Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T17:13:36.778Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A History of Trade in the Sea of Melayu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

Leonard Y. Andaya
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The first reference to a ‘Sea of Melayu’ is from an Arabic document dated c. 1000, which noted that travellers ‘reaching the Sea of Melayu, were approaching the area of China’. While the location of the Sea of Melayu is not specified, the practice of naming a sea after a dominant people surrounding its shores suggests that this particular body of water must have been the Straits of Melaka. This is clear in the only other known reference to the use of this name, which is found in Description of Malacca, Meridional India and Cathay written in 1613 by Emanuel Godinho de Eredia, a Eurasian Jesuit born in Portuguese Melaka. Eredia refers to the Sea of Melayu as that ‘land-enclosed sea between the mainland of Ujontana [Malay Peninsula] and the Golden Chersonese [Sumatra]’. He was clearly referring to the Straits of Melaka, though it was obviously not yet called that by his contemporaries. Eredia's description of that ‘land-enclosed sea’ clearly reveals a commonly held assumption of the greater significance of a land mass over a body of water. But for Malays and many other sea and riverine peoples, the focus was on water, not land, and entities were formed by seas and rivers joined by short land passages.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 87 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 Tibbetts, G.R., A Study of the Arabic Texts Containing Material on South-East Asia (London/Leiden 1979) 43.Google Scholar

2 J.V. Mills ed., Eredia's Description of Malaca, Meridional India and Cathay. Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Reprint 14 (1997) 42.

3 Wolters, O.W., The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History (Ithaca 1970) 21.Google Scholar

4 Wang, Gungwu, Community and Nation: Essays on Southeast Asia and the Chinese (Singapore 1981) 108.Google Scholar

5 The word ‘Melayu’, i.e. ‘Malay’, was first used in the seventh century to refer to a place in southeast Sumatra. Not until the eighteenth century did a Chinese writer use the term Melayu to describe a people. Wang, Community and Nation, 108.

6 See L.Y. Andaya, ‘The Search for the Origins of Melayu’ (in press).

7 Sources for the trade in Southeast Asia up to the fifteenth century are few and scattered. While documents for the early modern period (c. 1500-c. 1800) are somewhat better, they are principally focused on major entrepots or coastal kingdoms. I have tried in this essay to rely solely on authors who have used contemporary materials in reconstructing the past, but at times I have resorted to using later accounts where one could argue that later practices may have been similar to those of an earlier period.

8 Donkin, R.A., Dragon's Brain Perfume: A Historical Geography of Camphor (Leiden 1999) 13.Google Scholar

9 Schafer, Edward H., The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'ang Exotics (Berkeley 1963) 163–165.Google Scholar

10 Burkill, I.H., A Dictionary of the Economic Products of the Malay Peninsula I (Kuala Lumpur 1966) 200–201.Google Scholar

11 Donkin, Dragon's Brain Perfume, 127. O.W. Wolters has argued that, in addition to benzoin and camphor, pine resin (Pinus merkusii, Jungh) were substituted for the original frankincense and myrrh from west Asia. Wolters, , Early Indonesian Commerce (Ithaca 1967)Google Scholar. A recent study has shown that it was benzoin (not pine resin) which was substituted for frankincense, and that the Chinese reference to ‘pine fragrance’ was not pine resin but benzoin. Hale, Daniel B., ‘Damar in the Pasar of Manado, North Sulawesi: A Search for Resins in an Indonesian Market’, Explorations in Southeast Asian Studies 2 (1998) 41.Google Scholar

12 Schafer, Golden Peaches, 166.

13 Miksic, , ‘Traditional Sumatran Trade’, Bulletin d'école française d'extrême orient 74 (1985) 438Google Scholar; Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 106, 296; H.H. Zeijlstra, ‘Boschproducten’ in: van Gorkum, K.W., Oost-Indische Cultures III (Amsterdam 1913) 826.Google Scholar

14 Though no comparative prices are available in this period, a nineteenth-century report estimates that between a half and fifteen kati (280 gr to 8.38 kg) could be collected per tree, and one picul (56 kg) of camphor would cost 4000 guilders, a considerable sum in the nineteenth century. Zeijlstra, ‘Boschproducten’, 826.

15 Donkin, Dragon's Brain Perfume, 130.

16 Burkill, Dictionary of the Economic Products II, 2144.

17 Burkill, Dictionary of the Economic Products I, 878.

18 Miksic, ‘Archaeology, Trade and Society in Northeast Sumatra’ (1979) 261; Dobbin, Christine, Islamic Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy 47 (London 1983) 60.Google Scholar

19 Dunn, F.L., Rain-forest Collectors and Traders: A Study of Resource Utilization in Modern and Ancient Malaya (Kuala Lumpur 1975) 109.Google Scholar

20 Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 20–27.

21 Tibbetts, Study of the Arabic Texts, 28.

22 Gianno, Rosemary, Semelai Culture and Resin Technology (New Haven 1990) 75–89Google Scholar.

23 In Malay areas ‘pawang’ is applied to an expert who relies on spiritual forces to accomplish his task. See Wilkinson, R.J., A Malay-English Dictionary (Romanised) (London 1959)Google Scholar under ‘pawang’.

24 Donkin, Dragon's Brain Perfume, 176, 178, 181–182.

25 Dunn, Rain-forest, 80, 100–101.

26 A well-known example is in Rembau when the Minangkabau settlers arrived on the Malay Peninsula and established an alliance with the Jakun communities. Peletz, Michael Gates, A Share of the Harvest: Kinship, Property and Social History among the Malays of Rembau (Berkeley 1988) 24–25.Google Scholar

27 Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 26, 105, 153, 158, 168.

28 Potter, Lesley M., ‘A Forest Product out of Control: Gutta Percha in Indonesia and the Wider Malay World, 1845–1915’ in: Peter Boomgaard et al., Paper Landscapes: Explorations in the Environmental History of Indonesia (Leiden 1997) 300–301.Google Scholar

29 Sandbukt, Oyvind, ‘Precolonial Populations and Polities in Lowland Sumatra: An Anthropological Perspective’, Kaber Seberang 22 (1991) 43Google Scholar; Andaya, Barbara Watson, To Live as Brothers (Honolulu 1993) 232–233Google Scholar, passim.

30 Andaya, L.Y., The Kingdom of Johor (Kuala Lumpur 1975) 173–174Google Scholar; Barnard, Timothy P., ‘Multiple Centers of Authority: Society and Environment in Siak and Eastern Sumatra, 1674–1827’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Hawaii 1998) 82Google Scholar; Gianno, Semelai Culture, 37.

31 Maxwell, W.E., ‘The History of Perak from Native Sources’, Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 9 (June 1882) 89Google Scholar.

32 Gianno, Semelai Culture, 37.

33 Cummings, W., ‘Cultural Interaction in a Sumatran State: Deli 1814–1872’ (M.A. thesis, University of Hawaii, May 1994) 16–17Google Scholar.

34 Oki, Akira, ‘The River Trade in Central and South Sumatra in the 19th Century’ in: Kato, Tsuyoshi et al. eds, Environment, Agriculture and Society in the Malay World (Kyoto 1986) 3–48Google Scholar.

35 Cummings, ‘Cultural Interaction’, 18–21.

36 Miksic, ‘Archaeology’, 97, 106.

37 Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 6–7, 60; Oki, ‘River Trade’, 37.

38 Alastair Lamb, ‘Report on the Excavation and Reconstruction of Chandi Bukit Batu Pahat, Central Kedah’, Federation Museums Journal (1960) 34.

39 Drakard, Jane, A Malay Frontier: Unity and Duality in a Sumatran Kingdom (Ithaca 1990) 33–34Google Scholar.

40 Wheatley, Paul, The Golden Khersonese (Kuala Lumpur 1961) 151–159Google Scholar; Miksic, , ‘Protohistoric Settlement Patterns’ in: Early History IV: The Encyclopedia of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur 1998) 66–67Google Scholar.

41 Wang, Gungwu, ‘The Nanhai Trade: A Study of the Early History of Chinese Trade in the South China Sea’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 31/2 (1958) 52, 68Google Scholar.

42 Simkin, C.G.F., The Traditional Trade of Asia (London 1968) 84Google Scholar.

43 Tibbetts, Study of the Arabic Texts, 33.

44 Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, xxi, xxvi.

45 Ibid., xxvii.

46 Stark, Miriam T. et al. , ‘Results of the 1995–1996 Archeological Field Investigations at Angkor Borei’, Asian Perspectives 38 (1999) 8, 12, 26–27, 30Google Scholar.

47 Miksic, , ‘Trade Routes and Trade Centres’ in: Early History IV: The Encyclopedia of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur 1998) 78Google Scholar.

48 Vickery, Michael, Society, Economics, and Politics in Pre-Angkor Cambodia: 7th and 8th Centuries (Tokyo 1998) 282–288Google Scholar.

49 Stargardt, Janice, ‘Hydraulic Works and Southeast Asian Polities’ in: Marr, David G. and Milner, A.C. eds, Southeast Asia in the 9th to 14th Centuries (Singapore/Canberra 1986) 24–25, 28, 30Google Scholar.

50 For a study of the antecedents of Srivijaya, and its rise and subsequent demise, see Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce and his Fall of Srivijaya.

51 L.Y. Andaya, ‘The Search’.

52 Georges Coedès, ‘The Ligor Stone: The Current State of Its Interpretation’ in: G. Coedès and L.-C. Damais, Sriwijaya. Monograph 20 of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Kuala Lumpur 1992) 110–111; Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya, 134.

53 Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, 185–186.

54 Nik Hassan Shuhaimi Nik Abdul Rahman, ‘The Bujang Valley’, 106–107.

55 Cortesão, Armando, The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires II (New Delhi 1990) 270Google Scholar.

56 Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 72–73; Kathirithamby-Wells, J., ‘Achehnese Control over West Sumatra up to the Treaty of Painan of 1663’, Journal of Southeast Asian History 10/3 (1969) 459–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bulbeck, David et al. , Southeast Asian Exports since the 14th Century: Cloves, Pepper, Coffee, and Sugar (Leiden 1998) 5, 62, 81–82Google Scholar; Reid, Anthony, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–168011: Expansion and Crisis (New Haven 1993) 19–20Google Scholar.

57 Cortesão, Suma Oriental I, 140, 144.

58 Cortesão, Suma Oriental I, 107.

59 Terpstra, H., De Factorij der Oostindische Compagnie te Patanie (The Hague 1938) 151–153CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Kathirithamby-Wells, The British, 16, 60, 72–74; B.W. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 43; Bulbeck et al., Southeast Asian Exports, 60.

61 Kathirithamby-Wells, The British, 16, 60–61, 212–213.

62 Ras, J.J., Hikayat Banjar: A Study in Malay Historiography (The Hague 1968) 265–267Google Scholar.

63 Michael Dove, ‘The Political Ecology of Pepper in the Hikayat Banjar: The Historiography of Commodity Production in a Bornean Kingdom’ in: Boomgaard et al., Paper Landscapes, 343.

64 Andaya, B.W., ‘Women and Economic Change: The Pepper Trade in Pre-Modern Southeast Asia’, Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 38/2 (1993) 173–175Google Scholar.

65 L.Y. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism; Drakard, Jane, A Kingdom of Words: Language and Power in Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur 1999)Google Scholar; B.W. Andaya, To Live as Brothers.

66 Andaya, B.W., ‘Cash Cropping and Upstream-Downstream Tensions: The Case of Jambi in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’ in: Reid, Anthony ed., Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era (Ithaca 1993) 99–100Google Scholar.

67 B.W. Andaya, ‘Women and Economic Change’, 178–179.

68 Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism, 77–78.

69 B.W. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 213–214.

70 Wong, Lin Ken, The Malayan Tin Industry to 1914 (Tucson 1965) 10Google Scholar.

71 Andaya, B.W., Perak: The Abode of Grace (Kuala Lumpur 1979) 21Google Scholar.

72 Wong, The Malayan Tin Industry, 2.

73 B.W. Andaya, Perak, 17, 21–22.

74 Winstedt, R.O., ‘The Malay Annals or Sejarah Melayu’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 16/3 (1938)Google Scholar.

75 For an excellent discussion of such multiple allegiances in premodern Thailand, see Thongchai, Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation (Honolulu 1994)Google Scholar.

76 B.W. Andaya, Perak, 19.

77 Maxwell, George, ‘Barretto de Resende's Account of Malacca’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic 60 (1911) 11Google Scholar.

78 B.W. Andaya, Perak, 396–368.

79 Mills, Eredia ‘s Description, 235.

80 B.W. Andaya, Perak, 396–367.

81 Barnard, ‘Multiple Centres’, 64–65.

82 Barnard, ‘Multiple Centres’, 64–65, 77, 80–83.

83 Vos, Reinout, Gentle Janus, Merchant Prince: The VOC and the Tightrope of Diplomacy in the Malay World, 1740–1800 (Leiden 1993) 217–218Google Scholar.

84 Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya; L.Y. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor.

85 Andaya, B.W., ‘Adapting to Political and Economic Change: Palembang in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries’ in: Reid, Anthony ed., The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies: Responses to Modernity in the Diverse States of Southeast Asia and Korea, 1750–1900 (London 1997) 193Google Scholar.

86 See, for example, L.Y. Andaya, ‘The Aceh Period of Malay History’ (in press).

87 Cortesão, Suma Oriental I, 139.

88 Meilink-Roelofsz, M.A.P., Asian Trade and European Influence (The Hague 1962) 90Google Scholar.

89 Terpstra, De Factorij, 4.

90 Moreland, W.H. ed., Peter Floris: His Voyage to the East Indies in the Globe, 1611–1615 (London 1934) 67Google Scholar.

91 Maxwell, ‘Barretto de Resende's Account’, 11; Meilink-Roelofsz, Asian Trade, 165.

92 The history of Srivijaya is a history of the interrelations between Java and Sumatra. See L.Y. Andaya, ‘The Search’, 5–8, passim. So intertwined were the fortunes of both areas that the Persians and Arabs tended to view them as belonging to one kingdom. Ferrand, G., Relations des Voyages et Textes Géograhiques Arabes, Persans el Turks Relatifs a l'Extréme-Orient du VII au XVIII Siècles (Paris 1913) 91–94Google Scholar, 99–100.

93 Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya; L.Y. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor.