Power Relations in Srivijaya, Melaka, and Johor-Riau

Indigenous texts relate that the premodern states of Melaka and Johor-Riau were preceded by Srivijaya, located in South Sumatra (Heng Reference Heng2020). To understand the structure of these premodern states, it is necessary to go beyond disciplinary boundaries. I therefore go beyond ethnographic data and endeavour to integrate prehistoric and historic data, where relevant. Of relevance is the Telaga Batu (Sabokingking) inscription, dated to between 682 and 686 CE (Casparis Reference De Casparis1956). Analysis of this inscription, written in the Pallava script, shows the way power relations were structured in the premodern state of Srivijaya, located around present-day Palembang.Footnote ² I am thus assuming that these power relations did not change greatly in the shift from Srivijaya to Melaka and Johor-Riau.

The inscription (see Plate 1) presents the ruler’s voice in addressing participants of a minum sumpah ritual (swearing while drinking the oath water):

Plate 1.

Telaga Batu inscription found in Palembang, now at National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, no. D155.

Source: Gunawan Kartapranata (2010).3

The singular ruler – aku (Malay: I/me) – claimed the loyalty of those he ruled, the plural kamu (you), ranging from ‘sons of kings’ to hulun haji ‘slaves of the king’. He threatens rebels with death. Such threats would have been effective only if his subjects feared his supernatural power to kill through curses. However, as implied by this inscription, some subjects were nevertheless prepared to rebel.

The term hulun haji, mentioned in the inscription, was used in different types of premodern states, not just in coastal trading states or maritime states. In Java, where the inland sacred-city or middle kingdom type of premodern state reigned, between the 7^th and 15^th centuries, ten Old Javanese inscriptions mention ten types of people who were hulun haji (Siti Maziyah 2022: 63). In contrast, there is only one mention of hulun haji in 7^th-century Sumatra where the coastal trading state or maritime state arose – that is, in the Telaga Batu inscription. According to Hall (Reference Hall1985: 100–101), the hulun haji in Srivijaya were the lowest rank of the hierarchy and had a bondage of personal service owed to the king. They were nevertheless part of the premodern state.

Following the mention of hulun haji in the Telaga Batu inscription, the term was not mentioned from the 8^th to the 14^th century. However, in the 15^th century, another term, hamba raja (ruler’s slaves), was mentioned in the Undang-Undang Melaka (The Laws of Melaka). The people so labelled were described as:

A hamba raja remained so throughout his life, bequeathing this status to his descendants. If he was killed or abducted, the perpetrator was to be fined at seven times the rate for killing or abducting a freeman (Matheson and Hooker Reference Matheson, Hooker and Reid1983: 184).Footnote ⁴

It is possible that the term hulun haji in the 7^th-century Srivijayan context was replaced by the 15^th-century term hamba raja. Linguistic analysis of these terms indicates that a similar social locus was referred to. The term hamba raja is Sanskrit, or at least Indic, whereas hulun is Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian). It is etymologically uncertain whether in Old Javanese, haji means ‘king’. According to Blust and Trussel (Reference Blust and Trussel2013),Footnote ⁵ in Malay, (h)ulun denotes ‘slave; servant; person’ while in old Javanese, (h)ulun denotes ‘slave, bondsman; servant; be a servant’. Furthermore, in Old Javanese ka-hulun-an probably denotes ‘the position (state, attitude) of a hulun (servant, follower) in relation to his lord or master; servitude, submission.’

In the 15^th century, the premodern states of Melaka and Johor-Riau benefitted from the work of those Orang Laut who had become hamba raja because they supplied valuable trade goods from land and sea. It has been documented that the following goods were supplied:

1. 1. Elephants’ tusks, rhinoceros’ horns, pearls and other shells, herbs and spices (Wang Reference Wang1958: 101, 107, 111)

2. 2. Gold, forest products, tin (Wheatley Reference Wheatley1961: xxi-xxiv)

3. 3. Tortoise shell, and in 1178, Sumatra sent China tribute comprising ‘113 tahils of pearls, a coral tree weighing 240 tahils, thirteen big pearl “rings”, and forty tahils of coral’ (Miksic Reference Miksic and Taylor2000: 213).

Such goods may have been of little interest to the Orang Laut themselves, but they were vital for the maritime states’ participation in the seaborne trade (Wheatley Reference Wheatley1959). And who could have obtained these natural products? It is most likely that they were obtained by people who knew their way at sea and in the forest. Even at present, my field research among Orang Laut in the Riau-Lingga Islands shows that they are known for their prowess at diving into the sea to spear marine sea life and in hunting wild animals in the forest. It was to the benefit of the coastal trading state or maritime state that the Orang Laut remained as skilled Orang Laut who knew their way at sea and on land. They were thus integrated into the premodern state as the ‘ruler’s slaves’ without becoming peasantised, because their extractive skills were valued in the premodern state’s participation in the seaborne trade with China and other premodern states.

What induced some groups of the Orang Laut to be integrated into the premodern state? These groups could have been attracted by (i) access to prestige goods, (ii) belonging to a civilisation, and (iii) superiority over other Orang Laut who were not part of the premodern state. The ruler of the coastal trading state or maritime state has been documented as distributing prestige goods, including Chinese ceramics as well as Roman beads and glass. A ‘symbiotic economic network’ evolved whereby imported luxuries and necessities could be given by ‘rulers of Malay entrepôts … to highlanders and sea people in return for local products which foreign elites avidly sought’ (Miksic Reference Miksic, Bang, Bayly and Scheidel2021: 404). Foragers served the premodern state as ‘cultural-ecological specialists’ (Anderson and Vorster Reference Anderson, Vorster, Sadhu and Wheatley1983). Networks of such specialists developed in the Malay Peninsula, the Riau-Lingga Islands, Pulau Tujuh, and eastern Sumatra (Wolters Reference Wolters1982: 23).

Control of the extraction of trade goods from sea and land was crucial. The ruler had to depend on loyal local chiefs (datuk) to ensure that the Orang Laut constantly remembered outsiders’ valuations of the trade goods, even if they themselves had little interest in such objects (Scott Reference Scott2009: 113). In 1416, Ma Huan documented the spatial separation he had witnessed in 1413 in Palembang between the chiefs and the people they led:

There was thus physical and thereby social distance between the local chiefs and the people they led.

Harrisson (Reference Harrisson2003: 103) identified the people in Island Southeast Asia who assembled goods for the China trade between 1350 and 1650 as chiefs, farmers, and ‘nomadic populations’ of sea and forest. Unlike surplus-producing agrarian states, the economic base of Melaka and Johor-Riau, as well as the preceding premodern states in Srivijaya, was the extractive labour of the hamba raja. This had implications: (i) the state had to be territorially extensive as desired resources could not be found in only one place, and (ii) foragers had to retain expertise in extracting resources valued by outsiders, which they had to surrender willingly to the ruler.

The ruler had the chiefs who controlled the tribals reside at the royal capital to guard against rebellions they might plot jointly with the subjects they commanded. On present-day Pulau Penyengat in the Riau-Lingga Islands, located off Tanjung Pinang, formerly the Viceroy’s capital in the sultanate of Johor-Riau, there is still a Kampung Datuk where the chiefs had previously resided. As ‘individual centres of power within the kingdom’, these chiefs had such titles as ‘Dato Bendahara, Paduka Raja, Tuan Pikrama, Laksamana, Temenggong, Sri Bija di Raja, Sri Nara Mentri, Sri Nara di Raja, Sri Bija Wangsa, Paduka Sri Maharaja, Sri Pikrama Raja, Sri Mahawangsa, and Maharaja Indra Mara Denda’, although it is unclear what exact powers they held (L. Andaya Reference Andaya1975: 43). I argue that while these titles were diverse, the power of these chiefs was over the hamba raja in different places. A 1934 report, Berita District van Bintan by Encik Muhammad Apan, states that as a representative of the ruler, a local chief had the power to call the leaders of those hamba raja he controlled to come to him. Those who disobeyed him were imprisoned at his place. On their part, the hamba raja feared their local chief, believing that his supernatural power was inherited by his descendants (Aswandi Syahri Reference Aswandi2018).Footnote ⁷

In return for the ruler’s protection, the hamba raja had to perform kerahan (corvée) for him. In 1882, J.G. Schot listed the following examples of corvée among them:

• • Suku Bintan [Bintan Tribe] were retainers at state weddings and other formal occasions

• • Suku Galang [Galang Tribe], Suku Sekanak [Sekanak Tribe], Suku Gelam [Gelam Tribe] and Suku Sugi [Sugi Tribe] were the ruler’s armed forces

• • Suku Gelam built boats

• • Suku Tambus [Tambus Tribe] took care of hunting dogs

• • Remaining sukus [tribes] rowed boats for the rulerFootnote ⁸

(cited from Sopher Reference Sopher1977: 101)

The hamba raja were also known as orang pesukuan (people divided into sukus) who were the ruler’s rakyat (subjects) (Logan Reference Logan1847: 336).Footnote ⁹

In 1980, my respondent, Raja Hamzah Yunus of Penyengat, confirmed these corvée duties of the hamba raja, adding that the Suku Ladi were responsible for grinding spices in the palace kitchen, the Suku Bintan had the duty of carrying candles and other articles into the palace and making the sultan’s bed, while the Suku Kopit were singers who sang him to sleep. He made an important point: the closer their corvée was to the person of the ruler, the higher their status would have been. During my field research, the high-ranking Suku Kopit no longer existed as a suku, having been absorbed into the Penyengat population.

The hamba raja did not need to provision premodern Melaka or Johor-Riau, as the economy of these coastal trading states/maritime states relied on port taxes and the export of resources, such as tin, to external markets.Footnote ¹⁰ These states were not provisioned internally by a peasantry. Indeed, the hamba raja were ranked according to their access to prestige – that is, the person of the ruler, according to Raja Hamzah. They were not ranked according to their access to economic resources.Footnote ¹¹ Furthermore, Schot (Reference Schot1884) notes that they were only fed, but not paid wages (Andaya Reference Andaya1975: 47). There was thus a tenuous relationship between the ruler and his hamba raja, who probably met only on festive occasions, such as royal weddings. Apart from such occasions, the hamba raja led autonomous lives, hunting and fishing for their subsistence, like other Orang Laut who had not submitted to the ruler. Neither the hamba raja nor any other Orang Laut were a maritime version of ‘swiddeners dwelling in mountain fastnesses’ (Scott Reference Scott2009: 19). Unlike peasants, they were foragers in a subsistence economy, obtaining sufficient resources from nature for their everyday needs.

Orang Laut Memories in the Nation-State of Indonesia

In 1980, I did field research on the coast of Bintan Island off Bintan Bay (Teluk Bintan). My respondent, named Sman Luboh, gave me his view of the relationship between the Suku Bintan (Bintan Tribe) and the ruling elite. He explained the word dikerah (summoned) as meaning dipaksa (to be forced) – ‘dikerah’ being the verb of the term kerahan. He said that in the past, when they were summoned, a letter was sent from Penyengat to the ketua kampung (village elder), saying, mau tujuh orang anak gadis yang cantik (seven pretty unmarried females were required). ‘Jadi dipaksa pergi! (So they were forced to go!)’ he said. His late mother was one of the seven women forced to go and serve at the wedding of the Riau-Lingga Sultan’s daughter to the Sultan of Trengganu. He said that she told him that it was very exhausting. ‘Duduk salah sikit, orang marah – kepalanya. (If she sat a little incorrectly, she would be scolded by the leader)’, he said. He also said that it was up to the village elder to evade the corvée – for example, by saying that many people had died or that the people were stupid and did not want to go. ‘Pandai dialah (It was up to him to be clever)’.

An alternative point of view was presented by respondents who were descendants of the ruling elite who said that, of course, the hamba raja wanted to come to Penyengat: how else would they have been able to come and see the splendour of the capital? But Sman Luboh of Bintan did not mention that his mother had performed kerahan because she had wanted to see the splendour of the capital. Instead, he remembered his mother’s unhappiness with corvée as a hardship. What this respondent remembered is significant in the context of Scott’s argument that the premodern state depended on a concentration of manpower (Scott Reference Scott2009: 95) with ‘subjects … under duress’ (Scott Reference Scott2009: 7).

According to what Sman Luboh remembered, the Suku Bintan had a place of permanent residence to which a letter from the ruling elite could be sent. As mentioned by Scott (Reference Scott2009: 328), boat-dwelling Orang Laut could evade the forces of the premodern state. It was more strategic for the premodern state to have the hamba raja settled in fixed abodes for easier control.Footnote ¹² The sedenterisation of boat-dwelling Orang Laut was thus an important part of their integration into the premodern state.

However, to this day, some Orang Laut have remained as boat-dwellers. An example would be the boat-dwelling Orang Laut from the sea off Pulau Ngenang near the south-east coast of Batam island (see Plate 2). For about three months of the year, they are in the sea off Panglong, an Orang Laut settlement on land. Some boat-dwellers get ‘landsick’ (mabuk darat) if they stay on land for too long.

Plate 2.

Boat-dwelling Orang Laut from Ngenang.

Plate 2 Long description

Several long wooden boats float on open water, viewed from the side at water level. One boat spans most of the middle of the frame, with multiple people seated along the top edge of the hull. A second wooden boat runs across the lower left foreground, with a raised prow and a dark cylindrical object resting inside near the left side. At the right edge, the front portion of another wooden boat enters the frame. The water surface shows small ripples. A low strip of land with vegetation runs along the horizon in the background. The sky fills the upper part of the frame with light cloud streaks.

Source: Geoffrey Benjamin (2023).

When I did field research on Karas in 2024, an island to the east of Galang Island, inhabitants identified themselves as Orang Laut Asli (Original Orang Laut) belonging to Suku Galang (Galang Tribe). But they were already settled on land when I met them in 1979. Their 19^th century ancestors were identified as Orang Laut by European sources. Schot (Reference Schot1882: 4:2, 164–165; Reference Schot1883: 5:1, 472–473) mentioned the ‘Orang Suku Galang, mainly from the Galang Islands’ as among the ‘more powerful and prestigious Orang Laut groups’ and among the ‘fighting forces of the ruler’ (Andaya Reference Andaya1975: 44, 47). Based on this evidence, I conclude that the Suku Galang were hamba raja.

At present, even though the premodern state no longer exists, previous integration of Orang Laut ancestors into that premodern state still matters. Living Orang Laut communities dispute their relative ranking on the basis of their ancestors’ relationship to an extinct premodern state. For example, as reported by Chou (Reference Chou2003: 46–47), two Orang Laut communities at Pulau Nanga and Teluk Nipah (on Pulau Batu Belobang), both places located to the east of Galang Baru Island, dispute their relative ranking thus:

Suri [of Nanga] said:

Meen [headman of Teluk Nipah] said:

Bolong, Suri’s brother, also told me in 1980 that the Nanga people are Suku Galang. The dispute between the Nanga and Teluk Nipah communities implies the following hierarchy:

Figure 1.

Figure 1 lists the sukus mentioned by respondents at Nanga and Teluk Nipah.

Figure 1 Long description

The table has 3 rows and 3 columns. Column headers are: Suku Name, Mentioned By, Implied Status. Row 1: Suku Galang, mentioned by Bolong, Suri and Meen, with high status implied. Row 2: Suku Barok, mentioned by Suri and Meen and Suku Mantang, mentioned by Meen, with low status implied. Row 3: Suku Tambus, mentioned by Meen, with even lower status implied. The table links suku names to individuals who mentioned them and their implied status levels.

Source: Chou (2003: 46-47).

From our combined field research, Chou (Reference Chou2003, Reference Chou2010) and I have found that at present the Orang Laut are neither homogeneous nor unified. Each local community is self-governing, with inhabitants related to each other through descent and marriage. Even Orang Laut communities whose ancestors were hamba raja are self-governing. Moreover, those who belong to different local groups have nothing to do with each other. For example, those living in Bintan and those living in Karas, as mentioned above, do not interact at all. Such a localising situation, found even among those whose ancestors were hamba raja, is the opposite of centralisation, which is the raison d’etre of the state, both premodern and modern. What the premodern state offered to the hamba raja is hierarchisation whereby each localised tribe was placed in a single hierarchy.

However, the premodern Johor sultanate was divided by the European colonisers. In 1824, the English and the Dutch signed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty in London to resolve disputes and to prevent any future dispute between them. This Treaty demarcated two spheres of influence – British and Dutch. The Malay Peninsula and Singapore (and subsequently northern Borneo) were to be in the British sphere of influence, while the islands that became the Dutch East Indies were to be in the Dutch sphere of influence. The remnant of the Johor sultanate that was in the Dutch sphere of influence was renamed as the Riau-Lingga sultanate. For that reason, I refer to the divided Johor sultanate as the Johor-Riau premodern state, even though no such premodern state was named as such.

The modern nation-states of Malaysia and Singapore succeeded British Malaya, while Indonesia succeeded the Dutch East Indies. As mentioned above, Johor-Riau was broken up by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty, with Johor belonging to the British sphere of influence and the Riau-Lingga Islands belonging to the Dutch sphere of influence. Singapore, designated by the Treaty as belonging to the British sphere of influence, formerly had Orang Laut living on the islands off its south and north coasts. Before the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, the Dutch had objected to the British setting up a trading post in Singapore. In 1819, the Dutch governor-general, Baron Van der Capellen, wrote about the location of Singapore:

Dutch objections to Singapore as part of the British sphere of influence were quelled by the 1824 Anglo-Dutch Treaty.

Present modern nation-states are not successors of former premodern states. This mistake was made as recently as 2022 by the former prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, when he asserted that Malaysia should claim Singapore and the Riau Islands (The Straits Times 2022). Singapore and the Riau Archipelago were indeed part of the premodern Johor sultanate, but the modern nation-state of Malaysia is the successor of British Malaya. Similarly, Indonesia is not the successor of at least fifty premodern kingdoms that had existed on the territory.Footnote ¹³ Rather, it is the successor of the Dutch East Indies.

In the 19^th century, Johor, Singapore, Batam, Bulan, Galang and other islands in the vicinity belonged to perentah Temenggong (the Temenggong’s dominion), which was not a state but ‘part of a larger political unit’, consisting of ‘islands in the northwestern part of the Riau Archipelago and included Singapore and a portion of the Johor coastline’ (Trocki Reference Trocki1979: xv). Temenggong Abdu’r Rahman exemplifies a local chief with control over some of the hamba raja (ruler’s slaves). He had control over ‘ten island suku of sea peoples’, numbering close to 10,000, as his followers were ‘made up primarily of sea peoples’ (Trocki Reference Trocki1979: xv, 43). When Stamford Raffles and Thomas Farquhar, representing the English East India Company, signed a treaty in Singapore in 1819 with the Temenggong and his preferred candidate as sultan, Hussein Shah, the inhabitants of the island included 1000 Orang Laut, including 500 Orang Kallang, 200 Orang Seletar, 150 Orang Gelam, and other Orang Laut (Turnbull Reference Turnbull1977: 5).

Some Orang Laut respondents on Karas said that their ancestors knew when the Riau-Lingga kingdom, the remnant of the Johor sultanate in the Dutch sphere of influence, was ending. For them, the end was not 1824, as they deemed irrelevant what the British and the Dutch signed in London. What was relevant was what happened in 1910-1911. They told me that just before the last sultan, Sultan Abdul Rahman Muazzam Shah, left Penyengat in the Riau-Lingga Islands for Singapore, their ancestors had urged him not to leave. However, the sultan still left as he had been formally deposed by the Dutch. My interpretation is that my respondents’ memories are still contextualised within the premodern state.

To some extent, conversion to Islam has replaced the role of integration into a premodern state. Even in the past, conversion to Islam had a significant role. My respondent, Raja Hamzah Yunus of Penyengat, told me that in the past, when the headman (batin) of an Orang Laut community died, his death was reported to the datuk (chief). The succeeding headman was brought to the sultan to receive a surat angkatan (letter of appointment). These letters differed because a penghulu had to be Muslim, whereas a batin did not. The sultan’s letter to the former stated ‘kamu beragama Islam (you, an adherent of Islam)’, whereas his letter to the latter acknowledged that the addressee ‘belum tahu Islam lagi (does not yet know Islam)’.

In the implicit hierarchy, Orang Laut who convert to Islam and are accepted as Muslims by other more pious Muslims claim a higher rank than non-Muslim Orang Laut or insufficiently converted ‘Muslims’ who are not accepted by more pious Muslims.Footnote ¹⁴ In so doing, they are harkingback to a memory of the premodern state.

An example my field research in 2023 when Tanjung, a boat-dwelling, non-Muslim Orang Laut from Ngenang, located off the island of Ngenang near Batam, told me that her rowing boat had been made by a Melayu person in Air Gelubi. I asked her what she had meant by Melayu, to which she answered that it was a matter of agama (religion). Melayu ikut Islam (Melayu people adhere to Islam), she said. I subsequently met Tanjung’s boat-builder, Itar, on Air Gelubi island, off the south-eastern coast of Bintan Island. He acknowledged that his parents were boat-dwelling Orang Laut, born at sea off the east coast of Bintan. However, he himself had converted to Islam and was therefore Melayu. Moreover, he was also sedentarised.

As mentioned above, the premodern state offered tribal communities ranks in a hierarchy. But at present, some Orang Laut are converting instead to Roman Catholicism, not Islam. Examples are the Orang Laut of Panglong on the northeast coast of Bintan Island and those in Teluk Nipah on the island of Pulau Batu Belobang. Generalising from my respondents, I argue that those who have converted to Islam identify themselves as ‘Melayu’ and no longer as Orang Laut. But this is itself an aberration from the past of the premodern state. Should they not continue to be hamba raja even after conversion to Islam? After all, according to Raja Hamzah Yunus of Penyengat (see above), some hamba raja had converted to Islam in the past and were called ‘penghulu’ in contrast to ‘batin.’ At present, there are some Orang Laut who still want to identify themselves as Orang Laut and Melayu Asli (original Melayu). This is evidently an option open to them after they convert to Roman Catholicism. These respondents make no reference to a hierarchy of ranks which used to be provided by the premodern state, instead accepting that they are part of the Republic of Indonesia.Footnote ¹⁵

I found that Orang Laut who have converted to Islam are pressured by other, more pious Muslims to terminate animistic rituals and to break off social ties with non-Muslim kin and friends for reasons of non-commensality and non-marriageability.Footnote ¹⁶ Unless they do so, they are not accepted as true Muslims by more pious Muslims. Animistic rituals for the deceased are tended to by a tuan (master) of the grave. The deceased who are hungry are said to appear in dreams to the tuan, who then has to feed them. Orang Laut respondents said that even boat-dwelling Orang Laut look after the graves of their dead by remembering where these are located and visiting regularly to feed the deceased. Animistic actions are anathema to pious Muslims who practise their religion with seriousness.

As the chart below shows, conversion to Islam, followed by the termination of animistic rituals and the breaking off of social ties with non-Muslim kin and friends, enables converts to assert a superior social status over two categories of Orang Laut – (i) converts who do not end animistic rituals and who continue to relate to non-Muslim kin and friends, and (ii) those who have not converted to Islam. The following chart depicts the hierararchisation of Orang Laut converts to Islam in relation to lesser converts and non-converts:

From her field research among Orang Laut at Nanga, off Galang Baru, Chou (Reference Chou2010: 140) notes that requirements of Islam are impractical for the Orang Laut, as ‘the building of a place of worship and observing the stipulated regular daily prayers would only cause them to be bound to land.’ Irregular hours entailed by fishing are also challenging to those who, moreover, may not have time-keeping devices, making it impossible to observe daily prayer times. It is also impractical to carry on board the quantity of fresh water needed for pre-prayer ablutions.

In unwitting remembrance of the premodern sultanate of Johor-Riau, descendants of the Bugis warriors, now living on Pulau Penyengat, off Tanjung Pinang on Bintan Island, distance themselves from present-day Orang Laut. For example, they refuse to eat fish that has been speared by the Orang Laut (Cynthia Chou 2024: personal communication). Instead, they eat schooling species that the Orang Laut cannot spear (Sopher Reference Sopher1977: 233):

Respondents from Penyengat said that Melayu Murni (Pure Melayu) do not eat parrot fish as that is an ‘Orang Laut fish’. Instead, they eat ikan tamban (Spratelloides gracilis: a herring-like fish) and other small schooling species, which cannot be speared. It is thus the case that not only do converts to Islam see themselves as superior to non-converts, their activities are also hierarchised as befitting people of superior rank. These activities span their daily lives, such as the fish they eat, as well as higher-level activities such as piracy.

Scott (Reference Scott2009: 19) mentioned ‘piracy (seaborne raiding), slave-raiding, and serving as the naval guard and strike force of several Malay kingdoms’ as characteristic of the Orang Laut in the past. It is important to differentiate between state-sponsored piracy and piracy not sponsored by the state. While piracy has been reported since the 14^th century when Wang Dayuan 汪大渊, a trader who lived during the Song Dynasty (960 to 1279), wrote that in Temasek/Singapore, there were natives who obtained goods through the pillage and plunder of trading ships. He said, if one is lucky to have a good wind it is possible not to suffer, [but if they] get caught, people are slaughtered [and their goods] are taken/possessed and (the) people also die apparently within a very short time’ (Miksic Reference Miksic2013: 169–175). Such piracy does not seem to have been sponsored by the premodern state. Indeed, Wang does not mention any relationship that the indigenous ruling elite had with the pirates (Miksic Reference Miksic2013: 176–177).

In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the state-sponsored piracy of the hamba raja was aided by metal weaponry, especially knives. Citing Logan (Reference Logan1847), rulers provided boats and arms for raids (Mahani Musa 2011: 51). In contrast, piracy not sponsored by the state was conducted without metal weapons. In my field research on Karas in 1980, a respondent named Abubakar bin Hussein, commonly called ‘Pak Ndak Abuk’, identified himself as a former Panglima Galang pirate (see Plate 3). He said that as pirates, they fought using wooden clubs. He said that when one holds a belantan (club), one becomes kebal (invincible) and can withstand even a cannon-ball. He gave me a belantan (wooden club) made of kayu mentigi (Pemphia acidula: a hardwood) (see Plate 4).Footnote ¹⁸

Plate 3.

Pak Andak Abuk of Karas showing how he used a belantan (club).

Plate 3 Long description

A shirtless man is standing indoors, holding a knife in his right hand raised above his head. He is wearing dark pants with a white string tied at the waist. The room has blue wooden walls and a wooden ceiling. The man is barefoot and his left hand is clenched into a fist. The setting appears to be a simple, rustic interior.

Source: Vivienne Wee (1980).

Plate 4.

The belantan (wooden club), close-up.

Source: Geoffrey Benjamin (2023).

In 1982, I interviewed Duallib bin Talib of Pulau Seking, among Singapore’s Southern islands, then still an island,Footnote ¹⁹ who had identified himself as a Panglima Gelam (Gelam Warrior). He differentiated between the Panglima Gelam and the Panglima Galang in the way they killed victims. Whereas the Panglima Galang clubbed people to death, the Panglima Gelam cut off their victims’ ears with knives before throwing their corpses into the sea, so that the ears did not become wings, enabling the corpses to float. His account implies that the Panglima Gelam had metal knives, whereas the Panglima Galang did not, as the metal knives enabled the former to cut off ears. As a result of this difference, he said that the Panglima Gelam were able to rampas harta (plunder goods) whereas the Panglima Galang could only rampas orang (abduct people). We can thus conclude from this account that the Panglima Gelam were state-sponsored pirates with metal weapons for raids.

As to why the Panglima Galang pirates did not conduct state-sponsored piracy, my respondents told me that since 1722, their ancestors had opposed the Bugis warriors supporting Tengku Sulaiman as sultan because they regarded him as an illegitimate sultan. In the war of 1722, the Bugis warriors achieved victory and became part of the ruling elite of the Johor sultanate. Instead of submitting to them, the ancestors of Karas respondents decided to be independent – ‘like a republic’, a respondent said. Because they had ceased submitting to the ruler, they were no longer hamba raja dutifully performing corvée for the sultan. Their animosity has continued to the present as they do not regard the descendants of the Bugis warriors as legitimate members of the premodern state, as they see themselves as Melayu Asli (Original Melayu) in opposition to the descendants of Bugis ancestors who are Melayu Dagang (Foreign or Trading Melayu).

Matheson and Hooker (Reference Matheson, Hooker and Reid1983: 195) note that ‘three manuscripts of the Tuhfat al-Nafis use the term hamba tua (old slaves) or orang-orangnya (his people)’, while the only reference to hamba raja concerns their involvement in piracy.Footnote ²⁰ From this, the author draws the following implications:

1. 1. The previous Melaka system of having hamba raja weakened after the war of 1722

2. 2. The Suku Galang, who were ancestors of the present-day Karas people, had previously been hamba raja in the premodern state of Melaka (1400 – 1511/1528)Footnote ²¹

In the 18^th century the hamba raja could withhold their loyalty from a premodern ruling elite whom they regarded as illegitimate.

I found in my field research in the Riau-Lingga Islands that Orang Laut communities who have settled on land do not revert to becoming boat-dwellers. Cynthia Chou (personal communication), who has done research on the Orang Laut in the Riau-Lingga islands, concurs. Current incentives for Orang Laut to settle on land differ from what they were in premodern times. Present incentives include proximity to schools and clinics, as well as the ability to fulfil religious obligations, such as going to the mosque on Fridays and to the church on Sundays. Religious conversions of the Orang Laut converge with the aims of the Indonesian Government’s Ministry of Religious Affairs (Kementerian Agama) (Syafiq Hasyim and Norshahril Saat Reference Hasyim and Saat2020). Yet memories of their ancestors as panglima (warriors) persist, such as the memory of a war with Bugis warriors in 1722, resulting in the current lack of interaction between the Karas people as descendants of the Suku Galang, and the descendants of 18^th-century Bugis warriors.

The Orang Laut of the Riau Archipelago are part of the modern nation-state of Indonesia. Yet they are not equal citizens, even though the Indonesian Constitution states that ‘all citizens have equal status.’Footnote ²² The Orang Laut have been stigmatised as masyarakat terasing (marginalised community) in official discourse.Footnote ²³ In 1994, the Indonesian Government categorised some one million rural people as masyarakat terasing or masyarakat terpencil (marginal communities or isolated communities) (Li Reference Li2000: 154). Their way of life is disparaged by the Indonesian Government as unsuitable in a developing nation-state that prioritises permanent settlement, where settled inhabitants make a livelihood through earned wages, and adhere to a world religion. State ideology disparages nomadism, animism, and the subsistence economy, even though many citizens make a living in the informal sector. The modernist ideology prescribes a way of life dependent on jobs, even though jobs are scarce in present-day Indonesia. While the subsistence economy enables most citizens, including the Orang Laut, to provide for themselves in a national economy with an insufficient number of paying jobs, the Indonesian Government nevertheless pushes the Orang Laut to settle on land, to convert to a world religion, and to be employed in the monetised economy.

The informal sector enables the majority of Indonesian citizens to make a living. The Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS, Statistics Indonesia) stated in 2019 that the informal sector in Indonesia was an important part of nationwide employment, accounting for 57.27 percent or 74.08 million people (Made Anthony Iswara and Marchio Irfan Gorbiano Reference Gorbiano2019).Footnote ²⁴ Those who fail to get formal jobs work in the informal sector as drivers, street vendors, casual construction workers, porters, sex workers, and so on. Nevertheless, the Indonesian government prioritises only workers in the formal sector. Among non-agricultural firms in Indonesia, almost 90 per cent are micro enterprises requiring fewer than 5 workers, while 9 per cent are small enterprises requiring fewer than 20 workers (World Bank Group 2019). Most new low-value-added, low-wage service jobs have been in agriculture, which hardly exists in the Riau-Lingga Islands.

Moreover, boat-dwelling Orang Laut have to contend with the Indonesian Government’s policy of permukiman (settling nomadic communities into villages), which has been criticised as infrastructural violence, with land-centred structures imposed on maritime communitiesFootnote ²⁵ (Khidir 2015: 127). While they are urged by the Indonesian Government to settle on land, they are not given title deeds. An example from my field research at Panglong on the north-eastern coast of Bintan Island is that the land on which the existing Orang Laut settlement has been given by the Indonesian Government in a concession to the Salim Group, which has not yet found another use for the land.