20 april 2007 05:46

Upstreams and Downstreams in Early Modern Sumatra.

Author: Andaya, Barbara Watson

The upland communities of Sumatra are unique in Southeast Asia in that they were the dominant societies in their region. In other Southeast Asian nations, lowland communities often lorded over their upland counterparts. The Sumatran regions with dominant upland communities were Aceh and Minangkabau. One reason for the social and demographic dominance of Sumatran upland societies was that their regions were environmentally more conducive to human settlements than coastal regions.

Southeast Asia is commonly seen by nonspecialists as a geographical unit that encompasses the mainland (Thailand, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia) and the island world (Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Singapore). However, the range of linguistic and cultural groupings within Southeast Asia is so great that even those who have studied the region for an academic lifetime can only acquire real competence in a limited area. Scholarship is further restricted since much of the region`s history is still unknown and requires basic research in primary sources, both European and indigenous. During the last three decades, publications on early modern Southeast Asia have been case studies of particular countries or local regions, which make comparisons both between and within mainland and island areas difficult. Growing impatience with case studies has resulted in the recent production of several surveys that trace historical differences and similarities throughout the region.(1)

One virtue of the comparative approach is that it stimulates historians of both mainland and island societies to think more seriously about themes that reach across ethnolinguistic and national boundaries. The relationship between upland and lowland peoples is one such theme. A recent collection of essays on mainland Southeast Asia, for example, spoke of the "general distinction ... between upland cultures and those of the valleys and coasts," while specialists on Indonesia have long been accustomed to contrast pasisir (coastal) communities and the orang darat and orang gunung (interior and mountain people). As hunter-gatherers or swidden cultivators, upland groups were often semi-nomadic and little touched by the world religions; lowland peoples, on the other hand, were largely sedentary, commonly growing wet rice, with their economies and cultures significantly affected by external influences.

The political dominance of lowland societies in modern times has made the past of highland communities difficult to reconstruct. Since the arrival of the Europeans in Southeast Asia in the sixteenth century, they have always been more familiar with coastal areas. European records thus tend to echo views encountered in lowland courts where shifting cultivators and jungle-dwellers were regarded as belonging to a lesser order. Thai chronicles, for instance, depict the forest as the domain of ungoverned peoples who should be urged to plant rice fields. Similarly, cleared land has been intimately linked to Javanese culture while the forest came to be associated with uncivilized, uncontrollable, and dangerous forces.(2)

Modern anthropological studies that demonstrate the vitality of societies peripheral to political centers should encourage historians of the relatively neglected early modern period to return to their sources and re-examine the evolution of upland-lowland relationships in Southeast Asia. One feature that emerges from any comparative survey is the complexity and variety of this association. The lowland and coastal centers of Southeast Asia could indeed dominate their upland interiors although such domination was often strenuously resisted. However, there were many other areas where the economic success of the lowland depended on inoperative trade with interior and upland peoples who brought the exotic products of the mountains and jungles to market. The consequent relationship was therefore more likely to resemble one between equals than one between inferior and superior.

The case studies on which any comparative work in Southeast Asia must be based do not merely supply fundamental data. They also provide a stem warning against easy categorizations. Perhaps the best example of the range of upland-lowland relationships occurs in Sumatra, one of the world`s largest islands and the most important in contemporary Indonesia outside Java. In early times, Taprobana Insular (or "further Ceylon" as Sumatra was termed by Europeans) was known primarily for its gold and jungle products. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Sumatra was a major source of pepper for the international market, and two hundred years later under Dutch control, it was one of the world`s most lucrative colonies.

A number of surveys of Sumatra have been written, the most influential of which has remained William Marsden`s monumental History of Sumatra, first published in 1783. While recent research has been devoted to specific studies of different groups, all scholars have identified the relationship between interior or upstream (ulu) and downstream (ilir) communities as fundamental to Sumatran society. The coasts were inhabited by groups whose Muslim faith and culture was largely derived from the Malays but who had been heavily influenced by contacts with Java, India, China, and the Middle East. The interior, by contrast, was the domain of a variety of upstream societies where Islam and other outside influences were limited. Several interior peoples have attracted scholarly attention, such as the Pasemah of south Sumatra, the Batak clans to the north and their neighbors, the Gayo, and the Minangkabau of the central highlands.

One of the reasons for the prominence of Sumatra`s upland communities was their demographic superiority. Whereas the lowlands were always favored for settlement in mainland Southeast Asia, Sumatra`s interior, though never densely populated, was much more hospitable to human habitation than were the coastal regions. A complex series of volcanic mountains, known as the Bukit Barisan, form the spine of the island and enclose several upland rift valleys and plateaux. Some places are covered by a porous mantle of acidic volcanic cinders where normal tropical rainforest will not grow, and which support only a semi-arid savannah vegetation scattered with giant ferns. More typical of the highlands are well-drained lake areas surrounded by fertile alluvial belts that may have been actively cleared for agriculture from 4000 B.C. Sheltered by mountain ranges, the volcanic soils of the rift valleys combine with a lower rainfall to render cultivation and settlement comparatively easy.(3)

Of all the highland areas, the mountain valleys inhabited by the Minangkabau were most favored, with their "pleasantly comfortable altitude, fertile volcanic soil ... [and] mountain streams for irrigation." Here intensive agriculture led to the Minangkabau`s demographic dominance. In 1684, a Dutch East India Company envoy alleged that the Minangkabau capital of Pagaruyung had a population of 8,000. On one stage of his journey, he claimed to have been accompanied by 4,000 royal retainers. While he may have been exaggerating, a modern scholar has estimated that the Minangkabau probably numbered around twenty-five percent of Sumatra`s entire population in the eighteenth century.(4)

A quite different situation was found in the downstream regions, which have always been antagonistic to large scale human settlement. The eastern side of Sumatra is characterized by wide flat alluvial plains that extend roughly two-thirds of the distance down the coast. Until recent times this plain was covered by a vast swamp forest, reaching almost two hundred miles inland in places, dissected by shifting streams and rivers. The water-logged peat formed by debris washed down by the rivers originating along the central highlands supported mangroves and sizeable trees, but even modern drainage systems cannot make it suitable for agriculture. As one geographer has stated, "more than any other single factor, this repellent east coast has operated against the development and peopling of Sumatra." Though several large rivers flow into the Melaka Straits, there are no natural harbors and the trade centers that developed were normally located some way inland. Along this otherwise inhospitable east coast, the only favored region was in the north where a more fertile piedmont area came almost to the shoreline and reduced the area of coastal swamp.(5)

The west coast of Sumatra also had a small population, but for different reasons. The central highlands and the plateaux they enclose are tilted from west to east, forming a mountain wall behind the narrow coastal stretch that reaches almost to the shoreline in places. Nowhere is the coastal plain more than twenty-five miles wide; the soil, consisting mostly of red clay, is generally infertile, with only the foothills of the Barisan suited to sustained cultivation. Heavy monsoon rains give some districts along the western strip up to forty inches annually. In addition, traders found that the coral-edged beaches were not easy to approach from the sea. All these features acted together to limit settlement and agricultural development.

The different geographic domains of the lowlands and highlands did not preclude cooperation between the peoples who lived here. Historical linguistic studies in Sumatra are still in their infancy, but they suggest that from early times upland and lowland may have developed separately. The lack of any typically highland words in coastal Palembang Malay, for example, has led one scholar to argue that it evolved from a Malay dialect at a stage when the type of Malay associated with several interior groups had already assumed its own character. Similarly the interior Rejang speak a language that in the opinion of most linguists is akin to Malay but nonetheless quite distinct. Some highland peoples like the Gayo and Batak may have once lived on the coast before being pushed into the interior by later settlers.(6)

Though the importance of upstream or ulu groups is undeniable, their past is hard to explore. These largely oral societies left few written records and before the seventeenth century, European sources are also sparse. Since Portuguese traders in Sumatra dealt almost exclusively with coastal peoples, their experience with the uplands was extremely limited. As one chronicler remarked, "There are many people in the interior about which we have no knowledge." While the Minangkabau had been influenced by Islam through their external trade, most highland societies were described as "heathen." Europeans, for all their antagonism towards Islam, placed upstream inhabitants on a lower level than the "Moor" communities of the coast. The stories Europeans heard in downstream ports reinforced their belief that the ulu districts were the preserve of grotesque and hostile creatures. Portuguese chroniclers enthusiastically reported rumors of inland people known as "Dara" (darat = interior) who had tails "like unto sheep," with the Batak lands, "the first place we know of where people`s flesh is eaten" attracting particular attention.(7)

Early European sources dearly demonstrate that lowland centers were rarely able to dominate the hinterlands. In the mid-sixteenth century one Portuguese commented on the "constant flux" of Sumatran kingdoms. Another Portuguese writer later contended that the entire island could be taken with two thousand men or less, "as the dominion over it is divided among a multitude of weak rulers lacking any castle capable of withstanding five hundred soldiers either on the coast or in the interior." The only exception was Aceh, in north Sumatra, where the hinterland was more accessible and where the coastal terrain was more conducive to human settlement and agriculture. For a hundred years from the mid-sixteenth century, the Acehnese appeared to be indomitable, pushing their way down the east and west coasts and then forcibly extending their authority into the interior. Nonetheless, the evidence that survives does suggest that Aceh`s authority in the uplands in early modern times was always subject to challenge. The campaigns frequently mounted against upstream people do not indicate easy compliance. Indeed, ilir texts describe ulu inhabitants as possessing impressive fighting skills and magical powers, which enabled them to tame elephants to carry out their bidding.(8)

In their first encounters with Sumatra, Europeans were occasionally made aware of the military strength that could be wielded by upstream communities. Augustin de Beaulieu`s 1616 account of the island, referring to "many kings" in the interior, echoed earlier comments by Portuguese observers. Mendes Pinto`s stories of fierce fighting between Batak and Acehnese forces are thought to be based on personal experience, while another chronicler supplies a telling example of ulu belligerence in a description of Pasai, on the northeast coast. In 1522, he recorded that a lord from the interior, "a moor named Malik Adil," came downriver with a fleet of prow to attack the city and succeeded in cutting off supplies of goods and food from the interior.(9)

Europeans in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries noted especially that the interior was the source of the gold, benzoin, camphor, rattans, woods, wax, resins, and above all the cultivated crop of pepper that brought the downstream ports their trading wealth. When the Dutch first arrived in the southeastern port of Jambi in 1615, they found that there was very little pepper because the growers upstream had not come down for over two years, with people saying it was forty years since trade had been so bad.(10)

As the seventeenth century advanced, the great potential of the interior became increasingly apparent to the Dutch and their English rivals. In early 1512, one Portuguese observer had noted that Minangkabau in the central highlands was at "the head of trade in all the island of Sumatra" because of the gold found there. The Dutch East India Company`s defeat of Aceh in 1667 removed the restraints that had hitherto limited Minangkabau expansion down to the lowlands. Along the west coast, settlements of Minangkabau migrants previously under Acehnese control once more acknowledged their allegiance to the Minangkabau heartlands. Correspondence between the Dutch and Minangkabau rulers consequently increased, with the most well-known report left by Tomas Dias following his mission to Pagaruyung in 1684.(11)

Though Dias commented particularly on the numbers of people he saw in Minangkabau, it is clear that this was a very different kind of "state" from the lowland kingdom of Aceh. Europeans could well understand the reasons why Sumatrans had once feared the Acehnese "like the very devils." Economic strength, military power, and strong kings were hardly puzzling. By contrast, the awe that Minangkabau aroused throughout the island derived not only from armed force but from ancient perceptions of extraordinary spiritual authority wielded by Minangkabau rulers, symbolized by statues of early kings that seem to invoke demonic powers.(12)

The descriptions of the Acehnese and Minangkabau courts suggest other contrasts. Instead of seeing authority as residing in a single king, as Aceh exhibited at the height of its power, Minangkabau traditions conceived of government as something shared between those in positions of authority, whether they were members of the royal family or clan elders. The Yang Dipertuan Sakti ("He who has spiritual power") in Minangkabau was thus represented by either two or three rulers, whose wives also exercised considerable influence.

Both lowland Aceh and upland Minangkabau were Islamic, but displayed a contrasting style of religious observance. In Aceh, economic motives and the desire to control the gold, pepper, and benzoin of the Batak areas certainly played a part in sixteenth-century campaigns along the west coast and into the interior. However, some of them have been characterized as "genuinely in the jihad (holy war) tradition." Aceh`s later kings also emulated the reformist mood of India`s Mughal court, as is evident from the religious texts produced by Acehnese scholars in the seventeenth century.(13)

The religious environment of Minangkabau was somewhat different. Once the Minangkabau kings had converted to Islam at the end of the fifteenth century, the region acquired a reputation of staunch adherence to the faith, producing many religious teachers and advocates of holy war against the infidel Europeans. Nonetheless, the Islam associated with the Minangkabau seems to have been more emotive in its appeal than that of the Acehnese court, representing a syncretic alliance between the new faith and the veneration of ancient spirits. To interior groups scarcely touched by Islamic beliefs, Minangkabau claims of descent from Alexander the Great, of brotherhood with the emperors of Turkey and China, and of the possession of magical objects and supernatural powers had considerable cultural potency.(14)

Seventeenth-century Aceh was a centralizing "state" in the style associated with lowland centers in mainland Southeast Asia, but the Minangkabau`s prestigious rulers were different. A "Minangkabau world" was said to encompass all the Minangkabau migrant communities scattered throughout Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. This world remained diffuse and undefined, although the Dutch feared a united Minangkabau opposition movement that never eventuated. Federations of settlements were common wherever the Minangkabau migrated, but there was also continuing internecine conflict among different Minangkabau groups. When such conflicts persisted, the Dutch incorrectly concluded that the awe-inspiring Minangkabau overlords were fundamentally powerless.

Lowland Aceh and upland Minangkabau stand in marked contrast in the relationship of the center to areas outside the royal capitals. As the Dutch and English became more informed about Sumatra, they encountered numerous other variations on the upstream-downstream theme. Coastal Barus retained two kings, a Raja di Hulu (upstream king) and a Raja di Hilir (downstream king). Further south, Inderapura was typical of several small states where sovereignty was vested in a single ilir ruler who had the title "sultan," but where upstream subjects fought to preserve ulu traditions of egalitarianism. Along the southwest coast and into the interior were settlements occupied by Rejang communities that were divided into genealogical groupings. Lowland authorities appointed upstream heads, to whom they granted Malay or Javanese titles, but effective power remained in the hands of clan elders. On the east coast, downstream "kings" like those in Inderagiri, Deli, and Siak were frequently at odds with upstream Batak and Minangkabau groups. In the southeast, the courts of Jambi and Palembang were modelled hierarchically after those in Java, but had to recognize the demographic and economic strength of the interior.(15)

Europeans were bewildered at the variation in ethnic affiliation that could both highlight and disguise upstream-downstream differences. According to one Portuguese in the early sixteenth century, Jambi was "all Minangkabau land," like other east coast areas, but the people were "all Malays," who closely resembled "Palembangs and Javanese." Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources often used "Malay" and "Minangkabau" interchangeably. The fluidity of "Malay" and "Batak" identification was probably typical of other areas. When ulu inhabitants moved downstream, they permanently or temporarily associated with Malay or Javanese culture, although this may not have been voluntary. In the early seventeenth century, for example, the Jambi ruler insisted that his upstream Minangkabau subjects, who had previously been permitted to appear at court in their own attire, should now dress in the Javanese style, But ulu people could also resist association with ilir groups. An eighteenth-century Rejang man put his view succinctly: Melayu tidah; orang ulu betul sayo ["I am not a Malay. I am a true upstream man"]. It is clear that historians must apply ethnic terms with great caution.(16)

A number of recent studies of Sumatra have demonstrated how increasing economic interaction helped bridge the cultural differences and geographic distance that separated upstream and downstream. Lowland courts needed to foster links with the ulu, since the desired products of the interior attracted foreign traders to the downstream markets. As a result, the economic viability of the ilir ports depended on continued cooperation with upstream collectors and producers. The terrain made coercion impossible. Because of the network of river systems flowing down from the highlands, most interior dwellers had a choice of ilir settlements where they sold their produce, and refused to appear downstream if they were not treated fairly. However, the people of the interior increasingly desired foreign goods that could only be obtained from downstream traders. Metal tools, porcelain, salt, and cloth were among the most important and by the sixteenth century the ulu demand often seemed insatiable. Textiles were not necessarily used as clothing, since barkcloth was commonly worn by many upland groups with woven fabrics saved for special occasions, but rather as a type of currency, for payment of fines, as brideprice, for gifts, and burials. Once an imported product had been established as necessary or even desirable, upland-lowland exchanges increased. Rivers remained the main means of communication, but when rapids made them impassable or when the water level fell in the dry season, jungle tracks were used to link upstream exchange markets with each other. This economic network, stretching across the upstream districts, had no parallel in the downstream districts. "It astonishes a lowlander," wrote one eighteenth-century observer, "to see with what ease [ulu people] walk over these hills," sometimes carrying a load of around ninety pounds for twenty-five days or more.(17)

Because the goodwill of ilir rulers was vital for access to port markets, the representatives of European trading companies only occasionally sought to bypass local coastal authorities and make direct arrangements with the producers. Instead, they negotiated treaties with downstream chiefs, rajas, and sultans. Although Europeans assumed or at least hoped that interior groups would accept the agreements made on their behalf, the inability of the ilir to order ulu compliance was evident. To eighteenth-century Europeans, the apparent weakness of downstream courts was evidence of a "decline" in Malay-based cultures that could he contrasted with the sturdy yeomanry of interior groups like the Rejang whom they saw as the archetypical Sumatran. The ethnic mix along the coasts, the growing use of opium (itself attributable to the European presence), and an alleged ineptness in government fostered a commonly expressed view that ilir inhabitants were somehow less "upright" than those in the interior. Even so, Europeans concluded that without a "state" and an accepted religion, upstream societies must perforce be placed on a lower level of development. Despite their greater numbers, the "savage" condition of ulu groups prevented them from asserting supremacy over the ilir, "degenerate" though it might be.(18)

The apparent contradictions in the upstream-downstream relationship were not just an outcome of European perceptions, but were deeply embedded in indigenous cultures as well. If a typology of themes in Sumatran legend and folklore were compiled, the ambiguities in ulu-ilir dealings would be apparent. Numerous stories, for example, describe an ancestral hero or ruler who comes across burnt twigs or some other sign of settlement further up stream, marries one of the community`s daughters, and then rewards his new relatives with favors, honors, and titles in return for gifts of interior produce and loyal service. Other motifs invoke the deep tension inherent in this ulu-ilir relationship. Despite the bonds of kinship, family unity is constantly undermined by rivalries, betrayal, and dishonor. The ideal of the downstream king as a distant kinsman responsive to the obligations he owes his relatives is implicit in ulu stories, but at the same time many revolve around the abduction of a beautiful upstream girl by ilir armies or the seizure of other precious possessions. Such tales are countered by others that tell of the brave deeds of ulu ancestors who restore local honor by routing the ilir heroes in tests of strength and magical powers. Frequently an entire upstream community benefits by being granted freedom from tribute and labor duties. In the Sejarah Barus ("History of Barus"), the raja of Aceh kicks and insults the head of the executed ruler of ulu Barus; when the Acehnese raja subsequently falls ill, he ensures his recovery by sending the head back to Barus in state together with a letter releasing Barus from its tribute obligations. Similar stories can also be traced to the ilir. The Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai ("Story of the Kings of Pasai") sees ulu as an appropriate place for the rule to make a pleasure trip, although it is an area to which those who rejected Islam have fled.(19)

Upstream-downstream ambiguities were often accentuated by the uneasy alliance between an imported notion of kingly hierarchy vested in one family and that of government by village and tribal leaders typical of interior groups. Large federations were represented by assemblies of clan elders, with links affirmed through ritual exchanges, and by meetings at some sacred place such as the grave of a mutual ancestor. Certain individuals could claim special powers, such as invulnerability and second sight, but there was no guarantee that the status thus acquired would be passed on to their children. Along the coast, what might be termed the "raja principle" stressed a preeminent individual and inherited rights. While consultation was certainly held up as the ideal, most rulers in practice were much more than first among equals.

The apparently stateless societies of the interior were willing to compromise with downstream political traditions because of the potential benefits promised by a closer association with the ilir. Economic privileges might be granted by the ilir court, or prestigious titles and symbols of authority bestowed. Such items as a gold-embossed rattan staff and the title of raja or pangeran were highly valued for the status the recipient acquired. In eighteenth-century Lampung, for instance, interior leaders could easily buy titles from rulers of west Java in return for promises of pepper or gold deliveries. A man of high rank could in turn ask a much higher dowry for his daughter than could one of low status.

Another reason for the appearance of ulu heads in downstream courts was to seek ilir mediation in unresolved local disputes. A derision carrying the prestige of a distant king who could claim links to legendary centers on the Malay Peninsula and in Java might well be the only one that all quarrelling parties would observe. The status of downstream kings was also bolstered by religious claims as they presented themselves as patrons of a purer faith that interior inhabitants should accept. A royal order from the sultan of Jambi, dated 1778, thus ordered the lineage heads along the Kerinci border to purify local religious practices by banning musical instruments and alcohol, and by forbidding the worship of stones and spirits. The effectiveness of such edicts, however, is doubtful. Ulu resentment was often intense should the ilir king ask more than his due. Such antagonism was registered by rebellious attacks on downstream settlements as interior groups coalesced around their own leaders. Because control of human resources was always a key to royal authority, ulu communities had a major bargaining point. In the words of the Palembang sultan in 1747, "it is much easier for a subject to find a lord than for a lord to find, much less maintain, a subject."(20)

Again, Minangkabau provides the most well documented resolution of the contradictions between what might be likened to monarchical and republican traditions in Sumatra. The authority of kings was acknowledged, but tribal federations remained a dominant feature of Minangkabau communities as they spread along the east and west coasts. Although the coastal migration districts were theoretically subordinate to the Minangkabau heartlands, upstream and downstream remained economically interdependent. In areas less studied than Minangkabau, the two traditions were also effectively combined, if only for a period, and upstream and downstream cooperated to the advantage of both. Indigenous descriptions see this association as one that should operate in terms of family relationships. Concepts of village government, where decision-making rested with eider kinsfolk whose authority relied not on force but on moral suasion and the respect that was their due, were transposed to the larger stage. Where modern historians might see "centers" and "peripheries," the people of the region saw parents, grandparents, children, siblings, and cousins. Whether actual or perceived, these relationships underlay political, cultural, and economic interaction between upstream and downstream. Any deterioration in this association was explained in terms of failings in the observance of family obligations as rulers refused to act as senior kinfolk or subjects acted like disobedient children.

The ulu-ilir dichotomy presented here can, of course, be rendered too simply. The relations of one upstream community with another were often closer, or more antagonistic, than with those downstream. Downstream courts were frequently more preoccupied by their dealings with other coastal kings, or with overlords such as the peninsular Malay state of Johor, with Aceh, or with Banten in west Java, than they were with the ulu.

Furthermore, upstream-downstream relations were never static. The early modern period witnessed far reaching changes in Sumatra that in turn fundamentally affected ulu-ilir linkages. One Portuguese remarked in the mid-sixteenth century that after his compatriots became involved in Sumatra, several "kingdoms" disappeared because of the way in which some had been favored and others suppressed, "according to the way they received us." Nearly two hundred years later the same process was continuing with the English and Dutch East India Companies. For example, the district known as Anak Sungai only broke away from Inderapura with English assistance. The effects of European intrusion were especially evident after the Dutch defeat of Aceh, for this not only stimulated Minangkabau resurgence, but weakened Aceh`s ability to counter challenges from its interior during the eighteenth century. Europeans also persistently attempted to strengthen the position of those downstream chiefs and rulers who were their clients, in order to tip the balance in favor of the ilir. Downstream rulers could be supported with European military strength, or coastal headmen given benefits and honors that enhanced their position. Though the Dutch helped restore Minangkabau suzerainty along the west coast, numerous coastal lords were freed from paying tribute. At the same time, the cooperation of the upstream could be wooed by the gifts and titles that European factors distributed from their downstream posts. By the mid-eighteenth century more than two hundred chiefs in western Sumatra had received a rattan staff of office embossed with gold and bearing the insignia of the Dutch East India Company. In the Lampung areas too, the Dutch sought to support the fading authority of the sultans of Banten by maintaining small posts on the major rivers. The attempts to strengthen kingly authority in the downstream areas often brought added demands as European-supported chiefs were pressured to supply corvee labor, deliver wood, and enforce the growing of certain kinds of crops. Such resentments led to attacks on Dutch-controlled Padang by upstream Minangkabau groups, as in 1713, 1734, and again in 1740.(21)

Political changes that sought to strengthen downstream authority were closely bound up with the shifting economic exchange patterns of the eighteenth century. European determination to control trade in certain products (often emulated by rulers themselves) injected enormous tensions into ulu-ilir dealings. The Dutch East India Company`s goal of monopolizing all sales of Indian cloth encouraged the expansion of alternative trading routes along jungle tracks and riverine systems that linked the interior with ports outside the Dutch monopoly system. Another product of vital importance in ulu-ilir trade was salt, lack of which caused the goiters so characteristic of upstream people. In Jambi, where both the Dutch and downstream rulers tried to impose a salt monopoly, the upstream communities took their gold and pepper elsewhere. Along the west coast, where it had long been accepted that any individual had the right to make salt, there was much resentment when the English tried to enforce a monopoly. Further north the Dutch even destroyed the salt pans in an effort to compel upstream groups to buy their salt only from the Company. Not surprisingly, bands of ulu people began coming down to the coast to defy the restrictions and make their own salt.(22)

Perhaps the greatest cause of tension in upstream-downstream relations was the fact that so many ilir rulers, acting as agents of the English or Dutch East India Companies, attempted to enforce the growing of pepper when it was dearly more advantageous for growers to plant rice or cotton. The commercial success of Minangkabau in the late eighteenth century may be partly explained by their freedom from European economic restraints, which enabled them to respond to demands for new crops such as coffee and tobacco. The outward movement of young men as seasonal workers, traders, and mercenaries confirmed the Minangkabau cultural and economic dominance of hitherto distant migration areas in southern Jambi, Rawas, the southwest coast, and elsewhere. To a lesser extent this migration was duplicated among other highland groups, whose downstream movement may have resulted from pressure on arable land as tough weed-like grass spread over tracts of cleared land in ulu districts. European observers commented on the appearance of Pasemah groups in Lampung, while the outward surge of the interior Abung people in south Sumatra also accelerated in the eighteenth century. In 1869, a linguist commented that "Lampung" in popular usage referred to the lowlands while "orang Abung" meant an uplander.(23)

The prominent role of highland societies in Sumatra from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century is reminiscent of mainland Burma, with its semi-autonomous and economically important hill tribes. In most other island areas in Southeast Asia, such as the Malay Peninsula, interior groups had far less influence over coastal developments. The Sumatran examples are a reminder of the complexity and variety of upstream-downstream relationships in Southeast Asia. Across the entire region there were certainly powerful lowland and prestigious upland centers, but there were many other communities where the lowland-upland association was nearly equal. A wide-angled view of Southeast Asia can indeed suggest fruitful themes for exploring the region`s past, but the larger canvas and the local miniature are each necessary. By using both approaches, historians can contribute to an understanding of the shifting and complex relationships among the numerous peoples of Southeast Asia.

1. Victor Lieberman, "Local Integration and Eurasian Analogies: Structuring Southeast Asian History, c. 1350-c. 1830," Modern Asian Studies 27, 3 (1993): 475-572; Anthony Reid, The Lands below the Winds (New Haven, 1988); Nicholas Tarling, ed., The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 1992).

2. Mark R. Woodward and Susan D. Russell, "Introduction: Transformation in Ritual and Economy in Upland and Lowland Southeast Asia," in Susan D. Russell, ed., Ritual, Power and Economy: Upland-Lowland Contrasts in Mainland Southeast Asia (Northern Illinois University Center for Southeast Asian Studies, occasional paper no. 14, 1989), 2; Lorraine Gesick, "Kingship and Political Integration in Traditional Siam, 1767-1824" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1976), 16; Michael R. Dive, "The Agrocological Mythology of the Javanese and the Political Economy of Indonesia," Indonesia 35 (April 1985): 18.

3. E. H. G. Dobby, Southeast Asia (London, 1950), 197-215; Peter Bellwood, Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago (New York, 1985), 311; Ulrich Scholz, "The Impact of Natural Conditions on the Structure and Development of Smallholders Farming in Sumatra," in Rainer Carle, ed., Cultures and Societies of North Sumatra (Berlin, 1987), 459-66.

4. F. de Hahn, "Naar midden Sumatra in 1684," Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 39 (1897): 341-5, 353, 355; Christine Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy: Central Sumatra 1784-1847 (Malmo, 1983), 2.

5. Dobby, Southeast Asia, 199

6. John R. Bowen, Sumatran Politics and Poetics: Gayo History, 1900-1989 (New Haven, 1991), 15; E. Edwards McKinnon, "New Light on the Indianization of the Karo Batak," in Carle, Cultures and Societies, 82, 89; Yasuki Mitani, "Languages of South Sumatra," in Yoshihiro Tsubouchi et al, South Sumatra: Man and Agriculture (Kyoto, 1980), 15.

7. Joao de Barros, Da Asia (Lisbon, 1973), bk. 5, chap. 2, 511. Mendes Pinto, it is believed, did have experience with Batak groups but historians have been wary of using his account, set in a semi-fictional context. See Rebecca D. Catz, ed. and trans., The Travels of Mendes Pinto (Chicago, 1989), 24-31; Fernao Lopes de Castanheda, Historia do Descrobrimento e Conquista da India pelos Portugueses (Porto, 1979) 458; Antonia Galvao, The Discoveries of the World (1555) (Amsterdam, 1969. Reprint of 1601 edition), 41.

8. B. N. Teensma, "An Unknown Portuguese Text on Sumatra from 1582," Bidragen tot de Taal-, Land, en Volkenkunde 145, 2-3 (1989): 312, 316; Denys Lombard, Le Sultanat D`Atjeh au Temps d`Iskandar Muda (Paris, 1967), 63-5 and n. 6; G. W. J. Drewes, Hikajat Potjut Muhamat, Bibliotheca Indonesia 19 (The Hague, 1979), 47; Teuku Iskandar, De Hikajat Atjeh, Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 26 (1958): 146-7.

9. J. H. Glazemaker, trans., De Rampspoedige Scheepvaart der Franschen naar Oost-Indien (Jan Rieuwertsz and Arenz, 1669), 133; Barros, Da Asia, 548.

10. B. Andaya, To Live as Brothers: Southeast Sumatra in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Honolulu, 1993), 38-50.

11. De Haan, "Naar midden Sumatra in 1684" 327-66; Jane Drakard, "A Kingdom of Words: Minangkabau Sovereignty in Sumatran History" (Ph.D. diss., Australian National University, 1993), 40-74.

12. Leonard Y. Andaya, The Kingdom of Johor, 1641-1728: Economic and Political Developments (Kuala Lumpur, 1975), 110-11; C. R. Boxer, Further Selections from the Tragic History of the Sea 1559-1565 (London, 1968), 92.

13. Tome Pires, Suma Oriental. An Account of the East from the Red Sea to Japan, written in Melaka 1512-1515, Translated by A. Cortesao (London, 1944), vol. 2, 161; Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 64; Kathirithamby-Wells, "Achehnese Control over West Sumatra," 455; Drakard, "A Kingdom of Words," chap, 5.

14. Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 119; Taufik Abdullah, "Islam, History and Social Change in Minangkabau," in Lynne Thomas and Franz von Benda-Beckmann, Change and Continuity in Minangkabau: Local, Regional and Historical Perspective on West Sumatra (Ohio University Center for International Studies, Southeast Asia Series no. 7, 1985), 148.

15. Jane Drakard, A Malay Frontier: Unity and Duality in a Sumatran Kingdom (Ithaca, 1990), 22, 28-9; J. Kathirithamby-Wells, "Myth and Reality: Minangkabau Institutional Traditions in the Rantau," in Thomas and von Benda-Beckmann, Change and Continuity, 127.

16 Pires, Suma Oriental, vol. 2, 154; P. A. Tiele, Bouwstoffen voor de Geschiedenis der Nederlanders in den Maleischen Archipel (The Hague, 1885-1895), vol. 2, 114; William Marsden, The History of Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur, 1975. Reprint of 1811 edition), 42; Drakard, A Malay Frontier, 8-9, 72.

17. Drakard, A Malay Frontier, passim; J. Kathirithamby-Wells, "Hulu-Hilir Unity and Conflict: Malay Statecraft in East Sumatra before the Mid-Nineteenth Century," Archipel 45 (1993): 77-96; John Miksic, "Traditional Sumatran Trade," Bulletin de l`Ecole Francaise d`Extreme-Orient 74 (1985): 423-68; B. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 13-20; Bellwood, Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago, 11; Marsden, History of Sumatra, 320.

18. Adolph Eschels-Kroon, Beschreibung der Insel Sumatra (Hamburg, 1781), 7; Marsden, History of Sumatra, 207-8. Dutch colonial scholars similarly saw the interior as the repository of "true" indigenous custom.

19. Jane Drakard, Sejarah Raja-Raja Barus (Jakarta, 1988), 82; A. H. Hill, "Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai," Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 33, 2 (June 1960): 59, 68, 84.

20. B. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 35, 198-203; J. Kathirithamby-Wells, Thomas Barnes` Expedition to Kerinci in 1818 (Canterbury, occasional paper no. 7, 1968): 25,; Michael Adas, "From Footdragging to Flight The Evasive History of Peasant Avoidance in South and Southeast Asia," Journal of Peasant Studies 13, 2 (1986): 64-86.

21. Unrest in Aceh in discussed by Lee Kam Hing, "Aceh`s Relations with the British 1760-1819" (M.A. diss., University of Malaya, 1969); Eschels-Kroon, Beschreibung der Insel Sumatra, xx; J. Kathirithamby-Wells, "A Survey of the Effects of British Influence on Indigenous Authority in Southwest Sumatra (1685-1824)," Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volk-enkunde 129, 2-3 (1973): 238-68.

22. Eschels-Kroon, Beschreibung der Insel Sumatra, 60; J. L. van Bazel, "Begin en voortgang van onzen handel en bezettingen op Sumatra`s westkust," Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indie 9, 11 (1847): 65, 69; J. Kathirithamby-Wells, The British West Sumatran Presidency, 95.

23. H. N. van der Tuuk, "Proeve van een vergelijkende woordenlijst van Lampongsche tongvallen," Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen 17 (1869): 569.

Barbara Watson Andaya is associate professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.

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