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Appendix 2 Historical Studies of Sumatra and Ethnicity Three historians recently published books on aspects of the history of Sumatra as a whole: Anthony Reid (2005), Anthony Milner (2008), and Leonard Andaya (2008), the latter two including Malaya in their purview as well. Because Andaya’s historical hypothesis is particularly relevant to the musico-lingual identities of the various groups discussed in this book, I shall outline it briefly here. The hypothesis holds that the nascent ethnicization of the people of Sumatra rests fundamentally on the economic advantages arising from the international trade flowing between Sumatra’s metropolitan seaport kingdoms and Arabia, India, and China in the first millennium c.e. and with Europe in the past half-millennium. Sumatra’s two oldest kingdoms—Sriwijaya (centered near present-day Palembang) and subsequently Malayu (centered near Jambi) from the seventh to the twelfth century—spoke Old Malay, were internationally famous as centers of Buddhism, and attracted many foreign merchants and pilgrims, which resulted in the expansion of Malay economic power and the politicization of the Malay communities, serving as a catalyst for their differentiation from other groups in Sumatra. The name Malayu persisted in inland Jambi, where an inscription attributed to king Adityawarman in 1347 refers to Malayupura (the Town of Malayu) as a polity in the Minangkabau highlands. Its artistic remains, inscriptions, and archaeological finds suggest that the people began to assert a separate Minangkabau identity and economic force between the fourteenth and the sixteenth century. Moreover, Portuguese documents in the early sixteenth century mention the Minangkabau people by name and the supernatural power of its king, at Pagaruyung. Their economic advantage increased when they decided to collaborate with the Dutch to free themselves of the oppressive control of the Acehnese at the time, which enabled them to increase their foreign trade via the nearby rivers that led down to the Strait of Malacca. Gradually they saw the value of detaching themselves from the Malay linguistic, artistic, and politico-administrative power system to the east and established their own identity in the Minangkabau heartland (L. Andaya 2008, 3). After the Portuguese conquered Malacca on Malaya’s west coast in 1511, the kingdom of Aceh became the leading Malay-speaking entrepôt in the region, following in the traditions of its predecessors at Pasai (in present-day Aceh from ca. the 1290s) and Malacca. Aceh reached the zenith of its fame as an international entrepôt and center of Islamic knowledge in the early to midseventeenth century. Its military strength under Sultan Iskandar Muda (1607–36), supported by Turkey and other allies, enabled it to expand its authority in Malaya and along Sumatra’s west and east coasts as far southwest as Muko-muko and as far southeast as Riau (Lombard 1967, 91–98). Unable eventually to feed its commoner subjects on whom it relied for its wars and commerce (Ricklefs 1981, 32), Aceh’s central role in the Malay world passed to Johor in the mid-seventeenth century. Aceh then found it economically and politically expedient to pursue a cultural, lingual, and literary identity of its own (L. Andaya 2008, 138–43). Kartomi_Text.indd 375 6/15/12 2:29 PM 376 appendix 2 Meanwhile, the people of North Sumatra’s interior, known eventually as the Batak, had established a reputation for collecting high-quality camphor, benzoin, and other forest products, which they sold at Barus and other west-coastal entrepôts, and beginning in the eleventh century on the east coast at Kota Cina, whence their products were exported to China, India, and the Middle East in return for luxury goods. By the fourteenth century, they had established a cluster of clans (marga) and new settlements based on the idea of a common Batak ancestor, and the cluster became the basis for the division of the six Batak subgroups that are known today as the Toba, the Karo, the Pakpak Dairi, the Simelungun, the Angkola-Sipirok, and the Mandailing. Sumatra’s economy changed radically in the fifteenth century when the black pepper cash crop that was grown in the plantations owned by the sultanates of Aceh, Palembang, and Jambi for export to China and then to Europe radically increased in volume, which created a heavy local demand for rice, with the Batak providing the labor. However, it was not until the sixteenth century that the people of North Sumatra’s interior established a distinct identity based on their language and indigenous religion. European contact resulted in subsequent divisions of...

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