Indonesian cities, especially Jakarta, have variously been characterized as having a polyethnic profile as one of their salient features. It is said that Indonesian cities are “a plural society” (H. Geertz), “a mosaic of ethnic groups” (J. D. Legge), and “a country in a city” (W. Mertens). These characterizations all indicate that Indonesian cities are a microcosm of the country, reflecting the ethnic diversity of Indonesia's population. It seems that one can hardly discuss Indonesian cities without duly taking into consideration the question of ethnicity.
 Despite such presumption, very little had, for a long time, actually been studied about urban ethnicity in Indonesia. A pioneer in this field of studies is Edward Bruner, who first conducted research among Toba Batak migrants in Medan in 1957-1958, and later in Bandung and Jakarta in 1970. It was only from the late 1970s, twenty years after Bruner's initial research, that other scholars began to take an active interest in this topic. In addition to their works, studies on Indonesian urbanization and migration, which were largely initiated in the early 1970s, sometimes present research findings relevant to the consideration of ethnicity in Indonesian cities. Also available now are a considerable number of M. A. theses completed at the University of Indonesia, which deal with urban ethnicity but hitherto have seldom been referred to by scholars concerned with this topic.
 In view of this increasing volume of literature touching upon urban ethnicity, it will be useful to review some of its findings, particularly if this can be done within a framework which allows us to relate to each other the various ways in which urban ethnicity is expressed in Indonesia. Examples of urban ethnicity are copious in personal anecdotes and scholarly works; but it remains to be seen how they are interrelated in a meaningful fashion. The present paper is intended to be a first step toward the amelioration of this situation.
 I propose three forms in which urban ethnicity is expressed in Indonesia: (1) networks of family members, relatives, and people of the same local origin, all of whom generally share an identical ethnic background in Indonesia; (2) quasi-ethnic associations such as kin-based associations (e.g., Javanese trah), clan-based associations (e.g., Toba Batak marga associations), and locality-based associations (e. g., Minangkabau village associations), which all implicitly and sometimes explicitly incorporate ethnicity as a principle of group-formation; and (3) ethnic associations, some examples of which are ethnic dance-and-music groups, ethnic students' unions, ethnic religious organizations, and ethnic political organizations, which utilize ethnicity as a major principle of group-formation and are established by and for unspecified members of an ethnic group, usually for specific purposes.
 This paper has two limited aims within the scope of the above framework: (1) to review the literature on networks, and (2) to consider locality-based Minangkabau associations, through literature review and through my research in Jakarta in 1980-1981. The Minangkabau case is singled out because it has been relatively well studied; its examination will hopefully reveal how networks and one type of quasi-ethnic association are related.
 The most extensive literature on networks relates to Jakarta. Research findings show that networks based on kin and commonality of local origin are almost universal among the various ethnic groups in Jakarta, for example, Javanese, Sundanese, Minangkabau, Batak, Bugis, Gorontalo, and Madurese. The networks are found to operate in the processes of migration decision-making, rural-urban migration, urban adaption, and rural-urban contacts.

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Most studies on Southeast Asian cities have emphasized the capital cities (or “primate cities”), which are the cornerstones of their nation-building, while local cities have not received due attention. One of the basic assumptions underlying the present study is that a theoretical model can be built which will prove fruitful in the study of “middle-scale society,” While we already have a “micro” (conventional anthropological) model based on data from rural areas, and a “macro” model deriving from the sociological studies of metropolitan areas, we do not have an efficient model with which we can deal with societies of intermediate scale and complexity. Such a model or theory is of crucial importance for the understanding of the current social processes of Southeast Asian countries, since local middle-scale societies constitute the frontlines as well as the centers of regional development.
 As part of a larger research project on the local cities in Southeast Asia, this paper focuses on the city of Ujung Pandang in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, where I did a four-month fieldwork in 1983-1984. The city, known as Makassar before 1971,developed as an international port town from the sixteenth century, and is now the regional administrative, economic and cultural center with a population of approximately 700,000. Ethnic multiplicity is a fundamental characteristic of the city. Within the setting of this “ethnic mosaic,” the present paper focuses particularly on the Toraja migrants whose homeland is located 300 kilometers north of the city, and examines their communities in the fringe “kampong” sector of the city. Though the history of their merantau (“migration”) to the city goes back to the 1920s, it has been accelerated since 1965, internally by ecological pressures in their homeland, and externally by the political stability and the improvement of land communication under the Suharto regime. Their migration can be considered as a sort of “ethnic expansion” taking place within the framework of Indonesia's modernization. The Toraja migrants' experiences of the city described and analysed in the paper illustrate some aspects of the socio-cultural dynamics of the present Indonesian local cities.
 From the Toraja migrants' point of view, the city is not a well-integrated “moral community.” Despite the physical existence of the city of Ujung Pandang, there seems to be no Ujung Pandang society or Ujung Pandang culture as a whole: what there is is an assemblage of miniature ethnic societies of South Sulawesi, such as the “Toraja community” and the “Bugis community.” This feature of the “ethnic mosaic” or “pluralism” is apparently inconsistent with the socio-cultural model of conventional (“functionalist”) social scientists. “Middle-scale society,” being located between the nation as an ideological moral community and rural society as a substantial moral community, presents a different social type from either. I posit it deserves special attention in our quest for a better understanding of urban societies in Southeast Asia.

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The trah, a type of Javanese genealogical organization focussed on an apical ancestor, received little attention until Sjafri Sairin's recent study. The present article introduces the main points of his explorative research and attempts to re-interpret and discuss this cultural phenomenon in a wider scope. Although Sjafri's sociological interpretation of the post-1965 development of trah is persuasive, his explanation of the Javanese cultural background, in which he refers to Javanese cultural norms such as harmony, mutual aid, and tranquillity, is insufficient to explain the diffusion of trah. Having originated from royalty and spread to the common people, trah can be considered to be a mimesis of royal culture. The Javanese royal court stressed its roles as center of the cosmos and as cultural exemplar. The cultural elements contained in trah, however, are also observable in non-royal, folk customs, though in rudimentary forms. From this point of view, trah can be interpreted as a long-term cultural development in the Javanese kingdom.

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The forest plant size, especially tree size, was examined in a mature dipterocarp forest stand in Sebulu, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. One hundred and ninety-one living trees 1.3m high and higher, three lianas living on dead trees, one small standing liana, and one palm were felled, and their sizes were measured using the stratified clip technique and recorded. Of these sample plants, the largest was a Shorea laevis tree: total height was 70.7m; stem diameter at the terminal of its buttresses, 4.6m high, was 130.5cm; stem volume was 41.1m³; stem dry weight was 33129.768kg; branch dry weight was 9586.120kg; leaf dry weight was 107.614kg; leaf area was 767.372m². The plant mass of dependent plants living on independent plants was also measured using the stratified clip technique. The aboveground biomass in a narrow 0.125ha sampling spot was calculated by summing the plant mass values of individual sample plants. It totaled 872.949t/ha in dry weight for all living plants and 7.962ha/ha in leaf area, although these values were too large to represent the mean biomass of the dipterocarp forest in the study area because that forest patch included the huge emergent tree.

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