1 This twin concept of a Minangkabau is discussed in Kato, Tsuyoshi, Matriliny and Migration: Evolving Minangkabau Traditions in Indonesia (Ithaca/London 1982)Google Scholar. See also the classic formulation of these characteristics in Jong, E. de Josselin de, Minangkabau and Negri Sembilan: Socio-Political Structure in Indonesia [3rd. impression] (The Hague 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 See, for example, Schrijvers, joke and Postel-Coster, Els, ‘Minangkabau Women: Change in a Matrilineal Society’, ArchipellS 13 (1977) 79–103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPrindiville, Joanne, ‘Mother, Mother's Brother, and Modernization: The Problems and Prospects of Minangkabau Matriliny in a Changing World’ in: Thomas, L. L. and Benda-Beckmann, F. van eds, Change and Continuity in Minangkabau (Ohio 1985) 29–45Google Scholar.Benda-Beckmann, F. von, ‘Development, Law, and Gender-skewing: An Examination of the Impact of Development on the Socio-legal Position of Indonesian Women, with Special Reference to Minangkabau’, Journal of Legal Pluralism 30/1 (1990)Google Scholar.Mayla, Stivens, ‘The Fate of Women's Land Rights: Gender, Matri-liny and Capitalism in Rembau, Negri Sembilan, Malaysia’ in: Afshar, H. ed., Women, Work, and Ideology in the Third World (London/New York 1985)Google Scholar.Tanner, Nancy and Thomas, Lynn L., ‘Rethinking Matriliny: Decision-making and Sex Roles in Minangkabau’ in: Thomas, L. L. and Benda-Beckmann, F. van eds, Change and Continuity in Minangkabau (Ohio 1985) 45–73Google Scholar.Sanday, Peggy R., ‘Androcentric and Matrifocal Gender Representations in Minangkabau Ideology’ in: Sanday, Peggy R. and Goodenough, R. G. eds, Beyond the Second Sex: New Directions in the Anthropology of Gender (Philadelphia 1992) 139–168Google Scholar.Black-wood, Evelyn, ‘The Politics of Daily Life: Gender, Kingship and Identity in a Minangkabau Village, West Sumatra, Indonesia’ (Ph D Dissertation, Stanford University, 1993)Google Scholar and ‘Senior Women, Model Mothers, and Dutiful Wives: Managing Gender Contradictions in a Mi-nangkabau Village’ in: Ong, A. and Peletz, M. eds, Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia (Berkeley 1995) 124–158.Google ScholarNg, Celia, ‘The Weaving of Prestige: Village Women's Representations of the Social Categories of Minangkabau Society’ (PhD Dissertation, Australian National University, 1987)Google Scholar.Reenen, Johanna Hendrika van, ‘Central Pillars of the House: Sisters, Wives, and Mothers in a Rural Community in Minangkabau, West Sumatra’ (PhD Dissertation, University of Leiden, 1996)Google Scholar.

3 In 1975 a Minangkabau bibliography was compiled into disciplines and contained thirty-eight pages of entries on the economy, twenty-four on language and literature, twenty-three on social and political affairs, twenty-two on law and adatlzw, eighteen on anthropology and culture, eight on history, eight on education, and six on religion. Nairn, Asma M. and Nairn, Mochtar eds, Bibiliografi Minangkabau (Singapore 1975)Google Scholar.

4 For a recen t attempt to provide an intertextual reading of such early and much-quoted commentators of Sumatran societies as Marsden, William, History of Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur 1966) andGoogle ScholarAnderson, John, Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur 1971)Google Scholar [orig. 1826] and Acheen and the Ports on the North and East Coasts of Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur 1970)Google Scholar [orig. 1840], see Quilty, Mary Catherine, Textual Empires: A Reading of Early British Histories of Southeast Asia (Clayton, Victoria 1998)Google Scholar. Adas provides a more detailed historical framework for understanding Christian Europe's perception of ‘races’ in the period of the European explorations: Adas, Michael, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Tech nology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca 1989)Google Scholar. See also Boon, James A., Affinities and Extremes… East Indies History (Chicago 1990)Google Scholar. Contentious issues extend to th e field of archaeology, where nationalistic governments have sought to extend the antiquity and hence prestige of dominant ethnic groups by claiming early communities found within their territories as the earliest representatives of such groups. Jones, Sian, Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present (London/New York 1997) 1–10Google Scholar.

5 Among the most quoted classic works on the subject are Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities (London 1993)Google Scholar and Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence eds, Inventions of Traditions (Cambridge 1983)Google Scholar. These spawned other studies whose main argument is that traditions are not inherited as much as manufactured and re-manufactured in accordance to the changing needs of any particular community.

6 As Eriksen so clearly explained: ‘For ethnicity to come about, the groups must have a minimum of contac t with each other, and they must entertain ideas of each other as being culturally different from themselves. If these conditions ar e not fulfilled, there is no ethnicity, for ethnicity is essentially an aspect of a relationship, not a property of a group.’ Eriksen, Thomas Hyland, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspective (London/East Haven, CT 1993) 11–12 (my emphasis)Google Scholar.

7 Barth, Frederik, ‘Introduction’ in: Barth, Frederik ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference (Boston 1969) 9–38Google Scholar.

8 Kahn, Joel S., Constituting the Minangkabau: Peasants, Culture and Modernity in Colonial Indonesia (Providence/Oxford 1993) 15Google Scholar.

9 Kapferer, B., Legends of People, Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Lanka and Australia (Washington 1988) 211Google Scholar.

10 Andaya, Leonard Y., The Kingdom of Johor, 1641-1728 (Kuala Lumpur 1975) 329–332Google Scholar;Drakard, Jane, A Kingdom of Words: Language and Power in Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur 1999) 94–97Google Scholar.

11 See for example de Josselin de Jong's ‘supplementary notes’ to the third impression (1980) of his original work published in 1951. Jong, De Josselin de, Minangkabau and Negri Sembilan, 224–225Google Scholar. Another eighteenth-century example of the balance d tensions between the matrilineal and patrilineal principles is in the.rantau area on west coast Sumatra. Kathirithamby-Wells, , ‘The Inderapura Sultanate: The Foundation of its Rise and Decline from the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries’, Indonesia 21 (1976) 73–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Jong, De Josselin de, Minangkabau and Negri Sembilan, 93Google Scholar.

13 Kato, , Matriliny and Migration, 78Google Scholar.

14 Fox has argued that all Austronesian-speaking societies (which includes the Minangkabau) make use of precedence as a means of social and individual differentiation. Fox, James J., ‘Austronesian Societies and Their Transformations’ in: Bellwood, Peter, Fox, James J. and Tryon, Darrel eds, The Austronesians: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (Canberra 1995) 214–228Google Scholar. This would have encouraged ambitious individuals to found new communitie s and hence gain the prestige and privileges of a founder status. Bellwood, Peter, ‘Hierarchy, Founder Ideology and Austronesian Expansion’ in: JFox, ames J. and Sather, Clifford eds, Origins, Ancestry, and Alliance: Explorations in Austronesian Ethnography (Canberra 1996) 28–31Google Scholar.

15 Kato, , Matriliny and Migration, 22, 29-31Google Scholar.

16 Taufik, Abdullah, ‘Studi tentang Minangkabau’ in: Ibrahim, Ahmad ed., Persepsi Minangka-bau (Medan 1984) 192–193Google Scholar;Kato, Tsuyoshi, ‘Social Change in a Centrifugal Society: The Minangkabau of West Sumatra’ (PhD Thesis, Cornell University, 1977) v, 75Google Scholar. In modern Indonesia where Minangkabau in the rantau no longer regard land as of vital importance t o the prosperity of the group, there has been a romanticizing of matriliny as a core definition of what it means to be Minangkabau. The tendency is particularly strong among studies on gender in Minangkabau.

17 Duara, Prasenjit, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago 1995) 65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 The people who are known as ‘Batak’ in the interior of northern Sumatra consist of a number of different groups distinguished primarily by language or dialect. On the frontiers, the Batak intermarried with neighbouring groups to form a mixed population. Joustra, M., Batakspiegel [2nd ed.] (Leiden 1926) 9Google Scholar. It is at these frontiers that comparative advantage plays a role in ethnic choice.

19 Jong, De Josselin de, Minangkabau and Negri Sembilan, 69Google Scholar. A study based on a survey made i n the 1970s and on statistics gathered in 1955 show the suku Malayu with the second largest representation among the Minangkabau nagari (unit of settlement consisting of the ‘mother’ village and its associated ‘children’ villages) after Caniago. One Minangka-bau source even claims that the oldest suku (matrilineage) in West Sumatra is Malayu. Kato, , Matriliny and Migration, 80–81Google Scholar.

20 Willinck, G. D., Het Rechtsleven bij de Minangkabausche Maleiers (Leiden 1909) 66Google Scholar.

21 Numerous examples can be found in Andaya, B. W., To Live as Brothers: Southeast Sumatra in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Honolulu 1993)Google Scholar;Barnard, Timothy P., ‘Multiple Centers of Authority: Society and Environment in Siak and Eastern Sumatra, 1674-1827’ (PhD Thesis, University of Hawaii, 1998)Google Scholar; L. Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, Dobbin, Christine, Islamic Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy (London/Malmö, 1983)Google Scholar; and Drakard, Kingdom of Words.

22 Willinck, , Het Rechtsleven, 33–34Google Scholar. The mamak, or mother's brother, plays the dominant role in the lives of the kemanakan, or his sister's children. In the rantau one often finds a modification of this customary practice.

23 Wolters, O. W., The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History (Kuala Lumpur 1970) 45, 194, fn. 9Google Scholar; Frederick Hirth and W.W. Rockhill eds, Chau Ju-kua: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteen Centuries [reprint of 1911 edition] (New York 1966) 66, fn. 18. Rouffaer argues that ‘Malaiyur’ derives from the Tamil ‘malai’, hill, and ‘ur’, city, hence Malaiyur or Hill City. He provides no reference to his claim that the Tamils and Malays claim Jambi as a motherland. Rouffaer, G. P., ‘Was Malaka Emporium vóór 1400 AD Genaamd Malajoer’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie 77 (1921) 16–18Google Scholar.

24 The interpretation is less well-known but more convincing than the generally-held belief that there was a military expedition sent from Java to Sumatra. Thi s interpretation was first raised by C.C. Berg in 1951 and supported in a n article written in 1985 byJ.G. d e Casparis. See Berg, , ‘De Geschiedenis van Pril Majapahitl’, Indonesia 4 (1950–1951) 485Google Scholar; and Casparis, , ‘Srivijaya an d Malayu’, SPAFA Final Report: SEAMEO Project in Archaeology and Fine Arts (Jakarta/Padang/Prapat/Medan 1985) 247–248Google Scholar.

25 C. C. Berg argues that the sending of the Amoghapasa Buddha statue to Dharmasraya was equivalent to the presenting of his real/sacred daughter Tapasi to Champa. In both cases it was a sign of great favour in the transferral of sakti or sacred power. Berg, ‘Pril Majapahitl’, 501; Berg ‘Pril MajapahitH’, 195.

26 The seventh-century Malay inscriptions found in Palembang, Jambi, and Bangka were all located in the confluence of rivers and landpaths or in importan t straits. Most were oaths intended to maintain th e loyalty of the subjects through threats of supernatura l punishments. Damais, Louis-Charles, Bibliographie Indonésienne V, BEFEO 51/2 (1963) 555Google Scholar;Andaya, L., ‘Search’, 4–5Google Scholar.

27 Krom, N. J., Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis (The Hague 1931) 393–394Google Scholar.

28 Coedes, G., The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (Honolulu 1968) 232Google Scholar.

29 Krom, , Hindoe-favaansche Geschiedenis, 393–394Google Scholar;Satyawati, Suleiman, ‘The Archaeology and History of West Sumatra’, Bulletin of the Research Centre of Archaeology of Indonesia 12 (1977) 4Google Scholar.

30 Casparis points out tha t Indonesian names do not usually distinguish between the kingdom, its capital, and its royal residence, and so Malayu would have been retained as th e name of Adityavarman's kingdom even at Pagaruyung. Casparis, , Srivijaya and Malayu, 246–247Google Scholar.

31 Satyawati, , ‘Archaeology and History’, 9–10Google Scholar.

32 Stuart Robson ed., Desawarnana (Nagarakrtagama) by Mpu Prapanca (Leiden 1995) 33.

33 The erection of the statue was accompanied by the dance of Adityavarman and his consort n i which the former was depicted as Matanginlsa, an aspect of Amoghapasa, a demonic form of the Dhyanibuddha Amoghasiddhi. Satyawati, , ‘Archaeology and History’, 3Google Scholar;Casparis, , ‘Srivijaya and Malayu’, 296Google Scholar;Parkin, Harry, BatakFruit of Hindu Thought (Madras 1978) 52–57Google Scholar. The image symbolises death and the spiritual release for the worshippers. The inspiration for the statue was clearly the Singasari court of east Java, where Adityavarman had spent some time and left an inscription in 1343. At Singasari there is a similar statue dated 1292 of the Bhairava seated on a dais surrounded by skulls, with a crown, earrings, and a necklace of skulls. Casparis, , ‘Srivijaya and Malayu’, 246Google Scholar;Fontein, Jan, The Sculpture of Indonesia (Washington 1990) 162–163Google Scholar.

34 Schnitger, F. M., Forgotten Kingdoms in Sumatra (Leiden 1964) 31Google Scholar.

35 This is an argument which I develop in a forthcoming article entitled, ‘The Search for the “Origins” of the Melayu’.

36 Leonard Y. Andaya, ‘Aceh's Contributions to Standards of Malayness’, forthcoming Archi-pel. of great legitimizing power which enabled these ‘fatherless’ children to be enveloped into the parentship/guardianship of Pagaruyung's rulers.

37 The shift from a general cultural identification to a n ethnic one to gain greater access to resources and safeguard its members from perceived threat s is a well-known phenomenon. For other examples, see Patterson, Orlando, ‘Context and Choice in Ethnic Allegiance: A Theoretical Framework and Caribbean Case Study’ in: Glazer, Nathan and Moynihan, Daniel P. eds, Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge, Mass. 1975) 305–306Google Scholar;Sow-Theng, Leong, Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History: Hakkas, Pengmin, and Their Neighbors (Stanford 1997) 62–68Google Scholar.

38 Cortesao, Armando ed., The Suma Oriental ofTome Pires I (London 1944) 136, 161; Suma Oriental II, 263Google Scholar.

39 Drakard, , Kingdom of Words, 101Google Scholar.

40 Boxer, C. R., Further Selectionsfrom the Tragic History ofthe Sea, 1559-1565 (Cambridge 1968) 98–103Google Scholar.

41 Hale, A., The Adventures ofJohn Smith in Malaya, 1600-1605 (Leiden 1990) 163Google Scholar.

42 Mills, J. V., ‘Eredia [Emanual Godinho de]‘s. 1613 Description of Malaca and Meridional India and Cathay in Three Treatises’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 8/1 (09 1930) 22Google Scholar.

43 The name of the ethnic group can summon up for both its members and outsiders images of common characteristics, real and imagined, thus enforcing the sense of unity. Smith, Anthony D., The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford 1986) 24Google Scholar.

44 The story is recorded in the Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai. See Hill, A. H. ed., ‘Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of tlie Royal Asiatic Society 33/12 (1960) 162–163Google Scholar.

45 Loeb, Edwin M., Sumatra: Its History and People (Kuala Lumpur 1972) 97Google Scholar.

46 Even among present-day inhabitants of Kuantan, who now view themselves as Malay, believe that the Minangkabau adat or customary practices is superior. They regard the Minangkabau uplands as a source of law, etiquette, myths, and of magical knowledge and power. Ostergaard, Lene, ‘Between Minang and Malay: Intimations of Identity in Central Sumatra’, Kabar Seberang 22 (1991) 35–41Google Scholar.

47 Increasing contact was also takin g place at the same time with th e emigrating Batak communities in the north. Joustra, BatakspiegeL, 20, 23-29. The period of large movements of groups in the seventeenth and eighteent h centuries contributed to a stronger sense of distinct ethnicities in Sumatra.

48 Reid, Anthony, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce II (New Haven 1993)Google Scholar.

49 Algemene Rijksarchief (ARA), VOC 1237, Verbael Bort, fols. 337, 340v. (ARA = Algemeen Rijksarchief, or the General State Archives in The Hague. VOC = Dutch East India Archives located in the General State Archives. The letters are from the section known as the Overgekomen Brieven or documents sent from Batavia to Amsterdam.)

50 Kathirithamby-Wells, J., ‘Acehnese Control over West Sumatra up to the Treaty of Painan, 1663’, Journal of Southeast Asian History 10/3 (12 1969) 476–477CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Basel, J. L., ‘Begin en Voortgang van onzen Handel en Voortgan g op Westkust’, Tijdschrift van Nederlands-Indie 9/2 (1847) 24–26Google Scholar.

52 Satyawati, , ‘Archaeology and History’, 3Google Scholar. In an early nineteenth-century letter written in Malay from Pagaruyung, the term Maharajadiraja is still being used to refer to the ruler. Drakard, , Kingdom of Words, 156–157Google Scholar, Appendix 1, 273.

53 The name comes from the words pagar (fence) and ruyung (the outer portion of a palm trunk, which can be used for fences or palisades). According to legend, a fence made of the palm trunk was mad e to create a safe bathing place for the ruler's child free from crocodile attacks. The legend would have been widely known and would have reinforced the court's perceived role as parents providing protection for their anak Minangkabau (Minangkabau children).

54 Andaya, , Kingdom of Johor, 331Google Scholar.

55 The mission itself consisted solely of Minangkabau leaders from the west coast settlement of Padang acting on behalf of th e VOC. It did not include any Europeans.

56 ARA, VOC 1272, Mission to Pagaruyung, fols. 1027r-v.

57 ARA, VOC 1272, Daily Repor t on Mission to Pagaruyung, fols. 1032 r-v.

58 Basel, , ‘Begin en Voortgang’, 47–48Google Scholar.

59 ARA, VOC 1237, Verbael Bort, 31 July 1660-27 Januari 1661, fol. 340v

60 ARA, VOC 1191, Truijtman, fols. 751r, 752v.

61 ‘[…] dewyl den Commandeur een beschermer myner onderdanen, ende den voeder myner heerlyckheyt is, ook om dat hy van myn aengesicht afwascht de swartigheyt daer ick soo lange mede besmeth geweest.’ ARA, VOC 1272, Letter from Pagaruyung, fol. 1039.

62 Andaya, Leonard Y., The Heritage of Arung Palakka: A History of South Sulawesi (Celebes) in the Seventeenth Century (The Hague 1981) 44Google Scholar.

63 Drakard, , Kingdom of Words, 221–229Google Scholar.

64 Begbie, P. J., The Malayan Peninsula (Madras 1834) 137Google Scholar.

65 Andaya, B. W. and Andaya, L. Y., A History of Malaysia [2nd edition] (London 2000) 132Google Scholar. There are other examples in Sumatra where rulers were sought from Pagaruyung. Rau and Kuantan are two of the more prominent examples.

66 Begbie, , Malayan Peninsula, 137Google Scholar.

67 Drakard, , Kingdom of Words, 32–37Google Scholar.

68 Drakard, Kingdom of Words, 229-230. Iskandar Zul-Karnain (Alexander of the Two Horns) in Malay traditions is the legendary ‘Islamic’ hero, Alexander the Great of Macedonia. While the Perso-Islamic tradition of the Romance of Alexander the Great emphasises his role as conqueror, seer, and prophet in search of the Water of Life, the crucial message is his destiny to establish a universal kingdom, a kingdom of Islam. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘“Persianization” and “Mercantilism”: Two Themes in Bay of Bengal History’ in: Om Prakash and Denys Lombard eds, Commerce and Culture in the Bay of Bengal 1500-1800 (New Delhi 1999) 79–83Google Scholar.

69 Drakard, , Kingdom of Words, 253, fn. 80Google Scholar.

70 Wolters argues that the compilers of the Sejarah Melayu attempted to eliminate all references to the Malayu-Jambi past in order to demonstrate an unbroken line in the Palem-bang-Melaka family. Wolters, , Fall of Srivijaya, 94–95Google Scholar. The aim, I believe, was not to eradicate references to Malayu-Jambi but to appropriate the whole Sumatra n tradition ofSrivijaya/Malayu for itself and thus shift the centre of Malayu identity to the ‘Malay’ Peninsula.

71 Shellabear, W. G. ed., Sejarah Melayu (Kuala Lumpur 1967) 31, 37Google Scholar.

72 Marsden, , History of Sumatra, 40–41Google Scholar.

73 Angelbeek, C. van, ‘Korte schets van het Eiland Lingga en Desselfs Bewoners’, Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen 11 (1926) 20Google Scholar;Newbold, T. J., British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca I (Kuala Lumpur 1971) 215–216Google Scholar;Wilkinson, R. J., ‘Malay Adat Laws [1908]’ in: Hooker, M. B. ed., Readings in Malay Adat Laws (Singapore 1970) 7Google Scholar.

74 Although the Dutch translation of Pagaruyung letters tended to refer to ‘Minangkabau subject’, the Malay would have been anak Minangkabau or ‘Minangkabau child’. A common way of referring to a patron-client or lord-subject relationship throughout the Malay-Indonesian region is by the kinship terms of bapak-anak (father-child).

75 Basel, , ‘Begin en Voortgang’, 65–66, 76-79, 81, 87Google Scholar;Coolhaas, W. Ph. ed., Generate Missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal en Raden aan Heren XVIIder Verenigde Oostindische CompagnieWl (1713-1725) (The Hague 1979) 15Google Scholar.

76 ARA, VOC 1895, Malacca 30January 1718, fols. 55-6; Andaya, , Kingdom of Johor, 251–252Google Scholar.

77 Barnard, ‘Multiple Centers’; Drakard, , Kingdom of Words, 196–200Google Scholar; Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, ch. 9.

78 This manuscript, Cod. Or. 7304 from the Leiden University Library, is a version of the Sejarah Melayu, with an entire new section devoted to the kingdom of Siak. It has been called Hikayat Siak, or the Siak Chronicles, because of its Siak viewpoint. A romanised version of the text was published in 1992. See Hashim, Muhammad Yusoff ed., Hikayat Siak (Kuala Lumpur 1992)Google Scholar.

79 In Asahan there is a tradition of the father of the founder of the Asahan kingdom being a child born of a princess impregnated and then given away by the ruler of Aceh. Once the child is born, a member of the royal family in Pagaruyung is brought to Asahan to raise the child. Kroesen, C. A., ‘Geschiedenis van Asahan’, Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 31 (1886) 87–88Google Scholar. Pagaruyung was obviously regarded as the source

80 This literally means: ‘I was observing the measures of other people’. It is interesting that the metaphor is one dealing with measures used in trade, demonstrating the importance of trade in the rantau to Minangkabau society.

81 The Malay for the ‘skins of lice’ is kulit tutna. Leyds suggests that this was a misreading of kulit umo, not tumo (-a). Umo, he was told, was a cat-sized animal once found everywhere i n the forests. It had a thin skin which tore at the slightest contact. Leyds identified it as the Sumatran hare (Neosolagus Nescheri). Leyds, W. J., ‘Larassen in Minangkabau’, Kolo-nialeStudim 10/10, 1 (1926) 401Google Scholar.

82 Yusoff, Muhammad ed., Hikayat Siak, 111–127Google Scholar; Andaya, , Kingdom of Johor, 258–265Google Scholar.

83 The role of the Putri Jamilan in this Hikayat is very similar to that of the Bundo Kanduang (Real Mother) in the well-known Minangkabau Kaba Cindua Mala. In this Kaba it is the Bundo Kanduang who is the repository of knowledge of the history and customs of the Minangkabau. She conveys this knowledge to her son, the Raja Pagaruyung. In both cases, the Queen Mothers occupy an elevated position in keeping with the existence of matriliny in Minangkabau society. It is also part of the idea of the protective parent, in this case a mother figure who not only protects but nurtures the child.

84 Both the Hikayat Siak, which was written sometime in the early nineteenth century, and Pagaruyung letters of the same period translated into Dutch, use the metaphor ‘seas’ or ‘coasts’ to refer to the rantau areas. By contrast the Minangkabau heartland in the uplands of central Sumatra is known as the ‘land’ (darek) and is referred to as the darek Minangkabau.

85 Kratz, Ernst Ulrich ed., Peringatan Sejarah Negeri Johor (Wiesbaden 1973) 50Google Scholar.

86 There was an ancient personal relationship established between the Melaka-Johor royal family and the Orang Laut, which may even stem from the days of Srivijaya. Andaya, , Kingdom of Johor, 46–50Google Scholar; Wolters, , Fall of Srivijaya, 46, 124Google Scholar.

87 Andaya, Kingdom of Johor, ch. 9.

88 ARA, VOC 1557, Jambi 6 November 1694, fol. 147v. Commenting on events in the late seventeenth century, Valentijn believed that the name ‘Andelis’ was the local name for the island which Europeans called Sumatra. Valentijn, François, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien V (1726) (Dordrecht 1724–1726) 2Google Scholar.

89 A letter from the king ofJambi in 1694 informed the Dutch that tlie ruler of Pagaruyung was present to witness the establishing of peace between the warringjambi and Minangka-bau communities in the upper reaches of the Batang Hari river in Jambi. ARA, VOC 1557, Jambi 1 April 1694, fols. 35-36.

90 ARA, VOC 1609, Jambi 28 October 1698. fol. 20.

91 Andaya, , Kingdom of Johor, 252Google Scholar;Hashim, Muhammad Yusoff, Hikayat Siak, 122Google Scholar;Drakard, , Kingdom of Words, 199–200Google Scholar.

92 Drakard, , Kingdom of Words, 233Google Scholar.

93 Willinck, , Het Rechlsleven, 69Google Scholar.

94 B. Andaya, To Live as Brothers, 133, 140, passim; ARA, VOC 1557, Jambi 15 March 1694, fol. 51v; VOC 1596, Jambi 28January 1697, fol. 33.

95 At this time there was also a growing sense of belonging to a third major grouping, the Batak, as a result of migrations and confrontations with communities of Minangkabau, Malayu, and Acehnese. Marsden, , History of Sumatra, 365Google Scholar; Joustra, , Batakspiegel, 19–31Google Scholar;Castles, Lance, ‘The Political Life of a Sumatran Residency: Tapanuli 1915-1940’ (PhD Dissertation, Yale University, 1972) 4–6Google Scholar.

96 Anon, ., ‘Mededelingen … Kwantan’, Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde 36 (1893) 130Google Scholar.