition
of ethnic groups. Before the twentieth century, however, the term Batak appears to
have been a general term used by outsiders to refer to all these different groups living
in the interior of northern Sumatra.
2. In Batak social organization the marga is one of the basic kinship units
and traces descent to a single male ancestor. Membership of a marga is determined

Notes to Pages 140146

265

patrilineally, with children of both sexes belonging to the marga of their father. The
marga can represent an ancient grouping, as well as groups that have developed from
the original unit. There is evidence that some of the marga are of mixed origin and
have been formed by in-migrants joining with the local population. Gonda is not
totally convinced of van der Tuuks derivation of the term marga from the Sanskrit
varga, meaning company, party, group. In the Old Malayu inscription at Talang
Tuwo in Palembang from the seventh century, the Sanskrit term marga is used to
mean way. Gonda, Sanskrit in Indonesia, 12930, 205. This derivation appears to
have been retained in later centuries. In the Palembang-Jambi area the term marga
was used for a lineage group. When the Dutch in the early nineteenth century asked
a Palembang man what marga meant, he replied: One road, people of one inclination, one relationship and the same origin. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 17. It is
likely, therefore, that the Batak marga stems from the Sanskrit term marga, meaning
way, road, path.
3. Bellwood, Prehistory, 122, 1512.
4. In the literature on the Batak, a common explanations for this ethnonym
is that Muslims used it to refer to pig eaters. Rita Kipp cites other possible derivations provided by her informants: from the Sanskrit bhata or bhrta, meaning mercenary, soldier, warrior, hireling, servant because of their functions in the past; and
savage or bumpkin. See Kipp, Dissociated Identities, 27. It is tempting to define
Batak as human beings, which is a common definition of ethnonyms of many
indigenous groups around the world. The Batek on the Malay Peninsula, for example,
gloss their name as human beings. Despite the lexical similarity, however, there is no
link between the two terms because Batek is from an Austroasiatic language, while
Batak is derived from an Austronesian language. There is an Austronesian-speaking
group called the Batak in Palawan in the Philippines, but no one appears to know the
meaning of the name.
5. Hirth and Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua, 35, 62, 66.
6. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, 145.
7. Latham, Travels, 255.
8. Vermeulen, Gedenkwaerdige Voyagie, 42.
9. Andaya, Upstreams, 542.
10. Anderson, Mission, 34. The sultan was the Malayu ruler of Deli who claimed
many of Delis hinterland Batak as his subjects.
11. The complexity of the whole issue of cannibalism is discussed by Rodney
Needham in a witty scholarly review of W. Arens, The Man-eating Myth: Anthropology
and Anthropophagy (Oxford University Press, 1979). Needham, Times Literary Supplement, 25 January 1980, 756.
12. Casparis, Indonesian Palaeography, 45.
13. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 1112, 1245, 2301. The resin comes
from a variety of species. The Styrax paralleloneurum produces a better quality benzoin, but the most frequently mentioned in pharmaceutical and botanical literature is
the Styrax benzoin. Katz, Lexploitation, 2435.
14. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 111.

266

Notes to Pages 146148

15. Burkill, Dictionary of Economic Products, vol. 1, 87681.

16. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 150, 1545, 184.
17. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 2301, 233, 2357.
18. Katz, LExploitation, 259.
19. Ptak, Possible Chinese, 137.
20. Miksic, Classical Archaeology, 59.
21. Miksic, Archaeology, Trade, 97: Edwards McKinnon, Kota Cina, 313.
22. Edwards McKinnon, Kota Cina, 3402.
23. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 102.
24. Miksic, Archaeology, Trade, 97, 106.
25. Nieuwenhuys, Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk, 46.
26. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 381.
27. Edwards McKinnon suggests that the Tamil merchant guild may have
encouraged Chola intervention in Sriwijaya in order to gain economic advantage in
the increasingly international trade flowing through the Straits of Melaka. Edwards
McKinnon, Mediaeval Tamil, 88.
28. Soo, Dissolving Hegemony, 3068.
29. Subbarayalu, Tamil Merchant-Guild, 303; Christie, Medieval TamilLanguage, 257. Joustra explains that lobu means an abandoned settlement. Joustra, Batakspiegel, 28. Lobu Tua, meaning the old abandoned settlement, could have
been an earlier center which later moved to the town of Barus.
30. In Sanskrit the word kasturi refers to musk. Since musk does not occur in
the Baros area, Subbarayalu has suggested that the term may have been used to refer
symbolically to aromatics in general. Subbarayalu, Tamil Merchant-Guild, 312;
Edwards McKinnon, Mediaeval Tamil, 91.
31. Miksic, Archaeology, Trade, 94.
32. Ptak, Possible Chinese, 13940. This may account for Edwards McKinnons
speculation based on Chinese ceramic evidence at Lobu Tua that the site was abandoned around the time Kota Cina was founded. Edwards McKinnon, Mediaeval
Tamil, 89.
33. The origin of the name comes from a common Chinese practice of erecting
a fortified enclosure to protect themselves and their goods while awaiting a shift in
monsoon winds to resume their journey to India. Miksic, Archaeology, Ceramics,
292.
34. Pulau Kompei on Aru Bay is another important site on the northeast Sumatran coast that produced trade ceramics in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This is
probably the site of Kompei mentioned in Chinese sources as having sent a mission
to China in 662 CE. Wolters has suggested that Po-lo, which also sponsored a mission to China in the seventh century, was located in northeast Sumatra. On the same
coast, Panai flourished between the tenth and fourteenth centuries and Aru from the
late thirteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. Milner et al. suggest that Aru and
Deli were different names for the same site. According to Tengku Luckman, the kingdom of Serdang then split off from the old Deli kingdom in the seventeenth century.
Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries Asahan, also on the same coast,

Notes to Pages 148152

267

became a prominent kingdom and outlet for products from the Batak interior. Nik
Hassan, Art, Archaeology, 110; Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 187, 193, 220;
Milner, Edwards McKinnon, and Tengku Luckman, A Note on Aru, 189; Tengku
Luckman, Sari Sejarah Serdang, 39; Hirosue, Prophets and Followers, 401.
35. Nik Hassan, Art, Archaeology, 10910.
36. Edwards McKinnon, Mediaeval Tamil, 89; Miksic, Archaeology, Ceramics,
292.
37. Anderson, Mission, 294.
38. Edwards McKinnon, Kota Cina, 9.
39. Edwards McKinnon, New Light, 867.
40. Reichle, Violence and Serenity, 216.
41. Miksic, Heterogenetic Cities, 111.
42. Edwards McKinnon, Mediaeval Tamil, 87.
43. The main Minangkabau gold-producing areas are in Tanah Datar. According
to Dobbin, the main route to the east coast from Buo and Sumpur Kudus was by water
or land to the headwaters of the Indragiri River and then overland to the headwaters
of a tributary of the Kampar Kiri. Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 601. Satyawati suggests that Adityawarman moved his center to the Minangkabau highlands in order to
control the gold and camphor trade shipped to the Kampar and Batang Hari Rivers.
Satyawati, Archaeology and History, 9.
44. Christie, Medieval Tamil-Language, 25963.
45. Casparis, Indonesian Palaeography, 69.
46. Miksic, Heterogenetic Cities, 1112.
47. Leong, Collecting Centres, 29.
48. Soo mentions Kampar and Lamuri, but other possible ports were Pulau
Kompei on Aru Bay and Panai. Nevertheless, archaeological evidence seems to support
the belief that Kota Cina was the dominant port during its existence. Soo, Dissolving
Hegemony, 296.
49. Situmorang, Toba Na Sae, 412.
50. The meaning of marserak has now expanded to mean economic and social
mobility. Other words are currently in use to describe different types of migration.
Purba and Purba, Migrasi Spontan, 225.
51. This statement is based on genealogical stories contained in a number of
sources, including Sangti, Sejarah Batak; Hoetagaloeng, Poestaha Taringot; Boer, Een
en Ander; Keuning Toba-Bataks; Willer Verzameling; Dijk, Eenige Aanteekeningen; and Neumann, Bijdrage.
52. Perret, La Formation, 56, 60.
53. Bellwood, Prehistory, 233.
54. See Perret, La Formation, 37, map Karo Migrations according to Traditions.
Sinaga also cites evidence that the Karo trace their roots to the Pakpak area, which in
turn acknowledges an origin in Toba. Sinaga, Leluhur, 467.
55. Westenberg,Bataksche Rijkjes, 603.
56. Edwards McKinnon, Mediaeval Tamil, 69; Edwards McKinnon, New
Light, 11, 224; Miksic, Archaeology, Trade, 254.

268

Notes to Pages 152155

57. Bronson, Besoeki, and Wisseman, Laporan Penelitian, 77.

58. Miksic, Archaeology, Trade, 97, 103. In support of this view, Edwards McKinnon believes that the name of the village Portibi (Batak for region or quarter) may
derive from the Sanskrit pertiwi, referring to a center of power. In the Padang Lawas
area are two villages called Portibi Jae (Downriver Portibi) and Portibi Julu (Upriver
Portibi), which may have been associated with groups representing the uplands and
the lowlands. Edwards McKinnon, Kota Cina, 301.
59. Neumann, Het Pane-, vol. 2, 178.
60. Neumann, Het Pane-, vol. 2, 178.
61. Satyawati, Archaeology and History, 6.
62. Willer, Verzameling, 262, 3445, 4002, 405.
63. Sangti, Sejarah Batak, 12930. In the current climate of strong identification
and pride in ethnic difference, some may take issue with these findings since Batara
Sangti himself is a Toba Batak.
64. Ypes, Bijdrage, 1412.
65. Keuning, Toba-Bataks, 1601; Vergouwen, Social Organization, 12. Lubis,
a modern local historian, rejects any idea of a Toba origin for the Nasution marga,
but argues that the ancestral figure, Si Beroar, was indigenous to Mandailing. Lubis,
Sejarah Marga-Marga, 1936. This view represents a common trend among various
groups who stress their difference with the Toba as a way of emphasizing their nonBatak identity.
66. Lombard, Le Sultanat dAtjeh, 66.
67. Hamparan Perak, 9.
68. Anderson, Mission, 258.
69. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 436; Lombard, Le Sultanat dAtjeh, 66.
70. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 70.
71. Lombard, Le Sultanat dAtjeh, 73; Haan, Een Oud Bericht, 6478.
72. Burton and Ward, Report of a Journey, 510.
73. Westenberg, Bataksche Rijkjes, 57980.
74. Willer, Verzameling, 370, 373.
75. Joustra, Batakspiegel, 286, 293, 3023.
76. Vergouwen, Social Organization, Nota, 15.
77. Purba and Purba, Migrasi Spontan, 21.
78. Ypes, Bijdrage, v.
79. Claus, Economic and Social Change, 44.
80. Nieuwenhuys, Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk, 47.
81. Keuning, Verwantschapsrecht, 156.
82. Merga is the Karo term, but I have used the Toba rendering marga throughout to avoid confusion.
83. Neumann, Bijdrage, 23. Rita Kipp first raised doubts about Neumanns
interpretation which identified this marga as the first or original Karo because it was
found in only one ward in a village. Kipp, Dissociated Identities, 44. Neumanns views,
however, seemed to have been adopted by Batak authors themselves. See, for example,
Sangti, Sejarah Batak, 12930.

Notes to Pages 155159

269

84. Kipp, Dissociated Identities, 34; Singarimbun, Kinship, Descent, 716; Sinaga,
Leluhur Marga-Marga, 283. See also Sinaga, Leluhur Marga-Marga, 2847, for a description of how immigrants from the Toba and Pakpak areas became part of newly formed
Karo merga.
85. Singarimbun, Kinship, Descent, 70, 72.
86. Tarigan, Structure and Organization, 47; Joustra, Batakspiegel, 184.
87. Nilakanta Sastri, Takuapa, 2530; Miksic, Cola Attacks, 1201.
88. Subbarayalu, Tamil Merchant-Guild, 313.
89. Edwards McKinnon, New Light, 87.
90. Edwards McKinnon, New Light, 901.
91. Edwards McKinnon, New Light, 856; Parkin, Batak Fruit, 82, 94 fn 47;
Singarimbun, Kinship, Descent, 7880; Neumann, Bijdrage,167.
92. Siahaan, Sedjarah Kebudajaan, 1145; Parkin, Batak Fruit, 94 fn 47; Singarimbun, Kinship, Descent, 75.
93. Edwards McKinnon, Mediaeval Tamil, 93.
94. Parkin, Batak Fruit, 25464; Heine-Geldern, Le Pays, 326; Casparis, Sriwijaya and Malayu, 246; Fontein, Sculpture of Indonesia, 1623.
95. Satyawati, Archaeology and History, 2, 6; Bronson et al., Laporan Penelitian,
19.
96. Parkin, Batak Fruit; Pederson, Religion; and Rae, Breath Becomes the Wind,
include detailed discussion of the impact of Indian ideas on Batak indigenous religion.
97. Bronson, Besoeki, and Wisseman, Laporan Penelitian, 19, 61, 64, 77; Satyawati, Archaeology and History, 2.
98. Satyawati, Archaeology and History, 6.
99. Casparis, Prasasti Indonesia, 2931.
100. Reichle, Violence and Serenity, 216; Christie, Medieval Tamil, 264.
101. The old religion is referred to by Christian Batak as Perbegu, or the worship
of ancestral spirits. Because of the perceived derogatory nature of this description,
adherents prefer the term Pemena, meaning the First [Religion].
102. Parkin, Batak Fruit, 6. There are variations among the Batak languages. For
example, tondi is Toba, tendi Karo, and tenduy Simalungun. In the following discussion
the Toba terms are used.
103. Joustra, however, subscribes to the view that the last breath of a person
becomes the begu. This is based on the belief that the breath cannot be destroyed, that
what is spoken is immortal because it is the wind. Joustra, Het Leven en Zeden, 416.
104. Pedersen, Religion, 1926; Rae, Breath Becomes the Wind, 1820. Warneck
describes the sombaon as the highest stage that the spirit of the dead can attain. Warneck, Toba-Batak.
105. Sherman, Rice, Rupees, 82. Sombaon is a general term for earth spirits or deities, and Ypes believed that it referred also to the dwelling place of these beings. Ypes,
Bijdrage, 196.
106. Sahala is in essence the same idea as mana in Pacific Island societies. These
communities share a common Austronesian past, and the concept is one which can be

270

Notes to Pages 159162

traced to the Austronesian language. For a discussion of mana, see Shore, Mana and
Tapu, 13743.
107. Castles, Political Life, 134.
108. Edwards McKinnon Kota Cina, 313, 330; Miksic, Archaeology, Trade, 97.
109. Westenberg, Aanteekeningen, 227.
110. I have opted for the term high priest rather than the more commonly used
priest-king. High priest appears more appropriate to their function in Batak society and accords with Uli Kozoks belief that it was only the last Sisingamangaraja XII
(18751907) who referred to himself as king. In Sisingamangaraja XIIs letters he claims
to be Ruler of the Batak Clans and even Ruler of Sumatra. Kozok, Seals, 2746.
111. According to Keuning the Borbor was initially part of Lontung. Through
expansion into areas of both the Lontung and the Sumba, the Borbor became regarded
as a separate major marga. Keuning, Verwantschap, 16.
112. Situmorang, Position, 2214. In a more recent work, Situmorang asserts
that the Sorimangaraja was the title of the high priests prior to the formation of the
Sisingamangaraja institution in the sixteenth century. Situmorang, Toba Na Sae, 218.
This date, which is widely cited in the literature, has been obtained through the questionable method of counting backward by allotting a certain number of years per sundut or generation. Oral traditions (which include those surrounding the origins of
the Sisingamangaraja) tend to telescope years and often refer to events that began far
earlier. The Sorimangaraja may have preceded the Sisingamangaraja, but when that
occurred cannot be determined with any certainty.
113. Situmorang, Toba Na Sae, 778.
114. The afterbirth is regarded as one of the most important sources of a persons tondi. The story of the removal of the afterbirth to the heavens emphasizes the
Sisingamangarajas divine origins.
115. Pleyte, Singa Mangaradja, 3, 67, 15, 17. There are variations to the story,
but the general outline is the same. For a very detailed account of the miraculous birth
and life of the first Sisingamangaraja, see Tobing, Si Singamangaradja, 2347.
116. Haan, Verslag, 30.
117. Tideman, Hindoe-invloed, 256; Meerwaldt, Aanteekeningen, 530.
118. Cummings, Cultural Interaction, 634.
119. Heine-Geldern, Le Pays, 376.
120. Heine-Geldern points out, however, that the Sisingamangarajas had
employed force in the past. The first had led a war against the Lotung marga, another
against the Padris, and a third against the Dutch. Heine-Geldern, Le Pays, 374. But
these rulers were obeyed not so much for their military as for their spiritual prowess.
121. Sangti says that some twenty huta would then form a horja, and seven horja
would make a bius. Sangti, Sejarah Batak, 2934. Other commentators give varying
figures.
122. Situmorang further divides the bius into three categories, with the most
developed being the bius under the parbaringin. The others are characterized as
developing and backward bius. Situmorang, Toba Na Sae, 423.

Notes to Pages 162164

271

123. Kubitscheck, Horja and Bius, 193; Sangti, Sejarah Batak, 303; Siahaan et
al., Monografi Kebudayaan, 112; Castles, Statelessness, 74; Tobing, Si Singamangaradja, 404, 1002. So great was the reverence for the Sisingamangaraja institution
that even after the last had disappeared in the nineteenth century, the Batak continued
to respond to rumors of his continued presence. In the 1920s a man emerged in Karoland who claimed that the Sisingamangaraja had commanded everyone to slaughter
a white chicken. The response was immediate and widespread, causing an unprecedented rise in the price of white chickens. In Angkola, people began eating a certain
type of fish because it was rumored that the Sisingamangaraja had ordered it to ward
off evil. Castles, Statelessness, 74.
124. Korn, Bataksche Offerande, pt. 1, 36, pt. 2, 126; Sherman, Rice, Rupees,
805. In studying the ritual functions of the bius, Sherman has concluded that the bius
may be compared to ancestral cults of the earth found elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Sherman, Rice, Rupees, 82.
125. Tideman, Hindoe-invloed, 256; Meerwaldt, Aanteekeningen, 530; Situmorang, Toba Na Sae, 423.
126. James, De Geboorte, 137; Dijk, Eenige Aanteekeningen, 3001; Hirosue,
Prophets and Followers, 20, 22.
127. Korn, Bataksche Offerande, 323.
128. Raffles, Memoir, 436.
129. Burton and Ward, Report of a Journey, 514; Castles, Political Life, 189;
Castles, Statelessness, 74.
130. Hirosue, Prophets and Followers, 22.
131. Raffles, Memoir, 4356.
132. Kozok, Warisan Leluhur, 65.
133. Kozok, On Writing, 345.
134. In addition to the pustaha, there were other forms of writing such as letters,
pulas (a type of threatening letter), and laments. The latter two forms tended also to
have a strong magico-religious intent. Kozok On Writing, 434.
135. Teeuw, History of the Malay Language, 14851; Collins, Malay, 9.
136. Pollock, Cosmopolitan Vernacular, 7. I have based my arguments on Pollocks stimulating discussion on the process of vernacularization in India. Of particular value and relevance for the Batak situation is his argument that there is a division of
labor in languages, in which Sanskrit retains its position as the public literary expression of political will, while the vernacular is restricted to the business or practical
aspects. He terms this language division hyperglossia. Pollock, Cosmopolitan Vernacular, 112.
137. Voorhoeve, Overzicht, 10, 13.
138. Voorhoeve, Elio Modiglianis, 62, 78, 82.
139. Kozok, Warisan Leluhur, 17.
140. Neumann, De Bataksche Goeroe, 2, 10. Ginting, however, reminds us that
not all guru [or datu] achieved the same state of competence. Those with exceptional
skill acquired the reputation of guru mbelin, or great guru. Ginting Pak Surdam,
94, 96.

272

Notes to Pages 164168

141. Ginting, Pak Surdam, 867.

142. Willer, Verzameling, 2956; Ginting, Pak Surdam, 867.
143. Voorhoeve, Some Remarks, 39.
144. Bellwood, Prehistory, 122, 233. Linguists warn against equating language
with language speakers since an earlier population could adopt the language of the
newcomer. Unless more conclusive evidence is presented on the ethnicity of the group
that occupied the Toba highlands, I will assume that the inhabitants were ancestors of
the group that came to be identified in later centuries as the Batak. I am grateful to
K. A. Adelaar for his informed comments on this subject.
145. The process is described in a typewritten document owned by Tengku Luckman Sinar titled, Hamparan Perak, 115.

Chapter 6: The Orang Laut and the Malayu

1. For an excellent study of the Sama-Bajau, see Sather, Bajau Laut.
2. The word hanyut is also the word used by the Orang Laut when they speak of
a time when they were swept away from land by a large storm and washed out to sea.
3. Hogan, Men of the Sea, 210, 21920.
4. Pattemore and Hogan, On the Origins, 76.
5. Ivanoff, Moken, 115.
6. Hogan, Men of the Sea, 207; Pattemore and Hogan, On the Origins, 76.
7. Ainsworth, Merchant Venturer, 138.
8. Bernatzik, De Geesten, 37.
9. Hogan, Men of the Sea, 210.
10. Ainsworth, Merchant Venturer, 212.
11. Ivanoff, Les Moken, 27.
12. Pattemore and Hogan, On the Origins, 76.
13. Bellwood, Prehistory, 135.
14. Hs. 494, Rapport Ch. van Angelbeek, KITLV, fol. 22.
15. Bruijn-Kops, Sketch, 386.
16. Schot, De Batam Archipel, 30, 163.
17. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 467, 222.
18. Matheson and Andaya, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 159.
19. Overeenkomsten, A1 Treaty of 1857, 89; A2 Note of Revision, 5.
20. Thomson, Description of the Eastern Coast, 856.
21. Netscher, Togtjes, vol. 14, 5.
22. The association of certain groups with specific areas is implied in the sultan
of Linggas prohibition in the nineteenth century of movements of people from one
Orang Laut group to another without the approval of the sultan or his representative
(batin). Netscher, Beschrijving, 133.
23. Adatrechtbundels, vol. 20, 242.
24. Adatrechtbundels, vol. 20, 2445.
25. Ivanoff, Les Moken, 1114.
26. Chou, Contesting, 6134, 618.

Notes to Pages 168181

273

27. Begbie, Malayan Peninsula, 2702.

28. Ranzow, Genealogie, unpag.
29. Begbie, Malayan Peninsula, 2702.
30. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 256.
31. Muhammad Yusoff, Hikayat Siak 1134.
32. Von Ranzows comment that the suku Tambus lacked a fixed residence may
be a reference to the fact that unlike the other Orang Laut, there was no island regarded
as the center for the suku Tambus. Ranzow, Genealogie, unpag.
33. Netscher, Beschrijving, 1323.
34. Netscher, Beschrijving, 1278, 1323.
35. Netscher, Beschrijving, 140. The Bajau, known in the southern Philippines
as the Sama-Bajau, were reputed in the past to have led an itinerant existence, living
almost exclusively in their boats.
36. Begbie, Malayan Peninsula, 264.
37. Schot, De Batam Archipel, vol. 1882, 4723.
38. Schot, De Batam Archipel, vol. 1882, 164.
39. Schot, De Batam Archipel, vol. 1882, 164.
40. NA, VOC 1415, Missive Malacca, fol. 758r.
41. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 189, 2567.
42. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 234.
43. Begbie, Malayan Peninsula, 272.
44. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 4552, passim.
45. Adatrechtbundels, vol. 20, 242.
46. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 2145.
47. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 100.
48. Matheson and Andaya, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 376, fol. 265 fn 4.
49. Hs. 494, KITLV, Rapport van Angelbeek, fols. 213; Matheson and Andaya,
Tuhfat al-Nafis, 391, fol. 338 fn 4.
50. Matheson and Andaya, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 269.
51. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 235.
52. Kassim, Hikayat Hang Tuah. Although Hang Tuah is widely regarded as a
Malayu cultural hero, the Orang Asli also have traditions which make him an Orang
Asli (see chapter 7). Hang Tuah, therefore, has come to represent all three groups in the
Malay Peninsula: the Malayu, the Orang Laut, and the Orang Asli.
53. Trocki, Prince of Pirates, 43.
54. Adatrechtbundels, vol. 20, 240.
55. Sutherland, Slavery and the Slave Trade, 2667.
56. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 95, 223.
57. Tarling, Piracy and Politics, 39; Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 96.
58. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 18990.
59. NA, VOC 1151, Melaka Missive, 11 November 1644, 527v.
60. See the Introduction by Ivanoff in Ainsworth, Merchant Adventurer, xi. I
am inclined to believe that this was a well-known method of creating a familial relationship to establish trust in any exchange. There are many examples of such relation-

274

Notes to Pages 181189

ships established in the trading world of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jambi

and Palembang. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, passim.
61. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 97100; Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 95, 223.
62. Matheson and Andaya, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 69; Hooker, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 225.
63. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 169.
64. Matheson and Andaya, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 333, fol. 83 fn 4.
65. Tarling, Piracy and Politics, 102, 206.
66. Hamilton, New Account, 845.
67. Angelbeek, Korte schets, 569.
68. Schot, De Batam Archipel, vol. 4, 163.
69. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 512.
70. Tarling, Piracy and Politics, 40.
71. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 97100; Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 95, 223.
72. Tarling, Piracy and Politics, 69; Trocki, Prince of Pirates, 45.
73. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 79, 321.
74. Matheson and Andaya, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 272.
75. All these treaties, both Dutch and Malay versions, are contained in NA, Collection of Treaties with the Sultan of Riau-Lingga 17841909, Min. v. Kol., 2.10.01,
box 59.
76. NA, Extract uit het Algemeene Jaarlycks Verslag, Riau Resident H. Cornets
de Groot), Min. v. Kol., 2.10.01, 3080.
77. Trocki, Prince of Pirates, 56.
78. A strikingly similar example can be found in southeast Sulawesi between
another refugee prince and the Bajau in the establishment of the entrepot in Kendari.
For a discussion of this episode and the general phenomenon, see Andaya, Historical
Links.
79. Bulbeck, Indigenous Traditions.
80. White, Sea Gypsies, 170; Sutherland, South Tennasserim, 458.
81. Kassim, Hikayat Hang Tuah, 14, 16, 24, 57, 69, 353, 45960.
82. Kassim, Hikayat Hang Tuah, 16.
83. Hikayat Negeri Johor, stanzas/verses 284a, 92a, 143b, 290b.
84. Cheah, Sejarah Melayu, 98; Hooker, Tuhfal al-Nafis, 130. The term actually
used for Orang Laut is rakyat, which in the Riau archipelago refers to the Orang
Laut. Wilkinson, Malay-English Dictionary, 955. English sources contemporaneous
with the Tuhfat state that Orang Laut and rakyat were used interchangeably. Matheson
and Andaya, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 316, fol. 19 fn 2.
85. The term Celates is derived from a Portuguese rendering of the Malay
selat, meaning straits. Although there is an Orang Laut group known as the Orang
Selat, the people of the straits, Pires clearly uses the term to refer to the Orang Laut
in general.
86. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 233, 467.
87. The widespread belief that such poisoned missiles brought almost instantaneous death gave those who employed these weapons a psychological advantage over
their enemies. In South Sulawesi, where the inhabitants were also wont to use blowguns

Notes to Pages 189194

275

and poison darts, the efficacy of the poisons made from the ipoh tree varied according
to the preparation, the length of time of the application of the poison on the darts, and
their actual use. Carey, Political Economy of Poison.
88. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 233.
89. Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, 311.
90. Formerly a title used for the Hindu god Siva and meant Lord of All. Wilkinson, Malay-English Dictionary, 890.
91. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 2313.
92. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 28.
93. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 2931.
94. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 232.
95. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 2338, 469.
96. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 235.
97. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 236.
98. Wang, Opening of Relations; Wade, Ming Shi-lu, 4134, passim.
99. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 281.
100. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 186.
101. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 196.
102. These straits are clearly marked in a map of the Riau-Lingga archipelago
dated 1883. Map Collection, University of Leiden Library, 006-05-004, Riouw en
Lingga Archipel, Os Port. 57N 146.
103. Piracy along these valuable straits and in the vicinity of Pedra Branca
continued into the nineteenth century. Thomson, Account of the Horsburgh Lighthouse. In the seventeenth century the Dutch East India Company was well aware
of the importance of these straits and used Orang Laut techniques to try to redirect
Chinese trade from Johor to Dutch Melaka. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 715.
104. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, xi, 62, 160.
105. Andaya, History of Johor, 15760.
106. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 2315.
107. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 2368.
108. Hope, Outcasts, 160.
109. Ivanoff, Moken, 106; Bernatzik, De Geesten, 37.
110. Hogan, Men of the Sea, 21920, 223; Pattemore and Hogan, On the Origins, 75.
111. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 234.
112. In the twentieth century the Moken offered wives to a Chinese and an Englishman to assure a secure economic relationship. White, Sea Gypsies, 112; Ainsworth,
Merchant Venturer, 76.

Chapter 7: The Orang Asli/Suku Terasing and the Malayu

1. I have used Orang Asli and Suku Terasing to refer in a general way to all interior communities who share a nomadic or seminomadic lifestyle distinct from that of
the Malayu.

276

Notes to Pages 194202

2. The origin of the term Semang is most likely the northern Aslian semaaq,
meaning people or human being. Senoi in Temiar and Seng-oi in Semai both mean
people. Semai is a term the Temiar use for their southern neighbors, though the
Semai themselves refer to their group collectively as Seng-oi. There has been a variety
of names applied to the Semai in the literature, but the practice is for the group to call
themselves by the name of their village or territory. Edo, Claiming Our Ancestors
Lands, 10, 178.
3. In the early twentieth century, Schebesta commented that the areas regarded as
Semang country included lands from Chaiya and Ulu Patani (Singora and Patthalung)
to Kedah and to mid-Perak and northern Pahang. Schebesta, Among the Forest Dwarfs.
4. Evans, Semang, 13.
5. Rambo, Primitive Polluters, 44.
6. Rambo, Primitive Polluters, 38; Evans, Semang, 11, 13.
7. Quoted in Benjamin, Introduction to Schebesta, Among the Forest Dwarfs,
viii.
8. Benjamin has maintained this view in a number of works, particularly in In
the Long Term. A more recent formulation is found in his On Being Tribal. Rambo
supports this perspective by suggesting that the Semang evolved out of a basic Mongoloid population in relatively recent times after the rise of agriculture. The latter
development ensured a distinctive lifestyle from the other two patterns described by
Benjamin. Rambo, Why Are the Semang?
9. Benjamin, On Being Tribal, 6.
10. Logan, Orang Benua, 247.
11. Quoted in Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races, vol. 1, 521.
12. Evans, Notes on the Sakai, 23.
13. Schebesta, Among the Forest Dwarfs, 83, 149.
14. Endicott, Batek History, 49.
15. Among the Kintak, a Semang group from northern Perak, there is a specific
word, tempet, which is used to refer to the forested area where they and their ancestors have foraged. Among their most precious possessions in the tempet are the Ipoh
(Antiaris toxicaria Leschenault) trees, from which they extract the poisonous sap that
is applied to their blowgun darts used for hunting. Razha, As the Forests, 76.
16. In cases where it is rare and difficult to locate a specific product, such as
camphor, a taboo language is employed to assure the success of the venture. Dentan,
Semai-Malay Ethnobotany, 1789.
17. Nicholas, Orang Asli, 323; Williams-Hunt, Land Conflicts, 367.
18. From an official document issued by the Social Department of the Province
of Riau in 1991, quoted in Djatmiko, Masyarakat Traditional, 34.
19. The ethnicization of the Orang Asli on the Malay Peninsula may have had
some influence on advocates, for there is now the occasional use of Orang Asli to
refer to Suku Terasing groups in Indonesia.
20. Sandbukt, Precolonial Populations, 434.
21. Dongen, De Koeboes, 185.
22. Sager, personal communication.

Notes to Pages 203205

277

23. Persoon, however, believes that the differences are overstated. Persoon,
Vluchten, 142.
24. Santy, Schets, 161.
25. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 14, 8990.
26. This is the name that Sandbukt was told during his brief visit to the group,
but since many groups in the interior use such endonyms as Orang Batin Five, Nine,
etc., it is not a satisfactory label. Because of the lack of any adequate description of the
group, Sager has decided to use that name in his Ph.D. dissertation. Sager, personal
communication.
27. Hasselt, Reizen, vol. 1, 199200, 2367, 240.
28. Hasselt, Reizen, vol. 1, 85, 2367.
29. Sager, personal communication.
30. Two of the earliest accounts are Dongen, Koeboes, and Hagen, De Koeboes and Orang Kubu. Sandbukt has made a number of studies of the Kubu, including
Kubu Conceptions, while Sager is now completing a dissertation titled If We Cross.
See bibliography for full references.
31. Hagen, De Koeboes, 945; Hagen, Die Orang Kubu, 13; Persoon, De Kubu,
453; Persoon, Vluchten, 142. According to Sager, the Orang Rimba regard the elephant and the rhinoceros as gods and thus have strong taboos against killing them.
Both animals are no longer found in the wild in the areas used by the Orang Rimba
today. Sager, personal communication.
32. Porath, When the Bird Flies, 214.
33. Keereweer, De Koeboes, 363.
34. This was a familiar scenario, which is better known in colonial literature
when the Europeans began to regard non-European peoples in the same light, hence
dispensable to the interests of the superior white European civilization. For an excellent account of the evolution of these ideas over the centuries, see Adas, Machines as
the Measures of Men.
35. Sandbukt, Kubu Conceptions, 24; Sager, personal communication.
36. Dongen, Koeboes, 1901. This is the tradition, but historically contact
between the Orang Rimba and the outside world was far older. For an extensive discussion of this legendary queen, see Andaya, To Live as Brothers.
37. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 82, 89.
38. Sandbukt, Kubu Conceptions, 4.
39. Sager, personal communication.
40. VOC 1517, Letter from Jambi, 2 October 1692, fol. 172v.
41. Oki, River Trade.
42. Barnard, Multiple Centres, 32; Effendy, Orang Petalangan of Riau, 3646.
43. One group was said to be of Javanese origin because a Javanese patih had been
given the title of dulubalang besar and allowed to settle in Siak. Rijn van Alkemade,
Reis van Siak, 136.
44. Barnard, Multiple Centres, 20; Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, 1112.
45. Rijn van Alkemade, Het Rijk Gassip, 2225.

278

Notes to Pages 205210

46. Barnard, Multiple Centres, 734; Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak,

5961.
47. Rijn van Alkemade, Reis van Siak, 1335. As an interior people, the Petalangan
would not have been summoned to participate in overseas campaigns. This task would
have been allocated to the kingdoms Orang Laut groups.
48. Barnard, Multiple Centres, 15863.
49. Suparlan, Orang Sakai, 214. The Ma Betise (a group that has been called
Btsisi, Besisi, and Mah Meri) tell a tale of the powerful magic of their shaman, who
was able to make stone float and coconut husk sink, thus helping to preserve the group
from the depredations of the Siak people from Sumatra. Nowak and Singan, Btsisi,
308. The Ma Betise call themselves Ma Heh, We, People. For a discussion of the
various names of the group, see Wazir, MaBetisk, 134.
50. Effendy, Orang Petalangan of Riau, 36970, 3779.
51. Effendy, Bujang Tan Domang, 27.
52. Effendy, Petalangan Society, 6323.
53. Porath, When the Bird Flies.
54. Porath, When the Bird Flies, 45.
55. Porath, When the Bird Flies, 5. This concept is the underlying argument in
Barbara Andayas work To Live as Brothers.
56. Porath, Developing Indigenous Communities, 110. It is tempting to see this
reference to the magical left hand as a residual notion stemming from the association
of Adityawarman with Kalacakra or Left-Handed Tantric Buddhism (see chapter 2).
57. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 267; Cheah, Sejarah Melayu, 867.
58. Barnard, Multiple Centres, 43.
59. Lye argues, however, that the Batek on the Malay Peninsula do not fit this
label because their foraging patterns are well planned and structured. Lye, Changing
Pathways, 113.
60. Dentan, Potential Food Sources.
61. In the past there would have been groups that practiced both foraging and
swidden agriculture. As the forested areas in both the Malay Peninsula and interior
Sumatra begin to disappear, the nomadic foraging is being increasingly replaced by the
semisedentary swidden agriculture.
62. Persoon, De Kubu, 4545.
63. A striking example of this economic symbiosis is the relationship of the many
different nomadic Punan groups in Borneo with their sedentary Dayak neighbors. The
interdependence between these special pairings is so well established that when one
partner moves it is often expected that the other will also relocate. The partners tend
to have similar customs and language and regard themselves as one people. Many of
the Punan have nothing but their label and a nomadic lifestyle in common and feel
no affinity with each other, making the whole issue of ethnic labels highly problematic.
Hoffman, The Punan, 5663.
64. There is no comparable study of the early prehistory of the Suku Terasing
in Sumatra. Studies on the Orang Asli are far more numerous and in general of a

Notes to Pages 210213

279

higher quality than those on the Suku Terasing. More recently, however, an increasing
number of good ethnographies on the Suku Terasing are appearing.
65. Bellwood, Prehistory, 70. But as Bellwood points out, the use of such racial
terms is for heuristic purposes, and the reality is the intergrading of both.
66. This is not to say, however, that the Neolithic culture found in the Malay Peninsula was due entirely to the migration of the Southern Mongoloid population. It has
been argued that in the later Neolithic in the second half of the first millennium BCE,
stone and glass beads found in cist-graves in the Bernam valley and in sites in Kuala
Selinsing, Perak, indicate trade links of the inhabitants with India, Sri Lanka, the Mediterranean and possibly Africa. See Nik Hassan Shuhaimi, Tracing the Origins, 102.
67. Several DNA studies examining the genetic history of Orang Asli with other
groups suggest that the Semai at least show close affinity to Khmers, which is supported by their Austroasiatic language affiliation. Baer, Genetic History, 6; Baer,
Genetic Studies, 29. Baers study demonstrates the great variation among the Orang
Asli groups, but she tempers her conclusion with the observation that none of the
smaller groups had yet been examined. Baer, Genetic Studies, 27.
68. Bellwood, Prehistory, 2656.
69. Benjamin, Between Isthmus and Islands, 124.
70. Benjamin, Malay World as a Regional Array, 3.
71. Bulbeck, Indigenous Traditions.
72. Bulbeck, Indigenous Traditions; Benjamin, Issues in the Ethnohistory of
Pahang.
73. Benjamin, Austroasiatic Subgroupings.
74. Bellwood, Prehistory, 258, 2657.
75. Fix, Genes, Language, 12, 15.
76. Baer, Genetic History, 8.
77. An excellent description of the different qualities of gaharuwood and the
method of collecting by the Orang Sakai of Siak is in Suparlan, Orang Sakai, 1423.
78. Lye explains the practice among the Batek, one of the Semang groups, who
return to old sites where they have traveled, hunted, collected. At such sites they
remember and narrate continuities and changes and reproduce this knowledge to the
younger generation. Lye, Knowledge, 150, 196.
79. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 90.
80. Razha, As the Forests, 83.
81. In silent trade the collectors would leave their products at a spot, and the
traders would then place their own goods in a barter exchange. If the Orang Asli were
satisfied with the exchange, they would take what the trader offered. If the collectors
were not satisfied with the proffered goods, they would leave them behind. The traders would then adjust their offer until both parties were satisfied. During the entire
transaction neither side met together nor saw one another.
82. Endicott, Effects, 2269, 2323.
83. Wazir, Transformations, 112, 1145.
84. Endicott, Effects, 231.
85. Benjamin, Introduction, viii.

280

Notes to Pages 213218

86. Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, 1519; Miksic, Protohistoric Settlement, 667.

87. Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, xi, xxvixxvii.
88. Noone, Notes, 18.
89. Lye, Knowledge, 216.
90. VOC 1141, Malacca, J. van Twist, 17 December 1642.
91. This type of oath is well known in the seventh-century Sriwijaya inscriptions,
including the Ligor [Nakhon Si Thammarat] Inscription of 775. Acquaintance with
this form of oath taking may have spread to the Orang Asli population on the Malay
Peninsula.
92. A subsequent report from Melaka in October 1643 simply noted that the
people of Tampin, an area settled by Minangkabaus, had killed some Benuas. VOC
1141, Malacca, van Vliet, 4 October 1643, 651r.
93. VOC 1141, Malacca, Report by Syahbandar Jan Menie on visit to the Wilden
[Orang Asli], 21 September 1642, fols. 275v276v. The report was also published by
P. A. Leupe in BKI 8 (1862), 12733.
94. Tachimoto, Orang Hulu, 767.
95. Tachimoto, Orang Hulu, 2930.
96. Burkill, Dictionary of Economic Products, vol. 1, 8713; Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 1234; Barnard, Multiple Centres, 17.
97. Barnard, Multiple Centres, 179.
98. Lockyer, Account of Trade, 49.
99. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 7, 34; Barnard, Multiple Centres, 16. For an excellent discussion of the collection and trade in and multiple uses of porcupine bezoars
in the early modern period, see Borschberg, Trade, Use, and Forgery.
100. Sandbukt, Precolonial Populations, 45; Hasselt, Reizen, vol. 1, 199200,
240; VOC 2410, Jambi Register, 2 December 1737, fol. 13; Barnard, Multiple Centres,
1920.
101. Porath, Developing Indigenous Communities, 10811.
102. Brown, Sejarah Malayu, 10, 23.
103. Corteso, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 235, 238.
104. Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail, Teks/Text of the Raffles MS. No. 18, 138.
105. Liauw, Undang-Undang Melaka, 68, 78, 176.
106. Liauw, Undang-Undang Melaka, 180.
107. Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races, vol. 1, 22; Couillard, The Malays and the
Sakai, 85. She also cites a description of the Jelai area prior to the arrival of Minangkabau migrants, where the penghulu appointed by a batin is placed in charge of the
Orang Asli who had converted to Islam. Based on this, she suggests that Sakai could
have referred to Orang Asli subjects of the ruler who had converted to Islam. Ibid.,
901. But as I try to show in this chapter, the term Sakai had varying meanings
depending on the text and context. See also Porath, Developing Indigenous Communities, 98101, for more modern uses of the term Sakai.
108. Wilkinson, Malay-English Dictionary, vol. 2, 1002, under sakai.
109. Kassim, Hikayat Hang Tuah, 168.
110. Wilkinson, Malay-English Dictionary, vol. 1, 1378, under biduanda.

Notes to Pages 218224

281

111. Pengkalan are usually located at a confluence of rivers and land routes and
serve as major intermediary collecting and redistribution points.
112. Raja Chulan, Misa Malayu, 99.
113. Although today the term bangsa refers to the nation, in earlier usage it was
used to denote an ethnic group. In Indonesia today the word sukubangsa is used to
mean ethnic group, thus retaining the original meaning of bangsa and combining it
with suku to indicate a part of the whole.
114. Sitti Hawa, Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, 61, 63, 67.
115. The penglipur lara is usually a blind singer of tales using a two-stringed
violin or rebab as accompaniment.
116. Pawang Ana and Raja Haji Yahya, Hikayat Awang Sulong Merah Muda,
13, 50.
117. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 1013, passim.
118. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 11, passim; Barendregt, Representing.
119. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 1013.
120. Mengkah is clearly Mekka, indicating a tradition influenced by the
Malayu. Anachronisms occur in the chermor, but as Edo points out, [t]hese borrowings and incorporations do not, however, erode the essence of the original Semai stories. Edo, Stories of Migration, 42.
121. Gianno, Malay, Semelai, 634.
122. This is based on the tale recorded by Sager, ch. 3: 89 of his unpublished
thesis. I am grateful for his willingness to share this chapter with me.
123. Sager, If We Cross, ch. 3.
124. Edo, Traditional Alliance, 35. The story incorporates tales about the
supernatural queen of Gunung Ledang that are popular among the Malayu and can
be found in the Sejarah Melayu. The latter text also describes the cooperation between
the Malayu and the Orang Asli communities in the establishment of Melaka.
125. This story was first reported by W. E. Maxwell, Two Malay Myths. See also
Roseman, Malay and Orang Asli Interactions, for an anthropological analysis of the
tale. Other chermor collected by Edo have similar themes of marriage between Malayu
princes and Orang Asli women (with only one example of a Malayu princess marrying
an Orang Asli man). Edo, Traditional Alliance, 56.
126. Roseman, Malay and Orang Asli Interactions, 202.
127. Andaya, Heritage of Arung Palakka, 12.
128. Andaya, Installation.
129. Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races, vol. 2, 26773.
130. Edo, Traditional Alliance, 35.
131. Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races, vol. 2, 2679.
132. Hood Salleh, Morality, 57.
133. Gunung Ledang is the legendary mountain mentioned in the Sejarah
Malayu as the abode of a supernatural princess.
134. Edo, Traditional Alliances, 35.
135. Gianno, Malay Semelai, 634.
136. Suparlan, Orang Sakai, 80.

282

Notes to Pages 224230

137. Sager, If We Cross, ch. 3: 5.

138. Sager mentions that Putri Selero Pinang Masak and Orang Kayo Hitam,
known for the spread of Islam and the establishment of civil law (considered sacred by
the Orang Rimba), are said to have been Orang Rimba who left to live in villages and
become Muslim (hence Malayu). Another cultural hero shared by the Orang Rimba
with many Sumatrans is Si Pahit Lidah. Sager, If We Cross, ch. 3: 28; Andaya, To Live
as Brothers, 113, passim.
139. Sager, If We Cross, ch. 3: 6.
140. Obdeyn, Langkah Lama, 35460.
141. Josselin de Jong, Minangkabau and Negri Sembilan, 123.
142. Drakard, Kingdom of Words.
143. Edo, Traditional Alliance, 35.
144. Edo, Traditional Alliance, 35.
145. Gianno, Malay, Semelai, 81.
146. Nowak and Singan, Btsisi, 3058, 316. This story is still told even though
it is acknowledged that they can only communicate using the Malayu language. The
Ma Betise language is Aslian, while the Temuan speak an Austronesian language.
147. Wazir, MaBetisk, 134.
148. See, for example, Dentan, Spotted Doves.
149. Lim, Kisah-Kisah, xi, 7789, 17984, 22540.

Conclusion
1. Such characterizations in the past must be viewed with care since often they
originate from external observers, rather than from those being observed. Indigenous
perspectives often highlight different reasons for such conflicts, reasons that to an outsider may at times seem trivial and unacceptable but are meaningful to the group.
2. Raffles, On the Melayu Nation, 103.
3. Milner, Kerajaan, 19.

Notes to Pages 230237

283

Abbreviations

BEFEO
BIPPA
BKI
BSOAS
EFEO
IG
JAS
JESHO
JIA
JMBRAS
JRAS
JSEAH
JSEAS
JSS
KITLV
KT
MNZ
NA
SPAFA
TAG
TBG
TNI
VBG
VOC

Bulletin dcole Franaise dExtrme Orient

Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association
Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
cole Franaise dExtrme Orient
De Indische Gids
Journal of Asian Studies
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia
Journal of the Malay(si)an Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
Journal of Southeast Asian History
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (successor to JSEAH)
Journal of the Siam Society
Koninklijk Instituut van het Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
Koloniale Studin
Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsch
Zendelinggenootschap
Het Nationale Archief (The National Archives of The
Netherlands)
SEAMEO (Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organizations)
Project in Archaeology and Fine Arts
Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap
Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
Tijdschrift van Nederlandsch-Indi
Verhandelingen van het Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (The Dutch East India
Company)

285

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National Archives of The Netherlands (referred to as NA in the notes)
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transfer.
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313

Index

Aceh: Bugis dynasty, 139; earliest

accounts, 116, 117118; elephants
and horses, 123, 136, 138; eunuchs,
133135, 138; harems, 133134,
263n121; identity, 109, 124125,
129, 138139, 145; Islamic treatises
written in, 10, 125126, 128129,
137; links to wider Islamic world,
117, 119122, 124125, 129131,
132133, 135137; as Malayu
kingdom, 108109, 117, 124,
143144; Malayu texts written in,
108109, 129, 261n78; as patron
of Islam, 109, 117, 119, 123124,
136137; royal command letters,
9899, 132133; Syaikh al-Islam,
125126, 128131, 142; territorial
expansion, 116117, 123; trade and
trade routes, 118, 119123
Adityawarman, 8889, 96, 104, 113,
114, 268n43; inscriptions issued
by, 8586, 88, 153, 160161; links
to east Java, 84; and Pagaruyung,
91; relationship with legendary
Minangkabau lawgivers, 85, 89;
ruler of Malayu, 83, 84; as Tantric
bodhisattva, 8485, 86, 160,
279n56; titles of, 8485, 86
Alauddin Riayat Syah al-Kahar of Aceh
(15391571), 117
Angkor, 27, 28, 36, 48

Angkor Borei, 27, 3637, 4142, 46

Arab: sources on Sumatra and Java, 22,
5758; trade, 19, 3031, 40
Aru, 114115, 116, 117, 199, 267n34
Austronesian language, 1920, 26,
60; distinct from Nusantao, 21;
languages derived from, 20, 44
Ayutthaya, 6970, 137, 140
Ban Don Tha Phet, 24
bangsa, 224, 282n113
Banjarmasin, 10
Barus, 16, 40, 116, 151, 154, 160, 170
Batak, 115; as bhumi Malayu, 169;
and cannibalism, 146147,
266n11; collectors of camphor
and benzoin, 115, 149; cultural
features, 89, 146, 207; definition,
266n4; early references, 146147;
as ethnic group, 16, 156, 273n144;
ethnicization of, 148, 166167,
169, 170172; horses in, 150; and
Malayu, 115116, 162, 170172;
marga and subgroups, 16, 146,
154155, 156157, 158159, 160,
168, 172, 265nn1, 2, 269nn65, 82,
83, 270n84, 271n111; migration
(marserak), 154, 155159, 170,
268nn50, 54; and Minangkabau
links, 90; pepper and rice
producers, 115, 156158, 170;

315

316

pustaha and datu/guru, 167169,

170, 272n140; religion (Perbegu,
Pemena), 161163, 170172,
270nn96, 101, 103; routes, 155,
169170; Sisingamangaraja
and high priests, 163167, 170,
271nn110, 112, 114, 120, 272n123;
as Sriwijaya lands, 169170
beads, 28, 47, 50, 61; Indian, 2425;
Indo-Pacific, 24, 30, 47; Malay
Peninsula, 25, 38, 192, 215
Bellwood-Blust synthesis, 1920, 29, 46
benzoin. See camphor and benzoin
bezoar stones (guliga), 221, 281n99
bhumi Malayu, 14, 16, 46, 49, 8283, 105,
107, 110, 115, 116, 169, 258n2
Brahman: in Dunsun, 3334; in Panpan,
34
Buddhism, 29, 3536, 47, 174; building
cultural bonds, 28; co-existence
with Hinduism, 35; communities,
39; as economic centers, 2728;
images, 61; in Langkasuka, 35;
Mahayana missionary activity, 35;
in Panpan, 34; in Sriwijaya, 58, 62;
Tantric, 8485, 86, 87, 88, 153,
160161, 279n56; trade, 2728, 30
Bugis, 4, 13, 139, 181, 182, 185, 187,
228229
Bukit Siguntang, 58, 68, 71; and
Pagaruyung, 99

Chola: notified of Ming accession, 46;

raids, 35, 58, 86, 159160, 169,
267n27. See also Tamil
cultural discontinuity, 7, 169, 170
customary law, 9

camphor and benzoin, 61, 221;

collection, 149, 247n11, 277n16;
description, 148, 266n13; location,
16, 3536, 40, 110, 148, 149, 155;
routes, 85, 149150, 151, 155,
156, 170; trade, 2, 36, 87, 9798,
115116, 117, 124, 146, 148, 149,
151154, 155, 158, 169170;
transport of, 150; uses, 52, 247n12
Cham, 51; civilization, 24, 4245;
inscription, 54; links to Malayu
world, 45; and related upland
groups, 4445; Sea of, 19;
settlements, 4344, 4546; speakers
of, 43
Champa, 28, 30, 42, 4346
Chitu, 3536

family networks, 12, 14, 71, 85, 232; in

Hikayat Pocut Muhamat, 143; in
Melaka, 7374, 7576, 77; methods
in creating, 7377, 79, 274n60,
276n112; in northeast coast
Sumatra, 111; in Sriwijaya, 6467.
See also kinship
founder-rank enhancement, 20, 78
Funan, 19, 2627, 28, 34, 42, 46, 48

Index

Desawarnana (also known as

Nagarakrtagama), 14, 49, 83, 110,
115, 116, 169170
Dharmasraya, 59, 8384, 93
Dong Son, 24, 44, 50
Dunsun, 28, 3334
Dutch East India Company (VOC), 4,
15; blockade of Aceh, 123; supports
Johor recovery, 144
Dvaravati, 34
ethnicity, 235; as defined by author,
6; elite and commoner ideals,
910; ethnie, 6; ethnoscape, 9; key
terms, 67; mythomoteur, 9, 12,
238; reformulations, 11, 236237;
soft boundaries, 10, 237, 242n33;
stances, 89; uses, 17
ethnicization, 4950, 81, 145, 170172;
Aceh, 144145; Batak, 148,
166167, 169, 170172; concept
of, 4, 236; Malayu, 77, 81, 236;
Minangkabau, 9091, 105107
exemplary center, 12

gaharuwood (eaglewood, aloeswood),

2, 35, 44, 52, 54, 61, 115, 216, 221,
280n77
galactic polities, 12, 13. See also mandala
polities
Gantoli, 52
Gupta, 25; bringing of Indianization, 29

Hang Tuah: Hikayat Hang Tuah, 10;

Malayu hero, 10
Hikayat Malem Dagang, 140142, 144
Hikayat Pocut Muhamat, 140, 142143,
144
Hinduism, 35; co-existence with
Buddhism, 35; Saivite, 34, 161;
temple, 41; Vaisnavite, 28, 29, 34.
See also Brahman
Indrapura, 10
Iskandar Muda of Aceh (16071636),
109, 126, 127; in Aceh texts, 109;
and pepper monopoly, 123
Islam: Acehs patronage of, 109, 117, 119,
144; civilizations, 79; conversion
in Melaka, 71; features shared
by Pathans, 7; first Sumatran
evidence, 113, 118119; in
Hikayat Malem Dagang, 140141;
lactation and kinship, 71, 7475;
as Malayu identity, 124; Melaka
and Pasai as centers, 15, 71, 141;
in Minangkabau, 89; networks,
128; political legitimacy based
on, 7980; Sufism, 125126, 142,
258n7; treatises from Aceh, 10
Jambi: adoption strategy in kinship,
7576; early Malayu polity in,
19, 52; as Gantoli, 52; heir to
Sriwijaya, 58, 84; intermarriages
with Minangkabau nobility, 85; as
Javanizing polity, 9193; subject to
Java, 59
Jerai (Gunung, Mt.) or Kedah Peak, 38,
174175, 224
Jiecha. See Kalah
Johor (-Riau), 108, 137, 139, 141, 143144
Kalah (also known as Kadaram/Kidaram,
Kataha, Jiecha, Kolo), 30, 37, 39, 40,
47, 57, 174, 193
Kampung Sungai Mas, 37, 38, 39
Kedah, 32, 37, 38, 40, 137, 174
Kedah Peak. See Jerai
Keling, 70, 113, 114
Kertanagara, 84
Khao Sam Kaeo, 24

kinship: by adoption, 7576, 238;

bilateral, 12, 73; as bond between
ruler and subject, 9; communities
based on, 1112; by lactation,
7375, 238; as link between
center and periphery, 12; by
marriage, 73, 85, 200, 206, 225,
228, 231, 238; networks in Melaka,
71; networks in Sriwijaya, 6467;
Orang Laut, 181, 200. See also
family networks
Kota Cina, 16, 116, 154155, 156, 162,
170, 268n48; founding of, 152,
153, 267nn32, 33; influence
of Tamil and Chinese in, 152,
159160, 161
Kra Isthmus, 3, 14, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33,
34, 37, 38, 4041, 4748, 149, 174,
175, 216
Kuala Selinsing, 25, 38, 192, 193, 280n66
kunlun, 51, 247n3
Laguna inscription, 56
Lake Toba, 16
Lamuri, 40, 116, 268n48
Langkasuka, 34, 35, 39
language: hybridity in, 11; as identity
marker, 1011; as kacukan, 10; use
under colonialism, 11
leaves of the same tree, 4, 204, 232
Ligor, 32; inscription, 32, 33, 36, 55, 149
Lin-yi, 34, 4344
Lobu Tua, 267n32; definition of, 267n29;
inscription, 151, 159160
Majapahit, 49, 70, 183, 195; attack on
Singapore, 69, 194; invasion of
Pasai, 113114, 258n22
Malayic languages, 60, 77
Malayo-Polynesian, 2021, 29
Malayu, 14, 113; Acehnese form of
language, 10; ancestral origins,
1920; as Batak, 115116, 162,
170172; culture of, 14, 61; distinct
from Minangkabau, 8283, 88, 91,
100; ethnonym, 14; as expansive
ethnicity, 11, 88; features of
polity, 6768; identity, 13, 5960,
207, 236237; interaction with

Index

317

Orang Asli/Suku Terasing, 4, 94,

205209, 212, 216218, 222, 224,
225, 226232, 234, 238; language,
4, 1011, 19, 60, 139140;
meaning of, 208, 243n1; Melakas
contribution to identity, 7071;
Moken tales about, 175176;
relationship between ruler and
subject, 71, 113, 211, 222223;
spelling of, 241n3; as Sumatran
polity, 5152, 59, 60, 67, 84, 88;
tales of relations with Orang Asli,
225, 226232; as toponym, 52
mandala polities, 12, 13, 46, 6667, 238
Melaka, 15, 32, 49; as center of Islam,
71, 114; contribution to Malayu
identity, 7071; emulation of,
71; family networks in, 74,
7576, 77; as favored entrepot,
70; founding, 68; Ming ties, 69,
70; Orang Laut role in, 7071,
114115; population, 38; rivalry
with Pasai, 114
merantau. See Minangkabau: rantau
Minangkabau: distinct from Malayu,
8283, 88, 91, 100, 107; ethnicization
of, 9091, 105107; European
perceptions of, 94; first mentioned,
83; Islam in, 89; law-givers,
89; links to Batak, 90; links to
Petalangan, 209210; matrilineality,
82, 8889, 90, 107; patrilineality, 89;
rantau, 82, 88, 8991, 9395, 106,
107, 144; settlements, 91, 93, 94. See
also Pagaruyung
Moken, Moklen: collectors of sea
products, 193; customary rights
in seascape, 180; establishing
marriage relationships, 274n60,
276n112; lifestyle, 175176;
links to Andaman and Nicobar,
193; location, 174; maintaining
ethnic boundaries, 199200, 201;
relationship to ruler, 200; role
in Malayu trade, 192; source of
knowledge, 200; tales, 175176. See
also Orang Laut
monsoon winds, 12, 24, 30, 33, 52

318

Index

Nagarakrtagama. See Desawarnana

Nusantao: communities, 29; as distinct
from Austronesian, 21; network,
2122
Oc Eo, 26, 36, 37, 42, 51; culture, 41;
manufacturing activity, 42
Orang Asli, 17, 279n64, 281n92;
ancestors, 213215, 280n67;
collectors of forest products, 62,
210, 221, 225; divisions and
groups, 203204, 224, 277nn2,
8, 279n49, 281n107, 283n146;
enslavement of, 217218; exonym,
16, 276n1; interaction with Malayu,
4, 94, 207208, 212213, 216218,
222223, 224, 225227, 228232,
234, 282nn120, 124; land as source
of material and spiritual benefits,
216, 280n78; lifestyle, 202204,
212, 216, 219220, 279nn59, 61;
location, 203, 277n3; maintaining
ethnic boundaries, 17, 202,
206, 223, 226, 232, 237238; as
opportunistic foragers, 212; other
terms for, 223224; relations with
Malayu ruler, 17, 207208, 210,
216, 223, 225, 282n125; relation to
State, 203204; role in founding
of Melaka, 223; routes used by,
218219; tales of relations with
Malayu, 225, 226227, 228232,
282nn120, 124; titles of leaders,
223; trade, 195, 218219, 220221,
222, 280n81. See also Suku Terasing
Orang Laut, 4, 17; collectors of sea
products, 62, 173; different groups,
181184, 275n85; as exonym, 16,
275n84; as kunlun, 51; lifestyle,
180182; maintaining ethnic
boundaries, 17, 176177, 198200,
201, 237238; maritoriality,
180181, 273n22, 274n32;
piracy, 32, 173, 175, 177178,
182, 185187, 189, 190192, 194,
276n103; role in founding of
Melaka, 194197, 200; seascape, 62,
174, 177178, 181, 200; service to

Malayu ruler, 17, 62, 173, 178184,

188191, 192, 193194, 196198,
199, 200, 225; source of knowledge,
200; titles of heads, 181, 193,
273n22. See also Moken
Padang Lawas, 16, 156, 168, 169170,
269n58; as ceremonial and trade
site, 87, 149, 155, 162; inscriptions,
148, 152153; Tantric influences,
160161
Pagaruyung, 15, 75, 88; and Bukit
Siguntang, 99; as core of alam
Minangkabau, 96; emissaries,
100104; emperors of, 91, 100,
104, 105; end of royal family,
106107; influence in rantau,
94, 101; letters from emperors,
9799, 105; links to Orang Asli/
Suku Terasing, 230231; role in
Minangkabau ethnicity, 82, 91,
96100, 104. See also Minangkabau
Palembang, 37, 138; adoption strategy in
kinship, 7576; as center of Malayu
polity, 84; Chinese trade to, 5859;
as Gantoli, 52; intermarriages with
Minangkabau, 85; as Javanizing
polity, 9193; peregrinations of
prince to Melaka, 68, 75, 7879; as
site of Sriwijaya, 19, 61; subject to
Java, 59; supernatural ruler from,
68, 71
Pamalayu expedition, 59, 84
Panai, 87, 161, 267n34; as Batak polity,
88, 115, 156; as bhumi Malayu, 116;
destroyed by Cholas, 169; religion
and trade, 162
Panpan, 3435, 39
Pasai, 45, 117; absorbed by Aceh, 117;
contributions to Aceh, 118; favored
by Muslim traders, 70, 113; history
of, 111, 112113; Majapahit
campaigns against, 113114;
pepper in, 111112; rival of Melaka,
114; Siamese attacks on, 69, 114;
struggles between interior and
coast, 111; themes in history of,
111. See also Samudera

Pengkalan Bujang, 37, 38, 39

pepper, 110, 120, 144; Batak
participation in trade, 16,
157; grown in Pasai, 111112;
international demand, 112, 115,
121, 156157; introduced to
Sumatra, 16, 112, 118; Iskandar
Mudas monopoly of, 123; from
the Malay Peninsula, 117, 118,
131; plant requirements, 112,
157; replaces forest products, 111;
from west coast Sumatra, 117, 123,
132
Persian: sources on Sumatra and Java,
57; trade, 30, 40
Polu. See Ramni
Pulau Tioman. See Tioman
Raja Kecil: as adopted son of
Pagaruyung, 7576; as emissary
from Pagaruyung, 101103; links to
Petalangan, 210
Ramni (Ar.), Polu (Chi): as double
kingdom to Sriwijaya, 57; identified
with Lamuri, 110
routes: Batak trans-Sumatran, 154155,
169; camphor and benzoin, 85,
87, 155; India to China sea, 26,
3132; Mekong to Vietnam, 42;
northern Malay Peninsula, 3;
Palembang-Jambi to Minangkabau,
5556; religious temples and
trade, 87; segmenting of sea, 32;
transpeninsular/transisthmian, 26,
3032, 33, 39, 40, 42, 47, 56, 110,
216, 218219
Sa Huynh: culture of, 24, 41, 43, 44; and
Kalanay, 25, 43
Samudera, 113, 116, 137. See also Pasai
Sathing Phra, 34, 3637
Sea of Malayu, 27, 4546; definition,
14, 22, 236; earliest references, 22;
participants in, 27, 33, 4041, 51,
236; shared cultural idiom, 14, 19,
42, 4546, 48, 236
Selinsing. See Kuala Selinsing
sida-sida, 118, 133134

Index

319

Sriwijaya, 14, 36, 5254, 83, 8485;

absorbs Kedah, 40; as birthplace
of Malayu culture, 49; and
camphor-benzoin trade and routes,
149151; center of Buddhist
learning, 58; Chinese trade to,
5758, 70, 113; Chola raids on, 16,
58; datu in, 6364; features of,
6768; inscriptions, 5456, 60, 62,
6364, 281n91; links to Langkasuka,
35; as network of mandalas, 66; as
paddle culture, 54, 78; political
and administrative terms, 6368;
and spice substitution, 111; trading
wealth, 57
Suku Terasing, 17, 277n19, 279n64;
collectors of forest products, 62,
205, 212, 230; exonym, 16, 204205;
groups, 204205, 212; interaction
with Malayu, 94, 205207, 208209,
212213, 216218, 225226,
227228, 230234; Kubu (Orang
Batin, Orang Rimba), 205209, 212,
227228, 278nn26, 30, 31, 36,
283n138; land as source of material
and spiritual benefits, 210211, 216;
lifestyle, 205208, 209, 212, 216;
location, 204205; maintaining
ethnic boundaries, 17, 202,
206207, 208, 209, 226, 232, 237;
as opportunistic foragers, 212;
Petalangan, 209211, 212, 279n47;
relations with Malayu ruler, 17,
205206, 210, 211, 216217, 225;
relations with Sriwijaya, 54; relation
to State, 204; Sakai, 207, 211, 230,
280n77; tales of relations with
Malayu, 225, 227228, 230232;
titles of heads, 209. See also Orang
Asli
sumptuary laws, 9

320

Index

Suruaso, 59, 85, 86, 113; inscription, 86

Suvannabhumi, 25, 27
Taj al-Alam Safiyat al-Din, Sultanah of
Aceh (16411675), 128, 129, 131,
137, 142, 144
Tambralinga, 27, 36
Tamiang, 115116, 259n30; as bhumi
Malayu, 116
Tamil: cultural impact on Batak, 160,
162; inscriptions written in, 33, 151,
152153; merchant guilds, 33, 86,
151, 159, 267n27; settlements in
Sumatra, 152, 153, 160, 162; texts,
2526; trade and traders, 87, 113,
159. See also Chola; Keling
Tenasserim, 33, 37
Tioman, 30
Urak Lawoik: collectors of sea products,
193; customary rights in seascape,
180; links to Andaman and
Nicobar, 193; maintaining
ethnic boundaries, 199200;
origins, 174, 175, 176; relations
with Malayu, 192, 200; source of
knowledge, 200. See also Moken;
Orang Laut
voyaging corridor, 18
women, 12, 190; in establishing kinship
relations, 79; as ethnic markers, 10;
as guards, 133; harem, 133134,
135, 263n121; as milk-mothers,
7375, 79; among Orang Laut,
175, 181, 182, 183, 185, 193; and
pepper planting, 157; in rantau, 90;
sequestered, 7, 134
Yijing, 31, 37, 40, 51, 5254, 58

About the Author

L EONARD Y. A NDAYA was educated at Yale University (B.A.) and Cornell

University (Ph.D.) and has held positions at the University of Malaya, The
Australian National University, and the University of Auckland. He is presently
at the University of Hawaii, where he has been professor of Southeast Asian
history since 1993. His previous books include The Kingdom of Johor (1975),
A History of Malaysia (with Barbara Watson Andaya, 1981, 2000), and The
World of Maluku, Eastern Indonesia in the Early Modern Period (1993).

Production Notes for

Andaya Leaves of the Same Tree
Cover designed by Myrna Chiu
Interior designed by Paul Herr in Minion, with
display type in Arnold Bcklin
Composition by Lucille C. Aono
Printing and binding by The Maple-Vail Book
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Printed on 55# Glatfelter Offset B18, 360 ppi