Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters Author(s): Jane Drakard Source: Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, Vol. 95/96 (2008-2009), pp. 135-189 Published by: École française d’Extrême-Orient Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43733747 Accessed: 18-10-2016 10:05 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms École française d’Extrême-Orient is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters Jane Drakard* The Laksamana addressed the king and said, "O Tuanku, king of the world ... what are your orders?" The king replied, "prepare quickly for my embarkation on the ship Mundam Berahi". He then called the master of the vessel and said, "certainly we have seen towards the left of the rising sun smoke issuing as it were from a rock, what is said of it in your chart?". He replied, "Pardon, my lord, king of the world, it appears by the map that this smoke proceeds from an island, which old people call Pulo Percha". The king said, "O master, are you acquainted with this island?"; and the master replied, "O king of the world, thy servant has never been there, he knows it only from the chart". Then the king said to his mantris, "O mantris, make ready with speed, I wish to go to this island". And when the ship was equipped, the king embarked with all his army and set sail towards the place of that smoke. On the fourth morning he arrived, and saw the waves breaking at the foot of that mountain, and at a little distance what appeared to be an island with a man standing upon it. The island appeared endeavouring to rise from the sea, but the man scattered the earth and prevented it, so that it again disappeared. Day by day the same was repeated. The king asked his mantris the meaning of this, but the mantris replied, "We do not know". The king then ordered the ship to be moved to that place, and when he arrived, he asked, "O thou that stirrest up the waters, who art thou?". The reply was, "I am Sikatimuno". The king asked, "what is your employment", and Sikatimuno replied, "I am destroying this island, that it may not become land". Then the king drew forth his sword called Chemundang Giri, which destroyed of itself, and said, "O Sikatimuno, now I will kill you". He replied, "thou canst not kill me". But Sikatimuno was destroyed by Chemundang Giri, and the island of Lankapura became land by the will of God. It became large and extended to the foot of the mountain. Thereafter the king landed on that island, called also Saguntang-guntang Penjaringan and situated between Palembang and Jambi, and dwelt there, and all the people also landed, and applied themselves to cultivation and other employments.1 This is but one, probably corrupt, version of a story which appears in several Malay contexts. In most versions Sikatimuno is the name of a giant serpent or naga , whose destruction by the sword Chemandang Giri is linked to the foundations of the central Sumatran kingdom of Minangkabau. In some versions of the famous Melaka chronicle, * This research was undertaken in the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University. I would like to thank Henri Chambert-Loir, David Chandler, Annabel Teh Gallop, David Henley, Peter Howard, John Legge, Pierre- Yves Manguin, Tony Milner and Maria Nugent, all of whom have read drafts of this piece at various stages and contributed critical insights and thoughtful suggestions. I am also grateful to Kara Rasmanis and Toby Wood of the School of Geography and Environmental Science at Monash University for making the maps which accompany this article and to Geraldine Hue of the BEFEO for her careful work on the manuscript. Ringraziamenti speciali to Peter Howard for his gentle support and encouragement. 1. "Abstract of the Genealogy of the Rajahs of Pulo Percha (Sumatra); from a M.S. in the possession of the Sultan of Indrapura", Malayan Miscellanies , 1822, pp. 2-3. A few small editorial changes have been made to this quotation. Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, 95-96 (2008-2009), p. 135-189 This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 136 Jane Sejarah Drakard Melayu , f Sapurba their ruler There are many var of Sikatimuno mountain, contain a or, with as in saying Sekongkong Tanah Selilit Pulau Perca Dilengkong ular Saktimuna "Trapped is the land of Minangkabau All around Pulau Perca Is wrapped the serpent Saktimuna."3 Pulau Perca is often used as a name for the island of Sumatra and here, as in the story quoted above, Sikatimuno is depicted threatening the island itself which, in the south Sumatran text, is given two names - Pulau Perca and Pulau Lankapura. What are we to make of these associations? They belong to a rich oral tradition and probably never bore the fixed meanings which transcription and publication tend to imply. Neither is it possible to date or even to locate them precisely. But, however elusive these tales may be, they offer us an arresting and intriguing image - that of an island struggling to become land, encircled and obstructed by a great monster and freed with a sword of kingship. Nor are these the only Sumatran accounts of the discovery or emergence of an island which was to be ruled by Minangkabau kings. Minangkabau letters and narratives also relate the story of a bird with the gift of speech which was sent down from the heavens to assist Iskandar Zulkarnain (Alexander the Great) in finding dry land. The land in question was Pulau Lankapura, located between Jambi and Palembang, which was itself lowered down by God as a place for the original ruler.4 Why should the image of an island figure in these stories of early Sumatran rulers? Were Pulau Perca and Pulau Lankapura conceived as equivalents of the geographic entity known today as "Sumatra" and how, indeed, was that entity understood in local thought? These questions are rarely posed. Sumatra is so vast and so diverse that it is seldom considered by scholars as an island space. Specialists tend to focus on distinct regions and the cultural groups inhabiting the island, rather than the commonalities 2. In some contexts the name of the serpent is given as Saktimuno and the sword as Chorek Mandang Kini. For versions of the Sejarah Melayu which include this story see Shellabear 1 988, p. 26 and Hooker & Hooker (eds.) 2001, pp. 38-9. Winstedt suggested that this legend may have been a reflection of the ruler's role as an incarnation of Indra who, in the Rgveda , killed a serpent in order to release water for the fields. See Winstedt 1926 and 1950. 3. http://sultan.perak.gov.my/bahasa/mudzaffar_shah.htm (accessed 29.09.09). The phrase "Sa-lilit Pulau Perca", which Wilkinson translates as "all that Sumatra comprises", implies winding or twining around and can be found in a number of Malay texts and sayings. See, for example, the texts cited by Wilkinson 1959, p. 691; and Sweeney 1987, p. 126 where Sweeney cites the formulaic Minangkabau phrase, "Selilit Pulau Perca, sealam Tanah Minangkabau". 4. "Akan tempāt raja asai". For an eighteenth century example of this narrative see Marsden 1811, p. 340. A Malay version of the story can be found in a manuscript held in the Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia (PNRI), ML. 483, Silsilah Raja-raja Pagaruyung. For a seventeenth century example of the claim by Minangkabau kings to be rulers over Pulau Lankapura see Dagh-Register 1679, vol. 27, pp. 31-3. In their origin stories the Gayo people of the interior of Aceh also narrate the emergence of the island of Sumatra from the sea. Bowen 1991, Ch. 10. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms w M Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 137 between them. In particular, while the origins of the name "Sumatra" have been studied and some attention has been given to the possibility of a "Sumatran identity" in modern history, the significance of the island space for its inhabitants prior to colonial intrusion has never been addressed in any detail. This paper probes the relevance of "Sumatra" both as a field of meaning in local thought and as a context which helped to shape particular local responses to landscape, distance and authority. Sumatra, of course, is a large and precise topographic category and not one we should necessarily expect to find reflected in any exact sense in pre-modern sources. Yet, despite its physical size and diversity, there are materials which suggest that the island entity may have had local relevance, especially for those rulers who made wide claims to authority over numerous regional groups. In the seventeenth century, for example, both Acehnese and Minangkabau kings articulated their authority in letters which provide an opportunity to investigate the relevance of the island sphere in local discourse and to compare the spatial concepts which are used in each context. A close reading of these letters, one which pays attention to key words and phrases, repetition and structure, can offer an entry to local ideas about place and space and to an appreciation of significant differences in the way group identity and royal authority were articulated and appear to have been understood in each case. These differences, I will argue, have implications for our broader understanding of Sumatran political cultures. Islands and Space in Southeast Asian History There are good reasons for exercising caution when thinking about the significance of the island space from a local perspective. In his study of "The Identity of Sumatra in History" Anthony Reid (2005) makes the important point that the waters of the Melaka Straits should not be regarded as a boundary which confined the land of Sumatra. Rather, as he says, the Straits "united the broad rivers of the east coast with the Malay Peninsula and beyond, as the Sunda Straits united the south with Java".5 This is a well known view and many sources for pre-modern Malay history encourage us to think of a "Malay World" which spanned natural boundaries and was united by seaborne commerce. A volume of essays which focuses on the Java Sea makes this point by explicitly setting out to reverse the "traditional geographical image of insular Southeast Asia" and to consider what would happen if the waters themselves were understood as a continuum.6 Not only should we be cautious about thinking of the waters of the archipelago as constraining island entities; land itself is rarely considered to have been the most important factor in delineating the shape of local kingdoms. Much of the scholarship on Southeast Asian political systems attests to the importance of people, rather than territory, as a key resource in pre-modern polities and the necessity, for rulers, of attracting subjects is well recognised in the literature on Southeast Asian kingdoms.7 In the early 1980's Anthony Milner suggested that the geographical definitions applied in pre-modern Malay societies differed from those of Europe. In a context where land was a less important resource than people, he argued, "territorial borders were often unknown".8 Milner concluded that 5. Reid 2005, p. 24. 6. Houben et al. 1992, p. viii. 7. See Day 2002, pp. 178-180. 8. Milner 1982, p. 8. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 138 Jane "The Drakard actual locatio importance".9 of early scale of a defining Desc Southeas political it".10 "In the mandala represe able geographical ar all directions The polities Manguin torial as of bef having perception o "insignificanc itself become ing about the the secu dynamics coastal The for impact of alm me this Southeast Asia in which: The "territorialisation" of the modern Southeast Asian state is frequently mentioned as the cause and object of increased, "modern" bureaucratization, in contrast to a situation in "traditional" times, where manpower, not territory, was the primary concern in land-rich, man-power poor, pre-modern Southeast Asia.13 But Day goes on to warn that: It is as mistaken to ignore the meanings of territory in early Southeast Asia ... as it is to ignore the efficacy of ritual activity across the landscapes of Southeast Asia before the advent of "national" boundaries.14 An emphasis in this literature on the term "territory" which implies "possession in land", as opposed to a more nuanced understanding of the meanings of place, may be important here. A wide theoretical literature now exists, particularly in the fields of cultural geography and anthropology, which focuses on diverse cross-cultural understandings of the meanings invested in places.15 Indeed places - many argue - come into being through 9. Marsden 1 8 1 1 , p. 244, commented that in Sumatra land "is so abundant in proportion to the population, that they scarcely consider it as the subject of right". While Sumatra was and is thinly populated and land is clearly abundant, regions through which trade goods were conveyed were often highly prized, clearly defined and the subject of local disputes. For descriptions of these distinctions and disputes see Andaya 1993 and Drakard 1999. 10. Wolters 1999, p. 25. 11. Ibid., pp. 27-8. 12. Manguin 2002, pp. 73-99. 13. Day 2002, p. 178. 14. Ibid., p. 179. One recent publication which pays particularly unusually close attention to these issues is Kratoska et al. 2005. 15. The literature on place and space is vast, but a useful resource is http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~janzb/ place/. My thinking on these questions has been influenced by reading the work of my colleague Maria Nugent (2000 and 2005). This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 139 historical consciousness and through the process of textualisation. But what is meant by the terms "place" and "space" is not always clear. It is often suggested that humans construct meaningful ideas of place and locality in juxtaposition to an abstract idea of space, but understandings of how we move between these ideas can differ. The geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, among many others, suggests that we define places in terms of space, "enclosed and humanized space is place", and "what begins as undifferentiated space becomes place when we get to know it better and endow it with value".16 Although this movement from the general to the particular appears to describe the way in which ideas of place and space are understood in the west, the phenomenologist Edward S. Casey argues that it is a mistake to believe that we can grasp the implications of space without first being emplaced. Human beings, he suggests, are necessarily embodied in place and therefore conceptualise space from a prior understanding of places.17 By teasing out the place/space dichotomy, both these writers alert us to the role of places as cultural constructs with deeper and broader implications than those necessarily implied by the word "territory". It is also useful to note Doreen Massey's warning that such meanings are not necessarily fixed and should not be essentialised.18 Places, she notes, are always conceptualised in relation to an elsewhere, the local to the global, the west to the east, the upstream to the downstream, and these ideas are inter-dependent, just as concepts of place and space are contingent upon one another.19 Massey argues, therefore, that places should be understood as dynamic and relational, "as constantly shifting articulations of social relations through time".20 These ideas offer a starting point for an investigation of the meaning of a set of Sumatran statements about space and place which moves beyond the idea of territory and possession in land and examines the language in which connections between localities and a wider sphere are expressed. The aim here is not to essentialise an "idea of Sumatra", but rather to investigate its possibilities, to examine some of the ways in which this has been understood by locals and foreigners and - by probing a narrow range of local texts which exhibit spatial concerns - to foreground the significance of place and landscape for our understanding of Sumatran histories. We know of course that mountains and islands can be considered to be meaningful in ways which transcend territorial concerns. Well recognised examples of this kind of think- ing in island Southeast Asia include the ordering of space by coordinates and "directional systems" such as upstream (hulu) and downstream (hilir) and the naming and narrating of places in the context of stories of origin and domestication of the landscape.21 There 16. Tuan 1977, pages 6 and 54. 17. Casey 1996, p. 16 and passim. 18. Massey 1995, p. 183. 19. This perspective is discussed in detail in Massey 2005. 20. Massey 1995, p. 188. See also Massey 2005. 21. For a discussion of "directional systems" see Fox 1997, p. 6. Other studies which examine the meanings and significance of landscape and place in Southeast Asia include Winichakul 1994; Yeoh 2003; and the essays in Kratoska et al. 2005. In general, academic attention to these matters in island Southeast Asia, in particular, has tended to be confined to the work of geographers, and more recently anthropologists and archaeologists, rather than of historical and literary scholars. Exceptions here include Lombard 1986, Day 1994; Chambert-Loir 1994, pp. 41-61, Vickers 1999; and Worsley forthcoming. Barbara Andaya also writes expressively about landscape and memory in southeast Sumatra in Andaya 1993. For recent anthropological studies see Fox 1997 (discussed below) and Reuter 2006 and for an earlier study of the naming of places in Malay hikayat see Josselin De Jong 1 956. Studies based on archaeological research, such as those of John Miksie and Pierre- Yves Manguin are also contributing This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 140 Jane are also more Drakard suggestions important example, Islamic half world, of tha Annabel all Te which Malay se these "place-named" a number of Sumatr Where studies careful the argued a that wider and "memories" tion" "recitation examples of Serat seld an J ord topogen of regions tive Angk 1997 of of realm recit are in in ab imag of which published the the spatial repetition atte results Majapa in Java a Sekondhar lands" and enumer suggests, "the who whose memorization The idea of Java a fertility appears in that Airlangga, charters Christie phy of as stresses classical towards the literature the whole aside Java ruler "umbre tha Jav idea on the "land debates appears tha su of J about J theref greatly to our underst 2009 and Manguin 200 22. 23. 24. Gallop 2002, Chandler Fox 1997, vol. 1996, p. 8. 25. Ibid., p. 12. 26. "Although the mandala of the island of Java is alluded to as a standard formula appearing in inscriptions after the early eleventh century ... its exact meaning in this context is unclear. It may refer to the state's circle of neighbouring polities. However, given the general political solipsism of the sima charters, it is likely that the term refers merely to the island as a geographical unit." Wissman Christie, 1986, pages 74 and 76. 27. This is also illustrated in the duality between royal power in Java and chthonic forces represented by Sang Dewi Ratu Kidul, the goddess of southern ocean and consort of the king, who was and is belie- This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms p.2 Fox Inscribing Sumatra : Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 141 In comparison with this relatively rich literature attesting to the importance of con- ceptions of Java as an island space we know very little about local understandings of Sumatra. Malay sources present the best chance for gleaning any such understanding, but before embarking on an examination of some of the scant materials available it will be helpful to unpack colonial judgments on the importance or unimportance of "Sumatra" as a category. The Search for Sumatra European travellers and others before them struggled to map Southeast Asia in their search to identify islands, kingdoms and products. Much of early modern Southeast Asian history is gleaned from itineraries and lists of products and ports. Coming from the sea these travellers were preoccupied with delineating the land and we should be cautious about imposing a cartographic imagination on societies which did not map their worlds in the same manner.28 There is a risk of confusing long genealogies of external knowledge about parts of the region with local geographies and understandings of space. Writing about the idea of Celebes in history David Henley warns against the "geographical imagination" of Europe which led to a perception of the archipelago "not as a maritime continuum, not even as a collection of native states, but as a series of islands".29 Henley describes the European impulse to see unity in contexts where it did not exist for locals and finds no trace of an indigenous concept of the Celebes as an island. He concludes that, prior to the imposition of European categories "of the very physical existence of the Celebes, most Celebesians remained unaware."30 Similar statements were made about Sumatra by nineteenth century Europeans. Indeed, Sumatran ignorance of "geography" and nomenclature is a virtual trope in colonial writing about the island which deserves re-examination. In the first edition of his History of Sumatra William Marsden suggested that "the name of Sumatra is unknown to the natives, who are ignorant of it being an island, and have no general name for it".31 But in the third edition of the work, published in 1811, Marsden conceded that this was a generalisation which should have been confined to the regions in southwest Sumatra with which he was most familiar.32 Marsden's contemporary John Crawfurd nevertheless repeated the earlier assumption in the middle of the ved to ensure the fertility of the realm. The same point is even articulated in the rumours, described by George Quinn, about a series of tunnels running underneath the island of Java through which pilgrims may travel on their way to Mekah (Quinn 2004, pp. 1-8). 28. On early European and local maps of the region see Suarez 1999. 29. Henley 1989, p. 8. 30. Ibid., p. 9. 31. Marsden 1811, p. 11. Marsden quotes here from the first, 1783, edition of his "History" and the same information is contained in the second edition, printed in 1784. 32. Marsden 1811, p. 12. In a recent scholarly study of Marsden's work on Sumatra Diana J. Carroll has undertaken a careful analysis of the differences between the 1783 and 1811 editions of the text and has highlighted their importance for a proper understanding of Marsden's work. Carroll argues that the 1 783 edition was intended as a scholarly work which "shares and reflects late Enlightenment world views transmitted to Marsden through his contemporary sources". The 1811 edition, on the other hand was "more encyclopaedic"; and "a hybrid, often misread because of a lack of understanding of underlying remnants of philosophies and beliefs from the earlier period" (Carroll 2005, vol. 1, Abstract and p. 11). This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 142 Jane Drakard nineteenth It is without of a the name process Reid how reference local also result an century surprising of of to and posse suggests European intriguing t in remark de St. Pol Lias, who he did not compare innumerable countr Marsden, himself, m poverty of local ge large islands, and e their own district have as or concluded nineteenth This in point an part is that they in did taken locals, as without Malay), tha Sumat to island argues f to century, northeast unknown" of terra nation large concer Sumatra contrast not have t was the name used names "Indalus" (A Sumatra was the n privileged source story whole of 33. 34. 35. 36. of is by one and Crawfiird for Reid name in the European See, them. the whic trajec underst 1856, example 1987, Translated p. and p. Kr 28. cite 37. Marsden 1811, p. 1 Sumatran geographica 38. Wenneker 1 882, p. been responding to Ma 39. Ibid., pp. 298-9. Th Marsden in his 1811 edi short conjecture on th 40. Marsden, for exam the biblical Ophir, Ptol This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 143 local and foreign sources from earlier times, there is no clear evidence that the name was used for the whole island before it spread in European usage in the sixteenth century. The name Sumatra (thought to be derived from the Sanskrit term samudra or ocean) occurs, for example, in the title Haj i Sumatrabhumi (or "King of the Ocean Lands") which was used by a ruler of San-fo-ch'i (Srivijaya) who sent an embassy to China in 101741, but subsequent scattered references appear to refer to a location in northern Sumatra. The Yuan-Shih mentions a Chinese mission of 1282 which called at a kingdom named Su-mu-tu-la and this is generally taken to represent an early reference to Samudra-Pasai.42 With variations in the reported spelling, a kingdom known as Samudra is also mentioned in the accounts of visitors from westwards such as Marco Polo (1292), Oderic of Pordenone (1323) and Ibn Batuta (1345).43 Probably the earliest mention of the name to occur in a local source appears in the Hikayat Raja Pasai which refers to "negeri Samudera Darulsalam" and, in his Deśawarnana of 1365, Mpu Prapañca mentions Samudra among other "Malay lands" in northern Sumatra such as Perlak and Lamuri.44 According to Paul Pelliot, it was the Venetian Nicolo Conti (c. 1430) who first applied this name to the whole island and by the second half of the fifteenth century that usage also appeared in the work of Arab writers.45 N.J. Krom argues that from the 1490's "Sumatra" was quickly adopted by Europeans as a name for the entire island and by the first decade of the sixteenth century Portuguese accounts generally refer to Çamatra 46 While the detailed work which has been undertaken by scholars to piece together this sketchy external evidence47 helps us to understand the process by which the name Sumatra came to be used in external accounts, it does little to assist with an understanding of local perceptions of the spatial entity which is today known as Sumatra. Leaving aside, for now, the question of names for the region which occur in early inscriptions, one of the first opportunities to undertake a close examination of local geographic ideas and nomenclature comes in sources which emanate from the royal courts of Aceh and Minangkabau in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Aceh and Minangkabau - Rulers over Sumatra? At different times and in different ways the rulers of both Aceh and Minangkabau made authoritative claims to large areas of the island of Sumatra. Indeed similarities between the geographical claims and grand titles assumed by each of these Sumatran sultanates were noticed in the 1940's by the Dutch scholar, B. Schrieke, who drew al-Ramni (Lamri), before identifying the names for the island which were in use by European travellers from Marco Polo onwards. Ibid., pp. 3-11. See also Krom 1941. 41. Pelliot 1959-73, p. 839. See also Krom (1941, pp. 22-4) who ventures an association between Sumatrabhumi and the ancient name Suvarnabhumi. 42. Wolters 1 967, p. 1 59. For a discussion of the relevance of "Jawa" as a name for Sumatra see Laffan 2005. 43. Pelliot 1959-73, pp. 838-41 and Krom 1941. 44. Jones 1987, pp. 24-31 and passim; and Robson 1995, Canto 13, verse 2. 45. Pelliot 1959-73, pp. 838-9. 46. Krom 1941, p. 20. 47. In addition to the sources cited above see, for example, Alves 1999; Cowan 1973, pp. 253-286; Yule 1972; Yule 1975; Hill 1963. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 144 Jane Drakard particular attentio as claiming sources centuries European treat, made assum described these ru assumptions were Europeans spatial and the to think categories Minangkabau basis of the detect for an ru Europ language us some signif and understood in each context. The King of Aceh and "the Land of Both Seas" Aceh developed at the beginning of the sixteenth century as a successor to the port of Lamri on the north west coast of Sumatra. The fall of Melaka to the Portuguese in 1511 helped Aceh to attract Muslim trade and it quickly grew into a significant kingdom. At its height Aceh exercised commercial control over parts of the west coast pesisir as far south as Pariaman, down the east coast to Inderagiri and also over parts of the Malay Peninsula. The development of Aceh as an expansive power whose rulers aimed to monopolise the trade of peripheral centres on Sumatra provides an opportunity to investigate the spatial terms in which these claims were made, yet surprisingly little information is available in the sixteenth-century sources. We have seen that the Portuguese began to name the island "Sumatra" (or Çamatra) in this period, and they also referred to Acehnese rulers as kings of Sumatra, but as yet no materials are available which allow us to test this nomenclature against local sources.49 Royal letters are one obvious context where the rulers of Aceh might be expected to describe the scope of their authority, but despite the wide range of international contacts which the Acehnese court enjoyed in this period, no Acehnese letters from the sixteenth century have yet been discovered. Indeed Gallop has pointed to the absence of any significant body of Malay letters from the 1500s and has questioned whether a possible "treasure trove of Malay letters documenting a century of the Portuguese presence in South-East Asia has either not survived, or lies undiscovered in some archive?"50 Correspondence between the rulers of Pasai and the Portuguese at Melaka throws little light on local concepts of space, although a letter sent from the Sultan of Pasai in 1527 does refer to Pasai as being, itself, an island.51 48. Schrieke 1957, pp. 254-5. Schrieke's work on this, as on other subjects, was path-breaking. He scrutinised the sources with care and, as we shall see, he brought a critical eye to some of the broader generalisations made in the European materials. Schrieke's analysis of this topic was, however, very brief and unfinished when he died. 49. As Schrieke points out, in 1581 Do Couto referred to the Acehnese ruler as "lord over the whole island of Sumatra" (Schrieke 1957, p. 254). 50. Gallop 2003, p. 403. 51. "Such a rich island as Pasai" (hua tam rica ilha comme he pacem). Cf. Alves 1999, p. 231. I am grateful to Pierre- Yves Manguin for this translation. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra : Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 145 Neither is there evidence of letters sent from Aceh to the Ottoman court which might tell us something about how Acehnese rulers described their territories in this period. It is well established that Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah al-Kahar (approx. 1537-71) was in contact with the Ottomans and used Ottoman help in his campaigns against the Bataks and Aru probably between 1 538-4052, but so far no Malay letters from Aceh have emerged in the Ottoman archives. While it has been suggested that a document held in the Topkapi Saray Muzesi Arsivi in Istanbul is a 1566 petition "dispatched by the Sultan of Sumatra" (Alauddin Riayat Shah al-Kahar of Aceh)53, recent research by the Ottoman scholar Giancarlo Casale has demonstrated that the document was in fact composed by "an obscure Ottoman traveller known as 'His Majesty's Servant Lutfi', who seems to have made a round-trip voyage to Sumatra, returning to Istanbul in 1566".54 Casale's findings indicate that the petition was "ghost written by the Ottoman traveler" on behalf of the Sultan of Aceh. The name Sumatra is not used in the document, nor could Casale detect any indication that the Ottomans used the term in this period. They referred instead to Achi or Tahta er-rih as geographical designators and "the few extant Ottoman maps from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which include Southeast Asia also label the island as "Achi" rather than Sumatra".55 It seems, then, that the earliest account which can divulge something about how an Acehnese ruler described his own domain comes in the 1550s with the Perigranação of Fernão Mendes Pinto. This, Pinto relates, is how Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah al-Kahar described himself in a royal letter to the ruler of Ujung Tanah on the Peninsula: I Sultan Alaradim King of Aceh, of Barus, of Pedir, of Pasai, and of the overlordships of Daya, and the Bataks, prince of all the land of both the Mediterranean and Oceanic seas, and of the mines of Minangkabau, and of the new kingdom of Aru, now justly taken."56 Elsewhere in the account of his "Travels" Pinto consistently refers to the Acehnese ruler as "king of Achem and of the land of both seas {terra de ambos os mares )", by which he presumably means the Straits of Melaka and the Indian Ocean which surround 52. Reid 2005, pp. 69-93 (revised version of Reid 1969). Turkish influence in this period is also discussed in Gallop 2004. 53. T.S.M.A. E 8009. Farooqi 1989, p. 170, n. 73, p. 158, and p. 211, n. 77. See also Reid 2005, p. 79 where Farooqi 's evidence is cited. As Reid shows there was clearly considerable interaction between the Ottoman court and Aceh in this period and a mission from Alauddin Riayat Shah al-Kahar of Aceh to Raja Rum is even mentioned in the seventeenth century Acehnese text, the Bustan al-Salatin (1638-1641). 54. Casale 2003, para. 26. See also Casale 2004 and 2010. For a translation of Lutfl's document see Casale 2005a. According to Casale there is no mention in T.S.M.A. E 8009 of a "Sultan of Sumatra". Lutfi's journey and his time in Sumatra is discussed in detail in Casale 2005b and Casale 2010, pp. 124-5. I am very grateful to Professor Casale for the information that during his research in Istanbul he was "only able to find copies of letters sent from the Ottomans to Aceh, not the other way around", personal communication. 55. Giancarlo Casale, personal communication. For other recent research on Ottoman relations with Southeast Asia and, specifically, correspondence between Aceh and the Ottoman Sultanate in a later period see http://www.ottomansoutheastasia.org/resources/BritishAcademyReviewSEAsia.pdf and also Ismail Hakki Göksoy, 201 1 . 56. "Principe de toda a terra de ambos os mares Mediterraneo & Oceano, e das minas de Menamcabo, ..." Pinto 1614, p. 31. 1 am indebted to Pierre- Yves Manguin for this literal translation of Pinto's text. The available published translations of Pinto's Travels use various forms to translate Pinto's description of the wider Acehnese sphere. Rebecca Catz's translation of the same passage, for example, reads: "prince of all the land bounded by the ocean and the inland sea" (Pinto 1989, p. 54). This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 146 Jane Drakard Sumatra. emerge. No nam Historians describes him as " and whom one ca believing that Pint language is remini "Malacca side" and written in the 158 informants simila in the To middle.59 find the confirmat first available in Sumatra, Jame Queen Elizabeth I (1588-1604), in th ELIZABETH by the the Christian Faith Sumatra, our loving The as account "King of of t Sumat who responded wit reply, the sultan to trade in Aceh a common enemy.62 ruler's royal titles probably been los and B) which the translation Muda to of both James manuscripts The Malay Aku raja negeri 57. text yang Cortesão Alves 61. & Purchas Ibid., p. 64. Gallop 65. 1905, vo 419. of La 's let 1898- 1994, Muda's Gallop 1937 1944, Shellabear Iskandar d Mangui 62. The account Sultan of Aceh 63. kuas Duyvendak 58. P of Sammudara 59. 60. I. have page lette 1994, This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms p. Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 147 In Shellabear's translation this reads: I am the reigning sovereign of these [countries] below the wind, holding the throne of the kingdom of Acheen and Sumatra, and all the countries subject to Acheen.66 As Schrieke noticed in the 1950's, Shellabear elided the translation here, omitting to indicate that Sammudara (or Samudra) was another negeri (or polity), rather than the name for whole country.67 In Schrieke's words the English "speak of a king of Sumatra" and even in the nineteenth century this expectation appears to have been so keen that they "translate as such certain expressions in letters from the rulers of Achin".68 For Schrieke the mention of Samudra in the Sultan's letter is an indication of the value "evidently attached to Samudra" in seventeenth-century Aceh, but we might also consider the possibility that the Acehnese inclusion of "negeri Sammudara" was a contemporary response to the wording of the English letter.69 Although the English addressed the ruler of Aceh as though he was a "king of Sumatra" and did not appear to comprehend his reply, the seventeenth-century correspondence between the rulers of Aceh and England does help to illuminate Acehnese royal percep- tions of Sumatran space in this period. The most useful Acehnese source is Iskandar Muda's magnificent letter to James I which Shellabear also included in his study. This is a letter which can be compared to Pinto's remembered text and which also tells us something about how Iskandar Muda saw himself and his domain. Like the Acehnese royal letter recorded by Pinto, Iskandar Muda's letter to James I lists the negeri which he claims are subject to him, mentions his ownership of the gold, in this case from Salida and Pariaman on the west coast, and makes reference to the sea coast on each side of Sumatra. He refers to himself as a ruler who "holds in his palm" hundreds of rajas in the eastern regions {daripada pihak masyrak) in the negeri which are subject to Deli in north Sumatra and to Batu Sawar (the old capital of Johor on the Malay Peninsula) and on the western side ( daripada pihak maghrib) in the negeri which are subject to Pariaman and to Barus. Raja yang mengampukan raja-raja yang berratus-ratus daripada pihak masyrak, yang dalam negeri yang takluk ke Deli, dan yang dalam negeri yang takluk ke Batu Sawar, dan daripada pihak maghrib, yang dalam negeri yang takluk ke Pariaman, dan ke Barus.70 66. Shellabear 1898-9, p. 119. 67. Schrieke 1957, p. 255, see also Schrieke's stimulating discussion of "Aceh and the Samudra tradition" between pp. 253-260 and the associated references. 68. Ibid., p. 254. In a 1613 letter from Iskandar Muda to James I translated into English and reproduced by Thomas Best, the ruler is given as describing himself as "I, the great King of Sumatra" (Foster 1934, p. 212). European translations of other early royal letters from Aceh have been printed in a number of sources. See particularly Harris 1744, p. 736; Banck 1873, pp. 74-8; and Dagh-Register 1640-1, p. 6. These letters are discussed and listed by Schrieke 1957, p. 253 and by Gallop 2003, passim. 69. The name is also used in one of the trading documents which Iskandar Muda provided to Lancaster. 70. "The raja who holds in his palm many hundreds of rajas from the eastern side, who are situated in the negeri which are subject to Deli, and in the negeri which are subject to Batu Sawar, and from the western side in the negeri which are subject to Priaman and Barus". The Malay text cited here is drawn from Gallop 1994, p. 197, where an illustration of this spectacular letter is also provided on p. 127. The romanised text of the letter has also been made available by Gallop via the web-based Malay Concordance Project (http://www.anu.edu.au/asianstudies/ahcen/proudfoot/MCP/ ref. Warisan Warkah Melayu : 5). The jawi text, a Malay romanisation and an English translation of the letter can be found in Shellabear 1898-9, pp. 123-130 and also in Gallop 201 1, pp. 243-252. The translation offered here is my own. For a discussion of the translation of mengampukan used here, see note 95 below. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 148 Jane Drakard Despite the the ruler, were a the vague language more listed than and as delivering ma attribut had magi marks include w th including particular power used to of the some h ki locati The king who ceaseles which has generously and Semerlanga and P Asahan and Tanjung a to Batu Sawar and Per as Calang and Daya an and Bengkulu and Sile Not all subject by these to Iskandar which pihak negeri Acehnese Muda Iskandar masyrak Mud and those eastern nege Peninsula namely listed include all th inland as negeri Indragiri the west The coast Palembang rhetorical included . and the to and Sa Jam encirclem Iskandar particular emphasis which Fox has labe the island space. Wh not generalised in a comparable with J 71. See, 72. in for "Iaitu exampie raja yang dilimpahkannya Lubok dan Pedir Deli dan Asahan Batu dan dan and 73. Sawar dan W kelim dan S dan T Perak d Daya dan Barus d Salibar dan Palemb the For Wells translation a is description 1969, the east coast of Sumatra can be found in Milner et al 1978. pp. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms m of 453-70 Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 149 and which suggests that, the permeability of the Melaka Straits notwithstanding, the shape of the island of Sumatra was part of the way in which Sultan Iskandar Muda understood his world. The geographic specificity of the 1 6 1 5 letter does not fit neatly with the well-established view that Malay style polities and their peripheries lacked topographical definition and the question arises as to how the term negeri , which is used so frequently in this letter but which has not been translated here, should be understood. The word is usually rendered as settlement or polity, implying the establishment of people in a location. Milner, however, argues that negeri "in pre-modern times" did "not seem to carry the meaning of a territorially defined polity", and the "substance" of the negeri in Malay polities "was simply the people".74 While it is indeed acknowledged that rulers in the Malay archipelago tended to count their strength in followers, rather than land, communities were nevertheless located in space and described in relation to one another - near and far, east and west - and in this sense they were surely emplaced. Iskandar Muda claimed to "hold in his palm" many hundreds of rajas who were located within (yang dalam) a wide list of negeri. Moreover, a negeri could also take on physical characteristics. The ruler denied English merchants permission to trade on the west coast with the statement that "these negeri are negeri dusun " thus indicating rural settlements or, as R.J. Wilkinson defines it, "an inhabited patch of cultivated land". These negeri dusun lay far from the Acehnese court {lagi jauh daripada kita ) and were also, therefore, defined spatially in relation to the centre, being described as the "bends and reaches of Aceh" {teluk rantau Aceh) - as were the people of the far reaches of the kingdom who were characterised by the ruler as "all the inhabitants of our bends and reaches" {segala orang teluk rantau kita).15 The various negeri listed in the letter are also described in relation to one another. They are linked both in terms of their subjection to Aceh and in terms of their physical proximity or distance from Aceh and from one another. The semantic range of the term negeri in this text would appear then to encompass both people and location. To adapt Yi-Fu Tuan's definition of place, a negeri in this context was not merely a gathering of people, but a humanised and textualised space.76 The nature of the relationship which the letter describes between Aceh and her depend- encies on Sumatra and the Peninsula also deserves attention. The scope and specificity of Aceh's claims and also the language used to describe them are particularly distinctive. Gallop has recently presented the Malay text of two other royal letters from seventeenth century Aceh, namely from Sultan Alauddin Mughayat Syah or Iskandar Thani, to Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange in 1639 and from Taj al-4 Alam Safiyyat al-Din Syah to Charles II of England in 1661 . 77 Both letters contain a formulaic list of royal possessions and attributes which, like the 1615 letter, is structured around a repetition of the words "ialah Sultan yang". Neither letter, however, includes the elaborate inscription of places lying within the ruler's domain which is found in the earlier text. Instead the description 74. Milner 2008, p. 59. 75. Surat izin bergadang di Aceh, [1602], in Gallop 1994, pp. 196-7. 76. See Tuan 1977, p. 54 and note 1 7 above. Another useful definition of place in this context is provided by Stewart and Strathern who suggest that: "A place is a socially meaningful and identifiable space to which an historical dimension is attributed" (Stewart & Strathern 2003, p. 4). 77. Gallop 2011, pp. 245-257. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 150 Jane of a royal yang As to Drakard sphere mengampuka Manguin express lying anak the a has regions, sungai idea of po spatial som and a tel larger sense.79 Within th just on topograph takluk (to subject which were issued issued to Harry Mi panglima and the e another "I am letter the gran ruler in a negeri Aceh, and to Aceh."81 And in in east and west Su (i takluk Deli, In one all, was and of of sense a key and sought typical letters from a there milit west Muda expected context c Ba dominant Acehnese east Iskandar be ) Pariaman, to Su was mak and also to to trade.82 of Malay ru may help u seventeenth 78. Ibid. The precise w as mengempukan. On 79. Manguin 2002, p 80. "Kepada segala pan MS Douce Or.e.4. For and pp. 196-7. The spe texts including the H Barus. See also Djajad 81. Ibid. "Aku raja yan dan negeri Sammudar 82. Gallop suggests t dignified the sender, for the purpose of cor p. 113). Whether a de make more fulsome st cosmologica! framewo This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 151 Where the word takluk is used in Malay hikayat it is often associated with the wider sphere belonging to a non-Malay ruler. In the "Raffles 1 8" text of Sejarah Melayu , for example, the term is used early in the narrative to refer to the Iskandar Zulkarnain's dominion over other rulers and the vast kingdoms of Raja Kida Hindi, Raja Shulan and Raja Chulan, but it is not applied to the authority exercised by Melakkan rulers in their days of glory. The Hikayat Hang Tuah uses takluk to refer to local dependencies of Melaka, but in Sejarah Melayu "Raffles 18", it is the rulers of Java, Siam and Mengkassar who are described as controlling subject princes and regions.83 In the Hikayat Raja Pasai , a north Sumatran chronicle which was probably composed in the late fourteenth century, takluk is employed on some twenty occasions but again, rather than referring to dominance on the part of Pasai's rulers, the word is only used at the end of the narrative in a list of regions conquered by Majapahit.84 This usage appears to reinforce the impression of an association between the term takluk and geographical space, at least in some of the earliest Malay hikayat , but it also confirms the well-established view that dominance and subjection were not usually considered to be central elements in Malay ideas of authority. Since Iskandar Muda's letter of 1615 was a diplomatic composition, and thus intended for external consumption, it may not - on its own - be assumed to represent a seventeenth-century Acehnese view of the shape of the realm.85 If we turn, however, to works of Acehnese literature composed in the seventeenth century it is also possible to detect a particular association between ideas of place and forceful terms such as takluk which echoes the emphasis of the 1615 letter. The Hikayat Aceh and the Bustan alSalatin , seventeenth-century Acehnese texts which were composed after Iskandar Muda's reign and which celebrate the kingdom and its rulers, both use takluk and other forceful terms to describe Acehnese conquests on Sumatra and beyond.86 The Bustan al-Salatin for example, refers to the defeat ( mengalahkan ) of Pidir and Samudera and other small negeri .87 The text describes Sultan Raja Iskandar Muda's fame and the numerous larger negeri which were subject to him (< ditaklukkanya ) including Deli, Bentan and Pahang.88 Pahang is also mentioned on several occasions as being takluk to Iskandar Muda and alah or mengalahkan (defeated) is used of Johor, Kedah, and Perak, and Nias. The Hikayat Aceh, a panegyric celebrating the life and achievements of Sultan Iskandar Muda was composed in the seventeenth century, after that ruler's ascension to power. It also employs the term takluk to refer to Aceh's dominance over other regions.89 The 83. As Manguin notes the Hikayat Hang Tuah refers to "jajahan yang takluk Melaka" (Manguin 2002, pages 74 and 77). For takluk in the "Raffles 18" text of Sejarah Melayu , see Winstedt 1938, pages 43, 45-6, 48-9, 51, 54, 62, 93, 103-4, 119, 125-6, and 204. 84. For a detailed discussion of the date of this text, its coherence as an integral work, and a summary of the scholarly discussion surrounding these issues see Braginsky 2004, pp. 103-1 13. 85. See note 82 above. 86. On parallels between these two compositions, especially in regard to the way they represent kingship, see Shiraishi 1990. 87. Siti Hawa Haji Salleh 1992 (ed.), 2:13:22. Citations to the text here have been extracted courtesy of the Malay Concordance Project (ANU) where this reference is cited as BS.L 2/12:22. This text is thought to have been composed by Sheikh Nuruddin ar-Raniri between 1638-1641 during the reign of Sultan Iskandar Thani. See Braginsky 2004, pp. 449-53 and Harun 2004. 88. Siti Hawa Haji Salleh 1992, p. 2:13:26. 89. For a discussion of the dating and sources of influence on the composition and style of Hikayat Aceh, see Braginsky 2004, pp. 346-50 and Braginsky 2006. While scholars have previously suggested that the hikayat was composed during Iskandar Muda's lifetime Braginsky suggests the possibility of a later date. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 152 Jane term of Drakard is used in authority ample: then and an delivered control regional A o into which realm a ("k dependenci subject territorie dominance ruler fo "Rulership inner its a over who over has ot subd over the eastern an thousands of rajas Muda defeated ( me Forceful and very domain not century, Iskandar absence Iskandar but A we by attack aiming to the specifically, (ANU), only the spare bet Hikay or to "to desc prose which the to othe link aloft" Among re Gallop Thani especially r in topogeny further hold in also Muda's of published when just but t includ Hikayat A 90. "Setelah terserahl Iskandar 1958, p. 95 91. "Negeri Atjéh 92. "Baginda as-Salam ini 93. Scholars stood their Dar inilah jan dan berib who have realm inc 94. "Karena adat rajapun mau alah, rakyat quoted 95. above This the and term is is Gallo used Bustan al-Salatin. can be translated of the Austronesian t Wilkinson 1959, vol. term mengampukan i mengampukan negeri This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra : Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 1 53 this term as a statement of royal power.96 There is, moreover, a consistency in the way the term is used which allows us to make a direct link between Iskandar Muda's letter and the articulation of an Acehnese-Sumatran sphere in the Hikayat Aceh. In that text the term mengampukan is employed on a number of occasions, in relation both to Iskandar Muda and his predecessors, to refer to the governance of the kingdom, as in "mengempukan negeri Atjéh", or "mengempukan keradjaan negeri Atjéh".97 This term is also used in a manner which tells us something about Acehnese ideas of space when the text predicts that Iskandar Muda will become a ruler of great authority and renown who will govern, or will literally "hold in his palm", all the rajas of the east and of the west ("segala pihak Timur dan daripada segala pihak Barat").98 The key point here is that a pattern can be discerned in the way this group of seventeenth century Acehnese sources describes the ruler's domain and in the language used to frame that sphere. Certainly, stylistic differences exist. As might be expected the 1615 letter is more compact and poetic in its description than the Hikayat Aceh and it employs a more elaborate topogeny. Nevertheless the hikayat makes similar points and uses a similar vocabulary as this passage which employs both diserahkan and mengampukan indicates: Dan tjutjuku inilah yang mengempukan bumi masjrik dan ialah jang menjunjung karunia Allah ta'ala menjadi chalifah Allah jang dalam negeri Atjéh Dar as-Salam dan negeri Tiku dan Periaman dengan menjatakan 'adilnja keatas segala isi negeri jang diserahkan Allah ta'ala kepada tangannja dan ialah mengempukan dan mendjadikan segala radja-radja Melaju itu hamba padanja dengan kuasanja." The consistency of this message of authority and the cluster of terms which are used to elaborate it suggests that this group of sources can provide us with particular insights into the way spatial definitions of the kingdom were understood in Aceh at the begin- ning of the seventeenth century. Moreover, it is not only Iskandar Muda's 1615 letter to James I which can be directly compared with the Hikayat Aceh in this way. We also find a possible link with the description of the realm reported by Pinto in the 1550's, where he stated that the ruler of Aceh was described as ruling "the land of both seas". In a remarkably similar passage, the Hikayat Aceh , composed perhaps a century later, refers to "Sultan Perkasa Alam who rules two lands and two seas, that is the land and sea of the east and west".100 This terminology can, of course, be read within the context of conventionalised references to the masyrak and maghrib in Islamic literature and its use may have been intended to draw analogy with the heroic figure of Iskandar Zulkarnain, whose sovereignty is often described in Malay literature as encompassing both east and west. An 96. The Malay Concordance Project is an invaluable resource which offers the opportunity to search a wide range of Malay literary works in digital form, but it should also be noted that this database depends on the collation of a range of editions and cannot offer the researcher direct access to the texts themselves. 97. Iskandar 1958, p. 75 [21] and p. 79 [30]. 98. Ibid., p. 116 [115]. 99. "And it is my grandchild who will hold the eastern world in his palm and it is he who will humbly accept the Grace of God who is exalted and became God's representative in Aceh, the Abode of Grace, and in Tiku and Pariaman, with a declaration of his justice over all the inhabitants of those negeri which will be delivered into his hands by God who is exalted. And will create and hold in his palm all of those Malay rajas who become subject to him and his authority". Ibid., p. 153 [202]. 100. "Sultan Perkasa 4 Alam jang mengempukan dua darat dan dua laut ja'ni darat dan laut masjrik maghrib." Ibid., p. 166 [236], also cited in Lombard 1967, p. 137. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 154 Jane Drakard additional, local, co hikayat with Iska west coasts. The to specific localities a directly to a local coast domains of the ruler. * * * What emerges from this analysis of early seventeenth-century Ac to the shape of the kingdom is a cluster of images and terms which something of the character of the larger Acehnese realm from th royal court. This was a subdued domain, subject to the ruler and inner and outer as well as eastern and western regions. Certain key t mengalahkan , mengampukan and diserahkan/menyerahkan are used particular association with spatial definitions of the kingdom and in mengampukan , the terminology used appears to be specific to a cont conception of authority and rarely occurs in other Malay texts. The vocabulary employed here reveals how space and place may stood. As we have seen, places are always imagined in relation t and in these sources an oppositional or binary pattern is used to space and place. Places (or negeri ) are defined here in relation to the as distance and the location of outlying districts, the dusun and t defined in relation to the court. While the inscription and encirclem coastline is a feature of the schema, a patterned relationship which p also appears to have offered a particularly attractive and relevant the shape of the wider kingdom. More than a rhetorical device, th may also represent a descriptive response to the shape of the Sum scape seen from a north Sumatran perspective where the rugged inte two long and distinctive coastal zones. For the most part the places and the regional rulers itemised in th actual conquests over parts of east and west Sumatra as well as the M the poetic impulse to inscribe a wider spatial sphere led, it seems, to t parts of the island, such as Palembang and Jambi, which were never word for the entire island appears in these sources and the European claiming Samudra, rulers of Aceh were actually claiming Sumatra wa Yet the degree of topographic specificity and the patterned recitatio ities found in the 1615 letter suggests a deeper and keener aware shape of the island than might be expected. The importance of this pattern and the relevance of these findings ation of local perceptions of place and space can be pursued by turnin Sumatran letters, this time from Minangkabau in the centre of the similar and some very different themes can be discerned. Minangkabau: A Resonant Centre The scope of Iskandar Muda's claims to a geographic sphere m comparable, as Schrieke noticed, with those of the other most impor This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra : Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 1 55 on Sumatra in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - the Minangkabau kingdom. Unlike the Sultans of Aceh, whose court was situated near to the coast and harbour, the Minangkabau kings were located deep inland in the mountains of central Sumatra and there were significant differences in each case, therefore, in the type of relationship which pertained between the royal court and peripheral centres. Whereas Aceh was closely involved in foreign trade, the central highlands of Minangkabau were a producing region, famous for the gold which was exported to the coastal regions of Sumatra and, whereas Acehnese Sultans extended their influence through military force, Minangkabau rulers do not appear to have had access to coercive power, other than the persuasive influence they exercised over the entire Minangkabau alam (or world). In the period from at least the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries the alam was understood to encompass both the darat (interior) and the rantau (or periphery) regions of east and west central Sumatra and areas beyond, including Minangkabau settlements on the Malay Peninsula and communities of migrant Minangkabau living in other parts of Sumatra and further afield.101 As a concept, therefore, the alam appears to have encompassed both landscape and people.102 Within the mountainous highlands of central Sumatra, which constituted the inner part of the kingdom, the royal dynasty functioned, at least in the seventeenth century, as a mediating force between the two Minangkabau laras or moieties, whose members competed for access to the king and for control over the gold trade and the routes to the coast along which this trade passed. Since the intermediate highlands of central Sumatra were inhabited by settlers who were descended from suku (clans) associated with each of the laras , royal mediation was an essential feature of local society and of Minangkabau commercial life in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Dutch East India Company servants often noted how the intervention of the king or his representatives was necessary to resolve disputes and get trade flowing again.103 In the rantau , and particularly in the coastal regions, numerous small sultanates claimed the Minangkabau royal dynasty as a source of authority and traced their descent to the Yang Dipertuan of Minangkabau in Pagaruyung (and sometimes Suruaso). Among ordinary people these rulers were regarded with awe and were considered to possess divine powers received from God through his descendant Iskandar Zulkarnain. Their influence was not necessarily a constant presence in the lives of Minangkabau in the rantau , but in the coastal regions which came under increasing pressure from the VOC (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the prestige of the Minangkabau dynasty was a potent source of empowerment which was mobilised in numerous anti-Dutch rebellions during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Despite these very obvious and well recognised differences between Aceh and Minangkabau there were also similarities which are relevant for this discussion. Both kingdoms had a wide impact over large areas of Sumatra and beyond and they are each remembered and narrated in local accounts of the past. Their rulers also made similarly 101. For a lucid description of Minangkabau conceptions of the alam based on local sources such as the Kaba Cinduo Mato , see Abdullah 1970. An anthropological perspective on Minangkabau migration and the relationship between the darat and rantau is provided by Kato 1982 and for a discussion of the way in which these relations are presented in seventeenth and eighteenth century sources see Drakard 1999. 102. The darat (interior, also darek) was subdivided into districts such as the three luhak (Tanah Datar, Agam and Limapuluh Kota) as well as by lineage affiliations. 103. Drakard 1999, chapters 4-6, also Rueb 1989, passim. See also Andaya 1993. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 156 Jane large Drakard and lordly exhibited expressed produced of to is also in the Acehnese the and Mina Sultans to in overlay of firs interpr which of c announ Europeans problems way com seventeenth edicts when stat significan Suma European Minangkabau Roy Between the mid-s issued numerous used as credentials, ers archipelago. discursive and royal seal which which or ruler might traced (, to and together current Even is a a and for was royal kebesa and back highly these from A s at and the whic considerable in unusually 104. ea decorativ coloured the 1615 available the readin Minangkabau in of la inte superficial letters embody kin God's travel, intertext of Minan as message sea are seals locates V patte pseudo greatness the the Minangkabau kabau of of beyond the by discursive series fo centu comparison translated or have nineteenth through this I pattern inks, rat letter. N Malay long detailed Drakard 1999. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms an lists discuss Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 1 57 formulaic lists of the attributes of the ruler and particularly the precious items which were said to lie in his keeping. The style, repetitive pattern and the type of objects listed are similar in each case. For example the puji-pujian in the 1615 letter are formatted using a repetitive construction based on the words: "The ruler who holds in his palm...", or "The ruler who..." and some twenty items are mentioned in this way.105 The letters from Iskandar Thani (1639) and Taj al-4 Alam Safiyyat al-Din Syah (1660) employ the same language and construction to enumerate a similar number of objects and qualities possessed by the ruler. Likewise, the various Minangkabau letters enumerate as many as 36 or as few as 5 kebesaran , but some are consistently present. The precise terminology used to describe the fact of possession is different, but the formula is the same and is based on a repetition of the words: "He is the Sultan who holds in his keeping..." (ialah Sultan yang menaruhkan...).106 The 1615 letter from Aceh lists bejewelled objects such as saddles, bridles and a helmet which are described as being made of gold, silver or an amalgam of gold and copper, while many of the items which are said to rest in the Minangkabau ruler's possession are also made of gold. Despite such clear structural and stylistic similarities between the Acehnese and Minangkabau letters under discussion here, notable differences can also be observed. In the Minangkabau case the objects itemised are also, frequently, given individual names - they are creatures, items of regalia or geographical features some of which, unlike the objects mentioned in the Acehnese letters, also figure in a broader Sumatran-Malay narrative tradition. The relationship between these two letter traditions is difficult to establish. The early date of the 1615 letter may be taken to indicate that the features they share evolved in Aceh. On the other hand there are elements in the Minangkabau letters, such as the curse they contain and the narrative links with a wider literature which suggest the influence of older ideas. Determining the precise relationship between texts and the threads of regional "traditions" in a context where the sources are so scarce and where elements of a common cultural matrix are blended together is always complex. As Gallop has noted, "congruences between Acehnese and Minangkabau practice always raise tantalizing chickenand-egg questions about which of the two great royal powers in Sumatra influenced the other in each particular instance".107 Themes in the surat cap genre such as an interest 105. For example: "Raja yang mengampukan perbendaharaan daripada seni emas, dan seni perak, dan daripada galian emas yang dalam negeri Priaman pada gunung negeri Salida; yang mengampukan perniata sembilan jenis, yang berpayung emas bertimbalan yang beratnya berratus kati; yang berpeterana emas, yang berciu emas; raja yang mengampukan kuda yang berpelana emas, yang berrumbairumbaikan emas... [emphasis added]", Gallop 1994, p. 197. 106. For example: "Ialah sultan yang menaruhkan mahkota nabi sulaiman; ialah sultan yang menaruhkan tanun sangsang kala mematukan dirinya sepatu-' setahun akan bilangan 'umur dunia; ialah sultan yang menaruhkan kayu gamat dikerat dipetak sekerat tinggal di raja Rum nan sekerat tinggal di raja Cina sekerat tinggal di raja 'alam Menangkabau; ialah sultan yang menaruhkan manau kirai nan membangunkan dirinya [emphasis added]". Extract from an edited romanization of a Minangkabau letter which may have been carried to Negeri Sembilan by a Minangkabau envoy and was published by both Dulaurier 1 845, pp. 13-15 and Newbold 1 839, vol. II, pp. 8 1 -6. For a more detailed discussion see Drakard 1999, pp. 156-7 and pp. 275-7. This letter will be referred to in subsequent notes as Dulaurier 1845. 107. Gallop 2003, p. 406. Other possible congruences between Acehnese and Minangkabau usage include the use of ninefold divisions in the Acehnese royal seal and in the arrangement and number of medallions in some Minangkabau surat cap and in Minangkabau royal discourse more generally. See Drakard 1999, p. 223, p. 227 and p. 248, n. 10. While the Acehnese royal seal (in which a medallion with the current ruler's name is surrounded by eight medallions carrying the names of eight predecessors) may have influenced the layout and content of the medallions in the surat cap , the number of medallions on Minangkabau letters varies considerably, unlike those in the Acehnese royal seal. For a This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 158 in Jane the the as Drakard creation Acehnese the Hikayat available the in practice of something and berat of is to which appointments Islamic Isk Sumatr owe signs of Bust indie influ inscription Minangkabau roya Sumatran letter in ideas which starting The point There are in a which Malay In mo c accompanied not set of pseudo-seals which contain the have been descend illustrated in Fig. Inilah Inilah have sh variet the themselves. tr of for physical lated w and been bab Sultan Ber yang mula-m "This is the division Dipertuan in Pagaru flowed outwards to The number examples of they th stan comprehensive descri are also important els and 1 50) and, of cou groupings see Josseli 108. In comparing th ters from Aceh were used for communica other regional rulers communication). 109. The letters illust several of the extan and that on the right 110. Dulaurier This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1845 Inscribing Sumatra : Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 1 59 in others they encircle the text itself in a manner which suggests a virtual map of polities linked to the Minangkabau royal house. In other examples where a surat cap has been copied or adapted for use in another text, these places and rulers are simply listed at the beginning of the surat cap. The most commonly named places include Aceh, Rökan, Siak, Inderagiri, Jambi, Palembang, Inderapura, Sungai Paguh, Banten and Pariaman and their dependencies. Not all of these are coastal centres, but with the exception of Aceh and Banten they all form part of the Minangkabau rantau and are all described in a pattern of Minangkabau royal descent which radiates from Pagaruyung and thence to the ruler's descendants in the rantau outwards to the rulers of other smaller centres. What we find is an encom- passing and inscribing impetus which is articulated in a visual map of the links between the Minangkabau royal house and the rantau or periphery [Fig. 3]. There is no mention here of dominance and subjection, as in the Acehnese materials, but rather a narrative of origins with Minangkabau sovereignty as the source. The practice of topogeny in Minangkabau surat cap A similarity between the Minangkabau letters and the Acehnese letter of 1 6 1 5 which has already been noted is the tendency to list items which rested in the possession of the ruler. Place names are also listed in both cases and here we encounter another geolisting of Sumatran locations which can be categorised as topogeny. Not only do the bab or pseudo-seals in the Minangkabau letters list the names of peripheral kingdoms in the Minangkabau rantau , many Minangkabau surat cap also enumerate, at the close of the letter, the names of places in Sumatra and beyond where the letter might be carried. An example here is a nineteenth century manuscript held in the National Library of Indonesia. The relevant section close to the end of the text asks for the protection on land and sea of those who carry the letter and requests in the name of God and his prophet that all Minangkabau subjects should respect the request wherever the letter should go: Furthermore these are the royal commands of Daulat Yang Dipertuan nan Sakti in negeri Pagaruyung, may this letter be forwarded by God, praise be to almighty God. Concerning this letter, wherever the person who carries the letter wishes to go, whether on sea or on land, whether descending to the rantau and in a port, if you meet with the bearer of this letter, then he is my descendant and should be well protected, should he travel either to Aceh or to Suruaso, to Nalabuh, or passes to Bengkulu, travelling either to Palembang, or to Inderagiri, or on to Siak and to Patapahan, both passing to Batubara and to Pulau Pinang, or then to Java and to Batawi and moving around both at sea or on land.1 11 Similar passages are found in several other texts. In another nineteenth-century letter which has been published by E. Dulaurier, for example, the relevant section towards the end asks for the protection on land and sea of the bearer and requests in the name of 111. "Adapun kemudian daripada itu bahwa inilah titah daulat jang dipertuan nan satie di negeri Pagaruyung barang jang disampaikan Allah subhanahu wataala kiranya surat ini barang kemana kehendak orang ini baik nan membawa surat ini baik kelaut baik ke darat baik turun ke rantau dan ke bandar jika bertemu dengan orang ini membawa surat ini anak cucu kami melainkan hendak di peliharakan baik baik, baik lalu ke Aceh baik lalu ke Sruso, ke Tanah Labu baik lalu ke Bangkahulu baik ke Palembang ke Inderagiri baik ke Siak dan ke Patapahan baik lalu ke Kampar Kiri Kampar Kanan, baik lalu ke Batang Musi baik lalu ke Batu Bara dan ke Pulau Pinang baik lalu ke Jawa ke Batawie baik lalu keliling laut dan ke darat". Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia, ML. 332, Bab Raja. A number of small editorial changes have been made here. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 160 Jane God the Drakard and his letter prop should If this is conveyed Kanan do not do an Palembang and to I Batubara or to Pula or to Like royal Nalabuh, the or named sphere by b p n also come close to places which wer relationship wit here is reminisce in Iskandar Mud the list even tho not just the pos lustre, places too manner. The use Acehnese and Mi Despite are these framed. are ties described of religion sim Wher as loyalty and d a desce As for those who met with anywher instructed us to coop God and after him bly of our great m maintain these past 112. "Jikalau Kanan jangan dibaw dianya baik ke dusun Ram dan ke Kedah baik Bangkahulu". Dulau as rimba (forest), b early rulers of Tam Similarly the Malay with Susu, but whe likely reading. In bo of "Nalabu", in nor association with ne 113. "Orang yang m ada bertemu barang kata Allah ta'alayang kemudian Muhamm kerapatan segala sau dalulu daripada nen bi'l-barr wa'l-taquä" This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 161 While the 1615 letter uses forceful language which emphasises dominance and conquest, suggesting that the Sumatran coastal centres listed are very much part of the ruler's possessions, the Minangkabau letters articulate a spatial relationship which is framed in very different terms. A harmonious link between the coast and interior is implied, based on ties of descent, established usage and the qualities which flowed ( melimpah ) from the interior to the coast. These qualities include justice (adii), generosity (¿ kemurahan ), compassion and blessings. In surat cap the terms adii and melimpah are particularly closely linked and often also appear in association with kemurahan. The Maharaja Diraja of Minangkabau is thus described in the letters as descending to Pagaruyung and possessing the throne of sovereignty in Pulau Emas from where his justice (adilnya) flows outwards to the Alam Minangkabau.114 The ruler's justice is also depicted as flowing onwards into the periphery through the outlying kingdoms mentioned among the bab. Thus in another letter the ruler of Inderagiri who is said to be a descendant of Pagaruyung is described as "the first raja in negeri Inderagiri whose justice and kerajaan flow outwards to Rantau Kuantan".115 This "melimpah pattern", in which qualities of Minangkabau sovereignty spread outwards across the landscape, is illustrated in Fig. 3. It would be inaccurate to suggest that terms such as limpah and karunia (liberality) do not occur in Iskandar Muda's letter. Indeed they do, but it is God's bounty towards the ruler which is described there and identified as delivering subject territories to Iskandar Muda. While the Acehnese ruler promises to punish any of his subjects who molest English merchants, Minangkabau surat cap from the seventeenth century onwards emphasise the blessings which Minangkabau rulers are able to bestow and these are depicted issuing forth on the waters and winds of Paradise and are made available to the descendants of Iskandar Zulkarnain who rule as divine intercessors.116 The image, conveyed in surat cap , of the coast and interior as an integrated whole which is linked by means of Minang- kabau kingship is apparent not just in the lists of places which are used in surat cap to inscribe the periphery, but also in the names which are used in Minangkabau royal letters to identify the larger spatial sphere. Names and Place in surat cap Unlike the Acehnese materials, Minangkabau surat cap employ a variety of names to refer to the wider sphere where the ruler's influence and his message might spread. These include the terms Andalas and Pulau Perca which were mentioned by Wenneker and Marsden. Significantly, the word "Sumatra" does not appear to form part of the spatial Surat 5, verse 2. 1 am indebted to Annabel Teh Gallop, Henri Chambert-Loir and Mokhammad Yahya for their advice on my rendering of the Malay and English text of this letter. 114. "Itulah kebesyaran raja yang bertiga bersaudara, lagi melimpahkan 'adilnya dan kemurahannya kepada segala hamba Allah dan kepada segala raja-raja yang di bahwanya mengambil berkat dan manfaat kebesarannya". And "Ialah yang turun ke tanah Pagaruyung yang mempunyai takhta keraja'an di dalam Pulau Emas yang melimpahkan 'adilnya di dalam 'alam Minangkerbau". PNRI, ML. 483, see also Drakard 1999, p. 230 and p. 284. A similar statement is made in LUB, Cod. Or. 2241. lie. 7, where the letter states "itulah kebesaran Raja yang tiga bersaudara lagi melimpahkan 'adilnya dan kemurahannya pada segala raja-raja yang dibawahnya mengambil berkat syafa'at kebesarannya berkat syafa'at nabi Muhammad habib al-rahman". 115. "Inilah mula-mula j adi raja dalam negeri Inderagiri melimpahkan adilnya dan kerajaannya ke rantau kuantan". Leiden University Library, Cod. Or. 48 1 8d. 116. See Drakard 1999, pages 204 and 230-1 . This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 162 Jane Drakard discourse rulers tra's of who west Mina corre coast" terminology, have and survived closing scribes "this only i rath fro passa rarely long coast". an which were transl the company's scr Pulau Perca and th were also part of correspondence turies. to terms to The draw terms some which specify letters. It geography con are parts is also of the of influence and association between the ruler and his audience. An Outer Sphere: Andalas and Pulau Perca The term Andalas appears in a variety of sources as a name for Sumatra or for part of the island. It almost certainly derives from the Arabic name for Andalusia (Al-Andalus) which is mentioned frequently in the Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain. 1 19 It is unclear when the name began to be employed to refer to Sumatra or to parts of the island, but Portuguese observers from the sixteenth century associated the name with the southern part of the island in particular.120 In the "Raffles 18" text of Sejarah Melayu which probably dates from the early seventeenth century "tanah Andelas" encompasses south east Sumatra and 117. Sumatra's West Kust (abbreviated as S WK) was the way in which the VOC referred to the region. Another example of the use of "Sumatra" in a letter which was aimed at a European, rather than a local, audience was written in the name of the Tuanku Baginda Raja Makota of Anak Sungai to the British establishment at Bengkulu in 1 7 1 5. This letter, which seeks to assert control over the English East India Company (EIC) at Bengkulu lists the names of EIC representatives and mentions the "Tuanku Sultan" of Minangkabau who owns Pulau Sumatera ("yang empunyah Pulau Sumatera itu"). The letter also mentions that the sender had requested and received a cap from the ruler of Minangkabau, although the language in which this and the Minangkabau ruler's status is expressed differs from the usual style of such statements. For a description of the context and a transliteration of the letter see Gallop 1994, pp. 125-9 and p. 198. 118. See SWK 1725 VOC 2013, f. 107. The phrase is given in Dutch as "this long coast from Sablat Cattum above [sic] to Susu and Singkel below [sic]". 119. See Braginsky 2004, p. 1 77. The early seventeenth-century frame text, the Hikayat Bayan Budiman also refers to Negeri Andelas and its raja, but does not indicate where these are located. 120. Pires described Andalas as occupying the southern part of Sumatra, between Tulang Bawang (Lampung) and Pariaman, Cortesão 1 944, vol. 1 , p. 136 and p. 1 59, n. 1 . See also Barros & do Couto 1 777-88, Dec. Ill, Book V, Chapter I, vol. 5, p. 510-51 1. 1 am grateful to Pierre- Yves Manguin for this reference. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms u of p Inscribing Sumatra : Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 163 is referred to in a manner which suggests that it also included Minangkabau.121 By the early eighteenth century François Valentijn described "Andelis" as a local name for the entity which Europeans knew as Sumatra.122 In more recent sources the name is frequently associated with Bengkulu, where it survives as a marga or clan name, and the region of Andalas Sungai Keruh in Salibar, although Andalas is also quite commonly used as a name for smaller localities in other parts of the island, including Minangkabau.123 The sixteenth-century link between Andalas and the Minangkabau region which is suggested in the Sejarah Melayu and by Pires is also reflected in some of the correspond- ence between VOC officials at Padang and the Minangkabau court in the following century. As noted, VOC scribes frequently omitted the lengthy titles and lists of the ruler's possessions which characterise the surat cap , and this makes it very difficult to identify the geographic terms used in the original Malay letters on which the Dutch translations were based. In some cases, however, the letters were translated at greater length, or a VOC servant chose to reply to the ruler using fragments of the language of the letters received from the court, probably with the intention of flattering the king. In two such cases in the early eighteenth century Frederik Mumme wrote to the ruler of Minangkabau describing himself and the council at Padang as administrators of the coastal regions of west Sumatra and "the island of Andalus". This term was almost certainly used in the Malay epistles to which Mumme was responding.124 Several surat cap from the early nineteenth century also use the name Andalas, although this was by no means the only term used to refer to the island sphere in the Malay letters. One example from Kerinci refers to the Minangkabau king as the owner of Pulau Andalas, and another refers to the presence of the Dutch company on the west coast of Pulau Andalas.125 In a third Malay letter the name Andalas was combined with another, more frequently used, term - Pulau Perca. The king addresses himself, To all the valleys and all in greater Andalas, all the learned men and all the slaves and subjects. All those who dwell in and around the area of Pulau Perca are commanded to give their attention.126 Though scattered and vague, these references to Andalas in the surat cap suggest the importance of delineating a wider sphere beyond the Minangkabau highlands and one which was broadly congruent with the coastal regions of Sumatra. This impulse is even 121. Brown 1976, pp. 14-5 and Winstedt 1938, p. 56. Palembang is described as the largest negeri in "tanah Andelas" and the "orang Andelas" make Demang Lebar Duan their ruler in Minangkabau. 122. Valentijn 1724-6, vol. V, p. 2. 123. Christine Dobbin notes that one of the most fertile highland valleys was known as Andalas (Dobbin 1983, p. 20. 1 am grateful to the late Dr. Khadir Anwar for pointing out to me that Andalas is also the name for a tree in Minangkabau usage (see Pamoentjak 1935, p. 16 s.v. Andaleh). 124. In language which mirrors that of letters from the highlands, sent between the 1660's and the nineteenth century, the ruler himself was addressed by Mumme as: "Yang Dipertuan Paduka Sri Sultan Indrama Riayat Syah, descendant of Alexander the Great, a representative of that king, who is seated on the royal throne and in the grandeur of the palace at Pagaruyung in the district [probably tanah ] of Minangkabau in the negeri and hills of Suruaso". SWK 1733 VOC 2240 f. 1 125 and SWK 1735 VOC 2315 f. 283. 125. KITLV Or. 414; Dulaurier 1845, p. 60. 126. "Dan kepada segala lurah-lurah serta sekalian Andalas besyarnya dan kepada segala panditanya sekalian hamba rakyatnya menyuroh memberi tahuikan segala orang di dalam sekeliling daerah sepulau perca ini." Van Hasselt 1881, pp. 170-5, lines 26-9. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 164 Jane more apparent sphere The one Drakard of the origins since it composed tive of is in Pulau the by that term that the does such as does the the Despite the the he the s Siak vague from n inte Pulau wider Seri ruler was c Perc island letter, Sultan and Suma in Hikayat to the Malay tha wider seventeenth refers of cent nineteen of Later identified in in a Perc rather equivalent Perca. Pulau sixteenth figure d was Pulau kingdom, late is Majapah narrative, note in the this ment Perca attacked the when realm. the Pada over sending ru Mud all his t s possibility that Pul to the coa narratives, the Kab highlands should be noted that the earliest versions of these texts to which we have access date from the nineteenth century. The Undang-Undang relates that the name Pulau Perca was changed to Minangkabau following a buffalo contest very like that narrated in the Hikayat Raja Pasai. 131 In the Kaba Cinduo Mato the king of Minangkabau is described as ruler "in the alam Minangkabau within the alam Pulau Perca".132 Thus the name is described 127. The available manuscript of this text dates from the early ninteenth century. For a recent discussion of the dating of Hikayat Raja Pasai see Braginsky 2004, pp. 103-1 1 1. In Minangkabau dictionaries perca is spelt patjo and partjo (see Pamoentjak 1935, p. 181 and Toorn 1881, p. 253). Perca indicates rags, tatters or strips of cloth and Marsden speculates that this may have been a perception of the east Sumatran coastline, Wilkinson 1959, p. 885 and Marsden 181 1, p. 12. See also Sturler 1843, p. 8. 128. Jones 1 987, pp. 71-5. Jones comments that the name appears as an equivalent of the Minangkabau region. Local tradition relates that the name Minangkabau is derived from menang (to win) and kerbau (buffalo) because a kerbau representing Pulau Perca overcame one belonging to Majapahit. 129. Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa , M W 25:23, Tuhfat al-Nafis , TN 2:10; TN 96: 1 1 ; TN 1 1 8:5; Hikayat Siak , n.p.; citations extracted courtesy of the Malay Concordance Project (ANU). 130. Melaka 1692, VOC 1498 f. 376v - 377 (see Algemeen Rijksarchief in the Bibliography). 131. Netscher 1850, p. 54. 132. "Dalam Minangkabau di dalam alam Pulau Perca". See Toorn 1 886. The jawi text is on p. 82 and a Dutch translation on p. 13. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 165 in both seventeenth- and nineteenth-century Minangkabau sources as a term for a wider sphere, a world beyond the Alam Minangkabau which seems to be congruent with the island itself. This usage is also reflected in other Sumatran contexts. In the nineteenth century T.J. Wilier recorded a Mandailing legend which corresponds very closely to the view of Pulau Perca presented in surat cap . As Wilier relates it, one of the sons of Iskandar Zulkarnain conquered Minangkabau and travelled all around Pulau Perca, over which according to prophesy he was destined to rule. He begat sons with women from different localities such as Aceh, Tambusi, Rambah and Siak, and established his line of descent in these places, before returning to Pagaruyung.133 While it is difficult to date the use of this name on the basis of the available sources, the sense of a large, encircling entity, known as Pulau Perca is indicated in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century Malay letters from Minangkabau and helps to provide an idea of how the island was understood from the perspective of the interior. In these letters the name Pulau Perca is closely associated with the Sumatran coastline. It occurs specifically at the end of the letters in passages which describe the regions to which the ruler's message might be conveyed. In this context the name is consistently used in conjunction with the word keliling (around). Thus the letters relate that their message is intended "for all people within the surrounds of this Pulau Perca".134 The oath at the end of the letters was said to apply to all Minangkabau subjects and if a subject obeyed the ruler's words then "wherever he may live in whatever negeri all will be safe. This applies all around Pulau Perca. Around the coast or inland these words will be true".135 The encircling nature of the concept "Pulau Perca" is emphasised by a recitation, in the surat cap , of the numerous places to which a letter might be carried or its contents known. Thus an example from Padang Nunang in Rao states that the Yang Dipertuan of Padang Nunang was descended from the eldest child of Yang Dipertuan Sati in Pagaruyung. If anyone in the Alam Pulau Perca does not know this, let them now be informed including all the rajas all around this Pulau Perca. This includes all the rajas in the region of negeri Aces [Aceh], all the rajas in the region of negeri Siak, all the rajas in the region of negeri Inderagiri, all the rajas in the area of negeri Jambi and all the rajas in negeri Palembang and all the rajas on the sea and the Company whose rule is harsh in all the ports which surround this Pulau Perca.136 133. Willer 1846, pp. 404-9. Cited in Soeratno 1991, p. 142. 1 am grateful to Henri Chambert-Loir for drawing my attention to this reference. 134. These terms are mentioned in the following manuscripts discussed in Drakard 1999: Van Hasselt 1881, lines 28-9; Rao MS, lines 22 and 25; Dulaurier 1845, p. 61, line 18; PRNI, ML. 483, line 67. The terms do not appear within the text of LUB, Cod. Or. 4818d, but the royal seal on top of this letter reads: "Sultan Sri Maharaja Diraja ibn Sultan Hidayat Allah yang mempunyai takhta kerajaan dalam 'alam Minangkabau ... Sultan sekeliling Pulau Perca ini The Barus surat cap refer to the rulers descended from Pagaruyung who dispersed through Pulau Perca and established adat and law in the various negeri , see Drakard 2003, pp. 21 1-16. 135. "Dan di mana dianya duduk dan barang di mana negeri tempāt duduknya selamat baik keliling Pulau Perca baik segala keliling laut dan darat tempat kata yang sebenarnya". Dulaurier 1845, p. 61. 136. "Jikalau belům tahu 'alam Pulau Perca ini sekarang hendaklah dikatui ... segala raja-raja yang berkuliling Pulau Perca ini baik segala raja-raja nan dalam daerah negeri Aces baik segala raja-raja nan dalam daerah negeri Siak(sy-y-ng) baik segala raja-raja nan dalam daerah negeri Inderagiri baik segala raja-raja nan dalam daerah negeri Jambi baik segala raja-raja nan di dalam negeri Palembang baik segala raja-raja nan di laut serta kompeni yang keras m-m-l-n-t-h dalam s-b-t 2 bandar yang berkeliling Pulau Perca ini". Rao MS. lines 22-25. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 166 Jane Not all Some Drakard surat include Nevertheless Minangkabau keliling pulau in all cap a li muc the id spher the conveys le the tion between kelil encirclement is als opening of this essa who are at sea and who surround Pulau Perca".138 An Inner Sphere: Pulau Emas and Alam Minangkabau In addition to spatial terms which articulate the periphery, two names - Alam Minang- kabau and Pulau Emas - are used regularly in the surat cap to refer to the inner realm of the royal sphere and, arguably, to the interior of Sumatra. In surat cap both terms appear to operate within the periphery described above. Pulau Emas and Alam Minangkabau often occur in association in the letters and Pulau Emas is also closely linked with kerajaan. Thus many letters describe the first ruler of Minangkabau, Maharaja Diraja, as descending to "the land of Pagaruyung, who possesses the throne of sovereignty in Pulau Emas, and whose justice flows out within the Alam Minangkabau".139 This passage is extracted from an elaborate and visually spectacular nineteenth-century scroll which is held in the National Library of Indonesia, but almost exactly the same formulation, though without the Malay vocabulary, can be found in letters from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which reach us today through the Dutch translations made by the VOC.140 It is difficult to be sure when the term Alam Minangkabau was first adopted. Most scholarly works refer to the Tambo Minangkabau or the Kaba Cinduo Mato as their source. Despite the numerous editions in which they exist, however, these texts cannot be securely dated and the extant copies were made in the nineteenth century or later. Alam , which comes from Arabic and indicates the "world" or "universe", has many applications in Malay. It is used in early examples of Malay prose and verse to refer to the wider universe (alam dunia ), sometimes to the realm, as a mystical term, as a title (Syah Alam, Raja Alam, etc.), and in Quranic quotations referring to divine pre-eminence. As a spatial designator, however, it is not common and nowhere else does it appear to be used with 137. Wee 1 985, p. 80 suggests that the term pulau appears to be used to convey the relationship between two "Perceptibly different substances - land and sea in the one case, forest and rice fields in the other". Both Wilkinson and Wee comment that it is usual, in Malay, for larger islands to be referred to as tanah. 138. "Segala anak Minangkabau yang di lahut, yang selilit Pulau Perca, sungai diapit oleh pasang". Hashim 1992, p. 123. 139. "Ialah yang turun ke tanah Pagaruyung yang mempunyai takhta kerajaan di dalam Pulau Emas yang melimpahkan 'adilnya di dalam 'alam Minangkabau". Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia (PNRI), ML. 483. 140. See, for example, SWK 1733, VOC 2240 f. 1 135. In 1732, in response to a letter from the royal court Frederic Mumme addressed his reply to "Jang Dipertuan Paduka Siri Sultan Indrama Raayat Syah Lilloe Lahu bil alam, descended from Alexander the great the stadhouder of the same who is seated in state of power on the royal throne of Pagaruyung in the provintie of Minangkabau". This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra : Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 167 the same consistency as in Minangkabau.141 Indeed, like the Kaba Cinduo Mato , some Minangkabau surat cap attach the word alam to Pulau Perca as in the quotation above which refers to "Alam Pulau Perca". This use of the term alam and its adoption in central Sumatra suggests a particular tendency towards spatial definitions of the realm or sphere which may be linked to the geography of central Sumatra. Like the word pulau , alam appears to function in Minangkabau surat cap as a boundary term which is flexible in its application and conveys a sense of successive and intersecting spatial and cultural zones. It is significant in this context that the word occurs in one of the earliest letters received by the VOC from a Minangkabau ruler, and it is thus highly likely that it was actually used on a regular basis in the surat cap from that period, as it is in the later letters. Although Malay vocabulary is rarely reproduced in the letters translated by VOC scribes, one Dutch official in 1687 was so uncertain of the meaning of the Malay terms he encountered in a letter received at Padang that a transliteration of a fragment of the Malay text was included in the Dutch translation sent on to Batavia and later to Amsterdam. There the ruler stated his concern that two rebel rajas on the coast were creating "uproar (hiru-biru) in the Alam Minangkabau"! 142 Later, in the early eighteenth century, a letter sent from Yang Dipertuan Inderma Riayat Syah in Suruaso mentions "all the great panghulu of the Minangkabau world", a phrase which is surely a translation of the term "Alam Minangkabau".143 In addition to place names such as Pagaruyung and Suruaso (which are used for the royal centres), the other general term used for the inner regions of the kingdom and of the island is Pulau Emas. In some contexts Pulau Emas, or "island of gold" is a term for the island of Sumatra, but in the surat cap genre the equivalence of this term appears to be bounded, not in terms of geography, but by the category of kingship. Pulau Emas is not mentioned in the Malay letters except in relation to the word kerajaan.XĄĄ There is also a close association between gold and kingship in the genre. The terrain is depicted as being composed of gold and the letters list mountains and rivers of gold as part of the ruler's possessions.145 Pulau Emas may have been a very old name for Sumatra, reflected in the Sanskrit name, Suvarņadvīpa (Island of Gold), which is associated with this island, among others, in a number of indie sources. The impression conveyed in the Minangkabau surat cap is that Pulau Emas is a royal space within the Alam Minangkabau, and within Pulau Perca itself, from which the attributes of Minangkabau kingship spread out towards the rest of the Alam. The word pulau , in this context, may be intended, like Pulau Langkapuri, as an island of space, bounded by its particular qualities, rather than by water. From this golden island of kingship blessings flowed outwards to the rest of the Alam. 141. Other examples from Malay literature where the term alam is attached to a spatial designator include the Hikajat Bandjar where "alam Martapura" is mentioned (Banj 4559 and Banj 4594), the Hikayat Seri Rama , which refers to "segala alam Langkapuri" (Rama 569:2). One text of the Sejarah Melayu uses the term "Alam Minangkabau" for the narrative of descent from Bukit Seguntang whereas other versions refer to Andelas (SM. 21-22). Citations extracted courtesy of the Malay Concordance Project (ANU). 142. SWK 1688 VOC 1437 f. 614r. 143. SWK 1720 VOC 1926 f. 22. 144. This occurs in the following manuscripts: PNRI, ML. 483, lines 41 and 46-7; Sungai Paguh MS, line 43; Dulaurier 1845, p. 56; LUB, Cod. Or. 2241. lie. 7, line 12. 145. Many of the letters relate that "ialah Sultan yang mempunyai sungai emas". See Van Hasselt 1881, line 22; see also LUB, Cod. Or. 2241 . lie. 7, line 21 ; PNRI, ML. 483, line 55; Sungai Paguh MS, lines 2-3, 13 and 17; PNRI, ML. 332; and Tambo Asa, line 30. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 168 Jane The Drakard way these graphically by Tanah/Negeri the Alam ter a Paga Minangk within the encirc which appears to A Sumatran Mandala ? A series of extending peripheries is suggested, of course, not just by the names used for spatial demarcations in Minangkabau surat cap , but also by the shape and layout of those letters in which medallion-shaped pseudo seals surround the Minangkabau ruler's statement of his descent and greatness. The idea of encirclement is also signalled in both the geographic distribution of the Sumatran and other rulers whose names are enclosed within the medallions and by topogeny - the enumeration of the places where a letter might be carried and where its message might apply [Figs. 2 and 3]. While places and rulers beyond Sumatra are listed, the spatial field which is articulated here is framed in terms of the relationship between the Minangkabau kingdom in the interior and peripheral kingdoms on the coast and hinterland regions of the island. Not only does the vocabulary and layout of the letters imply a sense of surroundedness or encirclement, but the link between the interior and the coast is also articulated through repetitive use of the word melimpah (to flow). Thus the qualities of justice ( adilnya ), kingship (kerajaan) and generosity ( kemurahannya ) flow from the kings of Minangkabau to their subjects and to the peripheral rulers, whose names are inscribed in the bab or medallions, onwards to the outlying regions whose rajas are descended from them and thus from Pagaruyung. In this fashion an extended network of rulers and kingdoms is described as partaking in the sacred qualities which emanated from the Minangkabau dynasty. This pattern of radiating spheres of influence and connection, in which the Minangkabau realm occupies a resonant centre, echoes persistent messages sent out from that court and broadcast in the rantau regions during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which the rulers made recommendations for the good government and welfare of the Sumatran coastal regions and inhabitants.146 It is also an image which is reflected in other geographically and temporally diverse sources from Sumatra. According to Salomon Müller, for example, a local map - drawn in Natal in north-west Sumatra in the early nineteenth century - depicted Gunung Merapi, in Minangkabau, lying in the middle of the island surrounded by concentric circles which represented the three most important districts of the Minangkabau kingdom. The remaining Sumatran regions were attached in an irregular fashion to the radiating circles and the hill chains were depicted stretching out from the centre in networks over the land. 147 A circular schema arranged around a sacred centre is, of course, also suggestive of a much older pattern, the indie mandala , which is represented in inscriptions from early kingdoms in both Java and Sumatra. Hermann Kulke, for example, has used the text of the Sebokingking [Telaga Batu] inscription from Palembang to propose a graphic reconstruction of the spatial structure of the Srivijayan realm in the seventh century. In this model the contours of the realm are depicted as a series of concentric circles emanating outwards from the kadatuan , the palace or royal 146. These are recorded in VOC sources and documented in Drakard 1999. 147. Dobbin 1983, p. 1, first drew attention to this map. The citation is from Muller 1855, p. 123. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 1 69 core of the kingdom, to the wanua , a village or urban area, to the samaryyãda or hinterland and beyond that to the bhūmi (world or realm). Within the bhūmi there also lay mandala - peripheral regions, sometimes marked by their own inscriptions, which were themselves shaped according to the same series of inner and outer spheres.148 It may be objected that in early inscriptions, such as those from Sri vij aya, the shape of the kingdom was conceived and represented in a way which modelled the mandala concept in an ideal, rather than in a practical or geographic sense.149 In a recent study, however, Manguin has mapped those peripheral polities which were designated by the term mandala in the inscriptions onto the south-east Sumatran landscape. Using detailed evidence gleaned from archaeological research, he demonstrates how this series of linkages appears to represent more than a theoretical or conceptual model. Rather, it offers as he states "a measure of referentiality to often disincarnated theoretical constructions" and provides a grounded or emplaced understanding of the way in which the Srivijayan rulers related to an extended periphery.150 In the case of the Minangkabau kingdom a mandala pattern also appears to inscribe a physical world which relates directly to the Sumatran terrain and coastline in a topographic sense. As the surat cap depict it, a resonant and authoritative centre was surrounded by overlapping circles of influence and connection which stretched down through the intermediate hills and valleys and embraced the coastal regions in east and west Sumatra and the Minangkabau communities beyond. Could the similarity between these patterns point to the relevance of indie ideas about the relationship between centres and their peripheries in south and central Sumatra over a lengthy period?151 Any discussion of continuities or parallels over such a broad span of time can only proceed with utmost caution; but the discovery by Uli Kozok of two remarkable manuscripts preserved together in Tanjung Tanah, Kerinci, helps to illustrate the resilience of certain textual practices in isolated regions of the Sumatran highlands.152 Intensive research by Kozok and others reveals what Kozok describes as "striking parallels" between TK214 , a fourteenth-century legal code written in Sanskrit and Malay using an ancient "Pallavo-Nusantaric" script, and TK215 , a re-issued version of parts of the same text written in Malay in Arabic script during the seventeenth century.153 Kozok is able to point to precise structural and linguistic parallels between these two texts, despite the fact that one is, as he puts it, "embedded in" Sanskrit conventions and the other in Islamic conventions.154 The significance of this research, for the present discussion, lies partly in demonstrating how earlier textual practices can be preserved and reiterated in a new format over a lengthy period; and partly the insights which research into the Tanjung Tanah ms ( TK214 ) can provide into the relevance of certain communicative practices within and between Sumatran societies. In his study of the Sanskrit portions of that text Thomas M. Hunter develops an argument which has immediate relevance for the spatial themes under discussion here. Indeed Hunter views the Tanjung Tanah ms ( TK214 ) as "an earlier form of textual 148. See the figure accompanying Kulke's article, Kulke 1993, p. 172. 149. See, for example, Manguin 2002, p. 83. 150. Manguin 2009, p. 436. 151. Jordaan 2006, p. 17. 152. Kozok 2004a and b and Kozok 2006. 153. Kozok 2010 and Kozok et al. forthcoming. 154. Kozok 2010. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 170 Jane Drakard practices rulers". as a that Like means of periphery, are the s conv in this I have pointed e style of Minangk in central the of Sumatra relationship the Tanjung Dharmãsraya Ta and work currently more about the extent the to Inscribing This the whi Sum discussion surface b w of ha the topic of local per example, about th of local texts and But what has been ing that, en-masse on an island and n the local materials colonial period it from these two p which was quoted as struggling to Sikatimuno. Simila sources, even thou There are a numb the materials exam lists of royal poss letters the provide a geographic encircling se sp periphe and kingdoms bey intermediate and of the island. l h in examining insc device is not a co have noted that li identification 155. 156. Hunter A of discusse Drakard 1999, Adityawarman's This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms dem Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 171 territory or spatial definitions. Such lists do occur, however in the Hikajat Bandjar and the Hikayat Raja Pasai , and it may be that beyond the Straits of Melaka in contexts where far-flung communities inhabited vast landscapes, as in Borneo and Sumatra, the impetus towards topographically precise spatial definitions was more pressing. As the editors of a recent volume on Sumatran archaeology and ethnohistory point out, there are structural similarities in the relationship between highland and lowland societies across Sumatra's vast terrain.157 In this connection, two features of "Sumatran" political culture which call out for further investigation are: firstly, an emphasis on the recitation of place names and a tendency towards the delineation of local boundaries; and secondly, the widespread use of "textual artefacts" - signs, seals, edicts and other forms of authoritative words which are used to communicate authority and group soli- darity over wide landscapes. Examples of the former can be found in the Minangkabau highlands where suku affiliation and locality have long been intimately linked, and also in other local texts from different parts of Sumatra.158 Throughout the region boundary sensitivities and the pressing need to facilitate the passage of trade goods have led to formalised rituals of agreement and oath-taking, as well as physical markers such as the megaliths and inscriptions used in early times or the stone effigies {penghulubalang) erected in Batak regions.159 In relation to the second point Acehnese sarakata , Minang- kabau surat cap and the piagem (royal edicts) distributed through South Sumatra by the rulers of Banten, Palembang and Jambi may all represent a similar impetus to sign authority across vast landscapes and the evidence suggests that these two tendencies are linked. A relevant example can be found in the piagem issued by the Sultans of Jambi and Palembang from the seventeenth century onwards to the inhabitants of highland Kerinci. These have recently been examined by Gallop. The piagem employ topogeny to delineate land boundaries and inscribe the landscape using, in Gallop's evocative phrasing, "terrain-sensitive verbs ... which graphically evoke the contours of the territory from the perspective of a traveller on the ground".160 A further point emerging from this comparison between Acehnese and Minangkabau royal letters may also have broader relevance for the study of Sumatran political cultures. This is the disparity in the pattern of language used to describe spatial relationships in the two sets of sources. Put simply, one might call this the contrast between " takluk* ' and " melimpah ", or between a language of dominance and a language of inclusion. In the Acehnese materials a cluster of words were identified which indicate an unusually forceful approach to control over people and territory - terms such as takluk , mengalahkan , mengampukan and diserahkanlmenyerahkan. The frequent use and close association of these terms in the Acehnese sources and the ideas they convey about royal control and dominance is unusual when considered in the light of Malay letters and hikayat from other parts of the archipelago. Considered against the Minangkabau materials the discrepancy is even more striking. Minangkabau surat cap use a very different vocabulary; one which conveys a sense of loosely defined links between far-flung subjects and the inland 157. Bonatz et al. 2009, p. 12. 158. See, for example, Collins 1998, Canto 47. 159. Penghulubalang , formalised agreements and oath-taking are discussed in Drakard 1990, passim. For recent work on inscriptions and megaliths see Manguin 2009 and Tjoa-Bonatz 2009. 160. The examples she cites are " mudik (travel upriver), hilir (go downstream), menaiki (climb), turun (descend), meragat ke (to take a short cut, to make a bee-line for a certain place), merapat (hug the side of, eg. a hill) and jatuh ke dalam (plunge down)". Gallop 2009, p. 278. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 172 Jane court Drakard which coastal among were polities an the popula sources dismissed concentrate their two are regions Tiku were Barus furthe settled might Minangkabau Two dynasties chronicles royal to we ideas authority deputy ( are c each the wakil partner kuasa mi of mutual articulate two the find dynasties which consensus, to influ betwee nineteenth-ce these comparable in b cultu merchant itself relationship of Meu migra Minangkabau Acehnese o "Su politi and Acehnese the th refere the bo and Taruman in of of on language t the typical strands A point situated by on subjects which b (force) ) "H ro dynas and p a pre-occupation w defining territori basic to narratives convey orates and a the copy of sens of agreements ( a s the ceremonial ac among the populat These Barus texts different context posed in which Such a the they same c diverge "relation 161. Drakard 162. Teeuw 1990, 1964, This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms of p p. Inscribing Sumatra: Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 173 and Minangkabau royal letters. As we have seen, the Acehnese materials are earlier, and less abundant, and questions of influence and interconnection in the development of these two letter traditions are unclear. A comparison, however, highlights the difference between forceful and inclusive approaches to political authority which is reminiscent of the Barus polity and which may have relevance for other Sumatran contexts. * * * This essay has explored the possibilies for applying a spatial a of Sumatran political cultures by considering the way in whic articulated and understood in local texts from two regions of Sumat sources demonstrate a greater pre-occupation with landscape and with topography, than might be expected and this is articulated in l gests that spatial definitions were very much part of the way in understood. Clearly these conclusions could also be contextualise the broader histories of Aceh and Minangkabau and the historic these specific texts were produced. A variety of explanations might explain these statements of royal authority and the spatial langu task of contextualisation has not been the main object here. Rather undertake a detailed analysis of the way in which these statemen a wider sphere are framed and articulated as a means of attemp Sumatran perspectives on these matters. How, then, can these ideas be defined and to what extent can they wider historiography discussed at the outset and to broader def space? While the recitation of place names is part of the langua two different patterns of interaction between the ruler and his sph might also be described as what Massey calls "relational". Both de the royal centre for a definition of space beyond. In the Acehnese le between the royal centre and the wider realm are described in a pattern; they are near or far, east or west, rural or of the centre an terms of that relationship - they do not stand alone or of themselv of space in the Acehnese sources studied here start with the ruler an space beyond. In the Minangkabau letters, a binary opposition is orientation is still relational. The pattern is one of extending connec the court and depending upon royal bounty and descent. In Minangk place , the island and the land itself, is created through divine inter with the beginning of rulership. Other places and other kingdoms c result of this link between the land and the Minangkabau ruler. In t spatial relationships are defined in terms of an originating place wh the ruler. In Casey's terms, space would appear to be conceived here understanding of place. But places do not stand alone, in each of the they are embedded in human relationships and in interconnections w In one sense these conclusions would seem to augment the ex models of polity and statecraft in the Malay world which were d insofar as these paradigms emphasise the "insignificance of terr that they offer a confusing guide for thinking about Sumatran hist place as both a constructed and a relational category then there i people and place. The word "territory" can also be a problematic This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 174 an Jane Drakard imprecise landscape. ways in way Sumatr which co Landscape and se mountains and co created on particular demarcation will, also of course, fails to b conv ships across a w understanding o offers a profitab may certainly ha argues, but we s to shape Sumatra Bibliography Manuscript sources [SWK =] Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague Overgekomen Brieven en Papieren (Batavia 's Inkomend Brievenboek), Sumatra's Westkust, Sillida and Tico, 1661-1735 and Melaka 1661-1738. Leiden University Library (LUB) Cod. Or. 2241. lie. (7) Cod. Or. 48 1 8d. Cod. Or. 5825 11 ff. 27v-26r. 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Early Indon 1 970 The 1 999 History, Ithaca Fall and of S Cul Singa Worsley, Peter Forthcoming "Jo Javanese percep Myths Asia , and new Clayton, A M Yeoh, Brenda S.A 2003 "Changing C Tan Liok Ee (eds University Press Yule, 1 972 Sir Henry Cathay ( and t Taipei, Ch'eng W 1975 The book of marvels of 2 vols. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms the E Inscribing Sumatra : Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 185 Fig. 1 . Place names mentioned in the letter sent to James I from Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh in 1615. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 186 Jane Drakard Fig. 2. Two examples of Minangkabau surat cap illustrating the arrangment of the bab or pseudo seals, see note 109. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra : Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 187 This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 188 Jane Drakard Fig. 3. The "melimpa kabau surat cap. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inscribing Sumatra : Perceptions of Place and Space in Acehnese and Minangkabau Royal Letters 189 Fig. 4. A schematic representation of the spatial relationship between the centre and periphery as articulated in the Minangkabau surat cap. This content downloaded from 160.36.178.25 on Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:05:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms