North Sumatra, a production base for precious forest and mineral products, played a significant role in international maritime trade from early centuries. Contacts with the outside world through trade helped to develop coastal entrepots exporting products from the interior. The linkage between the coastal port and the hinterland has been one of the central issues for scholars working on Sumatran maritime trade history and its political culture. The coastal port needed the hinterland for its products, and the hinterland needed the coastal port in order to barter products for necessities of salt and cotton cloths. Royal chronicles of Sumatran port polities often connect their raison dêtre with the support of hinterland peoples.
The 15-17th century activation of maritime trade in Southeast Asia reconfirmes the symbiosis between the two entities. During this period there appeared the prosperous coastal principalities of Aceh, Pasai, Aru and Barus in north Sumatra. In order to respond to increased demands by visiting merchants for forest and mineral products and also pepper, the coastal rulers needed to mobilize their hinterland peoples more effectively. The military superiority of the coastal principalities may have given them greater influence over their hinterlands. Nevertheless, for these principalities it was difficult to handle affairs in the interior consistently, and particularly to guarantee that the agricultural system would allow the people to collect and cultivate their products.
In this context the hinterland authority, which the interior people believed was associated with the fertility of their agricultural production, was regarded as a highly important figure to the coastal rulers. The Batak case of the rise of the divine king, Si Singa Mangaraja, in the Toba lakeside region of Bakkara from about the 16th century shows us one example of one hinterland counterpart to the prosperous coastal principalities of Barus and Aceh.
According to the royal chronicle of Barus Hilir (Downstream Barus), the Si Singa Mangaraja I was a son of Sultan Ibrahim, the first legendary king of Barus Hilir. Barus had been well-known as a forest products export harbour since at least the 9th century. Sixteenth century Barus became fairly prosperous as many Muslim merchants began to visit the west coast of Sumatra after the Portuguese capture of Malacca. Descriptions by Tomé Pires, who visited Barus in the 1510s, and by the Dutch East India Company, which established a factory there in 1668, show that a large quantity of the forest products of camphor and benzoin were brought to the port by the Batak interior people. In order to mobilize the interior people to bring forest products, Barus needed to establish its legitimacy among them by associating itself with the hinterland authority, which was believed to insure their agricultural production. The place where the Si Singa Mangara ja resided was one of the most productive hinterland sawah (wet rice cultivation) areas. Batak legends generally regarded the Si Singa Mangaraja as a reincarnation of Batara Guru and as having supernatural power to control the growth of rice and ubi, and the supply of the water which was essential to cultivation. There were successive Si Singa Mangaraja figures in Bakkara, constantly “reincarnated” until the last one (usually called Si Singa Mangaraja XII) was killed by the Dutch colonial army in 1907. Every Si Singa Mangaraja endeavoured to maintain stable trading relations between Barus and the hinterland. The power of these figures was also highly regarded by the people where Barus Hulu (another royal family of Upstream Barus) was influential.
Aceh and other coastal principalities in Sumatra's east coast also appreciated the existence of this Batak divine king.
From the period of Sultan Alau'd-Din Ri'ayat Syâh al-Kahar to that of Sultan Iskandar Muda, Aceh endeavoured to establish its hegemony over both t

View full abstract

This article examines the manpower control administration in Nakhon Ratchasima, an important first-class township located at the entrance to Northeast Siam, in the middle of the nineteenth century.
A census taken in the 1850's suggests that more than 28, 000 adult-males both commoners and minor officials, were registered in Nakhon Ratchasima. They were classified under several categories: 14, 575 were registered with the chaomuang of Nakhon Ratchasima and its local officials; 6, 851 were registered with a dozen of its dependent townships; 1, 706 under kong nok of Nakhon Ratchasima paying suai (the head capitation tax) in kind; 1, 025 under kong nok raising cattle and elephants for the crown; almost 1, 000 registered with different nobles and officials in Bangkok; and 2, 192 under the Front Palace. There were also 1, 094 adult-males on the list who were registered with other townships, but were recorded as residing in Nakhon Ratchasima.
Besides these adult-males on the registration list, ‘slaves’ are also found serving local elites perhaps as both a domestic and agricultural labor force. We also find several hundred of Chinese in Nakhon Ratchasima and its dependent townships paying the phuk-pi tax every three years.
To consider the pattern of distinction in terms of duties owed by the various groups registered in Nakhon Ratchasima, a rather distorted picture emerges. It was those who were registered with eight particular dependent townships and under kong nok, whether phrai luang or phrai som, that regularly paid suai to the crown. They were also subject to conscription in the war with Vietnam during the third reign, with suai exemptions for their period of military service granted. On the other hand, commoners registered under the chaomuang and township officials of Nakhon Ratchasima, who are thought to be a township version of phrai luang, were not obliged to render any regular services to the crown. They were just occasionally conscripted during the war with Vietnam and sent at times to the construction works at Lop Buri and Phraphutthabat during the fourth reign.
The division of interests between the crown and the local authorities over manpower resources in this township was extremely uneven. Since the number of adult-males who were placed under the local officials, and were thus not obliged to pay any regular services to the crown, preponderated, the king could control only a small part of the population there, i, e., those in kong nok and several dependent townships, through the suai imposition. The portion of the commoners who were obliged to send suai to the royal coffers was curtailed to one-third of the total registrees of each kong nok, since exemption was generously given for such reasons as being disabled or being a minor official.
The control over manpower exercised by the crown in Nakhon Ratchasima remained peripheral. As indicated by the word ‘nok’ meaning “outside” “outer”, kong nok was a unit of manpower control established outside of the administrative body of the township. Its leaders stood outside of the main administrative hierarchy of the township officials. Very few among them, and among the chaomuang of the dependent townships subject to suai tax, were close relatives of the chaomuang of Nakhon Ratchasima.

View full abstract

It has long been accepted in academic circles that after the first wave of Islamization in Java, Muslim society became rather stagnant until the rise of the Modern Islamic Movements at the beginning of this century. Such a view overlooks the dynamism of Islam, and has contributed to creating the image of a “superficially Islamized Java”. However, if we look into this problem from another aspect, namely language, we can find a new dimension and it will show how deeply Javanese society has in fact been Islamized.
The Arabic Language forms the basis for Islamic concepts. In the development of Islam Arabic words were borrowed by many Asian and African languages. Javanese also contains a plenty of Arabic words with certain phonetical changes. These Arabic loan words carry Islamic messages and influence the way Javanese think. Nowadays in daily conversation the fact of using Arabic loan words is almost unnoticed since such words are so deeply rooted in modern Javanese and so commonly used.
Historically speaking by the beginning of 19th century Javanese had already contained many Arabic words. For examble, in Yasadipura I's Serat Cabolek which reflects the Javanese intellectual standard of the time, we find more than 150 Arabic loan words, which are used not only as religious and ethical terms but also scientific and legal ones.
Furthermore, from the Arabic loan words that appear in Raffle's lexicon of the Javanese language, based on his stay in Java during the years 1811-1816, we recognize a great change taking place in Javanese religious life. First, time concepts are expressed by Arabic words, meaning that their daily life was organized around Muslim pious duties and festivals. Secondly, it became more important to record, and also more socially respectable to have “knowledge” or to become a learned man. Thirdly, Islamic law was applied and disputes were judged based on it. Moreover, Javanese values were manifested in Arabic loan words. It can safely be said that by this time Javanese life was deeply influenced by Islam.
In the late years of the last century, a Dutch Orientalist, Juynboll, collected Arabic loan words in Javanese. From his list we can add more terms to those found in the work of Yasadipra I concerning religion, ethics, psychology, science, law, and society.
How these words came into the Javanese language is somewhat of an enigma, since Java had never been colonized by the Arabs and the number of Arab inhabitants in Java was so very limited. We should give notice to the fact that most of those Arabic words carry rather abstract meanings and do not express concrete things. This means that these words were learned as scholastic activities and spread from there throughout the rest of society.
In this respect it is noteworthy that the traditional religious schools, like the langgar and pesantren were the source of Javanese knowledge until the end of the 19th century. In these schools kitab (religious books written in Arabic) were used, and the main subject was Islamic Law, followed by Islamic Theology. Islamic Law is designed to regulate the relationships between God and human beings, as well as also relationships among “the faithful”. Islamic Jurisprudence as taught in the kitab discusses interpretations and applications of the law. Islamic Theology concentrates on the problem of how human behaviour is recognized rationally, arguing human beings are responsible for their own conduct, so it requires normative terms. It is strongly suggested that Arabic words were first learned by santri (pupils of Islamic schools) and then carried to the rest of society.
In the modern age Arabic loan words still form the core of the Javanese language, and without them the Javanese would be unable to express their thoughts. This is even more true with the Indonesian language and the Indonesians. A lot of new foreign words from Dutch and Eng

View full abstract

The history of Southeast Asian countries has been studied for almost four generations. History of Southeast Asia edited by Ishii Yoneo, volume four in the recently completed Southeast Asian Studies, indicates the current level of work in Japan on the subject, since eight of the contributors are leading Japanese scholars. From this book we are able to discern the frontier of Japanese research on the subject. The main focus of this review will be survey how far an autonomous Southeast Asian history has been established in Japan.
In his introduction, Ishii clearly traces the trend from heterogeneous to autonomous historical studies in the search on Southeast Asia. While he does not refer to the effects of cultural background on the historical viewpoints of scholars, he dose argue that heterogeneous view of Southeast Asian history are formed not only from the nature of the source materials, but also from the individual scholar's personal values. In this regard, the paper by Nitta Eiji is suggestive in emphasizing the importance of settling the typological order of excavated pottery and other artifacts over a wider area, in order to exclude subjectivity from the study of the region's pre-history.
One of the common themes in the study of Southeast Asian history is Indianization or Islamization. In this volume the former phenomenon is treated by Sakurai Yumio and the latter by Nakamura Mitsuo. Sakurai takes the agriculture of Kanchipuram in south India as the model for Indianized Southeast Asian agriculture and attempts to reveal the economic base of urban areas formed during the Angkor period by employing the theory of hydraulic cities proposed by B. Ph. Groslier. Nakamura elucidates the process of the expansion of Islam through the Southeast Asian archipelago. Neither of them pay much attention to any domestic motivation. Althought lacking sufficient evidence, Sakurai presumes that the agriculture of northeast Thailand at that time was similar to Kanchipuram simply because the area was Indianized. In the same way, Nakamura describes the expansion of Islam as if the Malay world had been shaped by Islamic power. This type of attitude is also to be seen in the article by Hamashita Takeshi. It depicts Southeast Asian countries during the period of the Ming and Qin dynasties as incorporated within the Chinese world order formed by the system of tribute paid to the Emperor. His way of thinking could be described as “Sinocentric.”
Papers by Ikehata Setsuho and Ishii Yoneo on the spiritual world of Southeast Asian people also appear in this volume. Ikehata sheds light on the mechanism by which Catholicism shaped and modified the social order, while Ishii deals with Theravada Buddhism in a similar fashion. Both reveal the contradictory roles of these religions in ruling the people while at the same time offering them concepts of resistance to government. The logic of this paradox is to be found not in Catholic or Buddhist systems of thought per se but in the manner by which they were adopted locally. Both discussions display low regard for native Southeast Asian thought.
Takaya Yoshikazu describes dynamically the relationship between ecology and history, as trade with the outside world changed the ecosystem, bringing about agricultural expansion. It is difficult to accept, however, his explanation that the ecosystem or factors external to society determine the impetus and direction of history. Basing his ideas on Anthony Reid's theory that Southeast Asia composed a single world system during the Age of Commerce, Oki Akira examines whether Southeast Asia might be regarded as a unified world, and tries to build up an effective paradigm within which to study Southeast Asian history. Although his is a creative approach, there are some problems, such as the fact that he accepts a priori the fact that Southeast Asia was indeed a unified world. The topics of trade relations and trading networks c

View full abstract