Interpreting the Palu’e Legend Pio Pikariwu: Arrested kingship in eastern Indonesia (original) (raw)
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Kings and Covenants: Stranger-Kings and Social Contract in Sulawesi
Indonesia and the Malay World 37(105):269-91, 2008
This paper explores the relationship between stranger-kingship and contractual authority in the history of the island of Sulawesi (Indonesia). In most parts of Sulawesi, social and political stratification were always pronounced. At the same time the power of kings and chiefs was restricted by more or less explicit social contracts defining their rights and duties with respect to the political community as a whole, typically consisting of an oligarchy of local nobles. These contracts, spelled out during inauguration ceremonies and on other ritual occasions, were backed up by realistic threats of violence against the ruler, as well as by supernatural sanctions. Besides its contractual character, another characteristic feature of Sulawesi kingship was that rulers were perceived as outsiders to the community – typically by virtue of foreign and/or divine origin, sometimes perhaps also as a result of sickness or physical abnormality. Stranger-kingship enhanced the effectiveness of the social contract by making the ruler easier for his people to dis- cipline or depose if necessary, and harder for them to envy or hate, as well as more objec- tive and impartial in his own dealings with them. These points are illustrated using historical and anthropological data from various parts of Sulawesi, particularly the Bugis kingdoms of the southwest peninsula, the island sultanates of Buton and Banggai off the east coast, and the chiefdoms of Gorontalo and Buol in the north.
Anthropological Forum, 2019
In this paper I will compare and contrast the Austronesian symbolic elements of the two social formations within which I have conducted extensive ethnographic and archival research, that of the highly egalitarian Buid of Mindoro, Philippines and that of the equally hierarchical Makassar of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. I will demonstrate both that their cosmological structures are built out of common symbolic elements and that these structures could be used to legitimate vastly different political systems. The common symbolic elements included a gendered cosmos inhabited by a series of parallel societies composed of animal, human and spirit subjects; the conceptualisation of human sociality as generated by shared experience within a nested series of bounded spaces; and the ability of certain agents to move between these spaces by way of specialised training, vehicles and portals.
2008 From stranger king to stranger shaikh: Austronesian symbolism and Islamic knowledge
Stranger-Kings in Indonesia and Beyond, 2008
Three political institutions came into being successively in Southeast Asia and co-existed for several centuries: stranger-kingship, cosmopolitan law and bureaucratic rationality. Each was based on a different set of practices, and each served to estrange political authorities from their subjects. Firstly, cosmological rituals placed the stranger-king above the factional loyalties of his subjects. Secondly, cosmopolitan legal codes and mystical practices derived from Islamic scriptures placed the ulama and shaikh above the elders who enforced local customs – and, in times of crisis, even above the local king. Thirdly, impersonal bureaucratic procedures and access to an archive of documents placed the officers of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and of the colonial state above the ‘natives’. This paper argues that all three institutions be seen as a symbolic expression of a general requirement for the existence of ordered social life, namely the need for institutions that can rise above the conflicts and factionalism generated by everyday events. It traces the process by which the traditional authority of stranger-kings in south Sulawesi was complemented and contradicted after 1605 by the charismatic authority of Islamic shaikhs, and by the bureaucratic authority of Dutch officials.
Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 2018
Defined by Joel Robbins as the science of continuity, anthropology has long experienced diffi- culty explaining changes and transformations. The notions of cultures and traditions it maintains tend to simply assume their durability. This inclination has led to the problem of overlooking the dramatic heterogeneity in bodies of myths. Since myth is often treated as the ‘great component’ that promotes ‘the unity of a culture’, even among those who are critical of the timeless notion of culture, the theoretical tendency that pervades anthropology is to emphasise its coherence with the whole while disregarding its conflicting multiplicity. This paper attempts to propose a framework within which we can better address the multifariousness of a body of myths in actual social circumstances. This is accomplished by expand- ing Edmund Leach’s view of myth as an ‘argument’ and taking the view that the reproduction of myth requires its alteration and transformation for the sake of appropriating conceptualised qualities of social value. The subject of this study, in particular, is the myth about the Butonese lowlander in North Seram, Maluku, Eastern Indonesia.
Oceania, 2022
This article describes how the dominant order of precedence in Seram, eastern Indonesia is challenged by the suspicion of the existence of a secret history. In a context where being the original founder is of importance and the sequence of predecessors' arrival is the basis of orders of precedence, such a suspicion evokes a hopeful possibility for marginal communities that the present social order is false and vulnerable to the abrupt revelation of the true past. Although generally inclined toward the founders, there are overlapping orders of precedence at work in Seram. Each order of precedence conjures up a different image of the marginal community, which, despite each placing them as the lesser group, induces a sense of contradiction and that the widely recounted history is problematic. In this respect, this article offers a contribution to the field of Austronesian studies, which has long been concerned with how orders of precedence emerge and are at play among the historically mobile Austronesian societies.
"Gender at Sea" - Yearbook of Women's History/Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis 41, 2023
As an archipelagic state consists of 17.000 islands, myth derived from indigenous experience with maritime life is very common in Indonesia. Maritime activities are seen as the backbone of civilization and livelihood for many coastal communities, as well as danger and threat to the authorities in hinterland which try to maintain status quo against foreign influence from ‘sabrang’, places across the sea. This research aims to investigate a common pattern found in myth about the arrival of stranger queens from the sea who then established the ruling local dynasties in Sulawesi. The selected myth shows similarity in the term of migration of foreign women and their supranatural powers as the key for their authority over local population. Furthermore, this research aims to compare the myth of stranger sea queens in Sulawesi to Javanese depiction of the same characters based on local texts and believe. The worship of Kanjeng Ratu Kidul by Mataram court as an exiled princess from Pajajaran who inhabits the Southern Sea and the story of stranded Princess Ong Tien from China, the ancestress of Cirebonese sultans tell us about how sea becomes symbol of redemption and resurrection for these female characters. Lastly, a close observation to a historical figure of Ratu Kalinyamat of Jepara, the queen of an important trading port in the 16th century will be conducted to analyze how her connection to maritime life made her viewed by Javanese authors as fierce, deeply mystical but also sensual.
2005 From humility to lordship in Island Southeast Asia
Property and Equality Volume II: Encapsulation, Commercialisation, Discrimination, pp. 231-251, 2005
In this paper, I compare the egalitarian religious images that exist in one of the most hierarchical societies in Island Southeast Asia, the Makassar of coastal South Sulawesi, with the hierarchical religious images that exist in one of the most egalitarian societies, the Buid of highland Mindoro. This comparison will allow me to cast new light on Woodburn’s argument that the the origin of social inequality in immediate-return hunter-gatherer societies may lie in the appropriation of the religious domain by senior men. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the Makassar and the Buid formed part of a single regional system in which coastal societies preyed on the members of autonomous tribal societies practicing shifting cultivation in the highlands. The depredations of the hierarchical coastal societies spawned an ethic in the highlands in which equality, autonomy and communal solidarity were valued above all else. But even within the coastal societies, the lower orders often developed a set of religious values similar to those of the highlanders, values that rejected the hierarchy, dependency and factionalism of the elite. This rejection was expressed through popular interpretations of world religions like Islam and Christianity. Historically, religions promising spiritual salvation from social bondage often arose in the most hierarchical social orders. I argue that hierarchy and equality, dependency and autonomy, solidarity and factionalism should all be viewed as conceptual oppositions that develop in tandem with one another, much like the concepts of “free gift” and “commodity” (Parry, 1986). In the second part of the paper, I approach popular ideas of salvation among the Makassar through an analysis of the epic of Datu Museng. In reciting this epic, Makassar bards simultaneously recall their experience of Dutch colonialism, express a mystical vision of life as a quest to transcend the social order and reunite with God, and rework a pervasive precoccupation of Austronesian mythology, the fate of opposite-sex twins. They also reveal a profound ambivalence toward the values of equality and hierarchy, autonomy and dependency, solidarity and factionalism. It is only because Makassar society was based on hereditary ranks, slavery and warfare that Makassar religion could develop such a clear ideal of the wandering saint who transcends all worldly spatial, temporal and categorical boundaries. In the third part of the paper, I compare the salvation Islamic saints promise the Makassar with the salvation Jesus Christ promises lowland Filipinos. In both cases, the lower orders in a hierarchical society can appeal to the transcendental values of a global religion to circumscribe the power of the local spirits and political elites. I contrast this situation with that of the Buid and the immediate-return hunter-gatherers discussed by Woodburn. In these egalitarian societies, the major threat to society comes not from elites who abuse their power but from individuals who place their own autonomy above the needs of the group. Religious rituals are used to assert the primacy of communal solidarity over individual autonomy. The seeds of inequality lie in a widespread tendency to map the opposition between communal and individual interest onto the opposition between male and female, allowing senior men to assert a monopoly of control over collective ritual.
Archetypes are found all over the world and may have very important significance to the people who have them. Archetypal symbols, for example, have triggered peoples to struggle for some specific purposes. An archetypal symbol in Papua which is found in th e Bintang Kejora flag which is actually the Sampari , also called the Makmeser , the Morning Star has become the people’s symbol of struggle for some time now. This symbol is actually originated in the Manarmakeri myth in the Biak people oral literature tra dition with Manarmakeri as the leading character. This Sampari is very closely related to the Koreri sheben , an era in which there is abundance, no more deaths, only eternal life, and ever lasting happiness. This paper will briefly discuss the Manarmakeri myth starting with its archetypal plot, characters, situations, and symbols, then, on to its developmental implication and political significance.