Widespread Literacy in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 294-296:

As elsewhere in the maritime zone, Chinese and Europeans alike were surprised at the prominent economic role of women, particularly in trade. But even more remarked was widespread literacy, of women in particular, albeit their literacy was used only for transient or practical purposes, for messages and personal letters rather than the reading and writing of literature. Spanish priest Pedro Chirino, writing in 1604, noted: ‘So accustomed are all these islanders to writing and reading that there is scarcely a man, still less a woman, who cannot read and write.’ Similarly, de Morga wrote, of the Tagals at least: ‘Almost all the inhabitants, both men and women, write in this language, and there are very few of them who do not write it very well.’

The legacy of the Indian cultural influence which had come via Srivijaya and Java had left behind scripts which were in widespread use when the Spaniards arrived in the sixteenth century but gradually died out over the next 300 years. Although they varied according to location, all were derived from Kawi, hence arrived from Java, Sumatra or possibly Champa.

The spread and usage of Kawi-derived scripts across Nusantaria is one of the lesser-known facts of the era before Islam and European dominance brought about the supremacy of Arabic then Roman scripts. The diversity of Kawi-derived scripts was such that Bali and Madura scripts both differed from each other and from Javanese, even if largely stylistically, and Sunda had its own script. So too did the Minangkabau of Sumatra and the Bataks, the latter writing on bark rolls. Makassar and the Bugis also had their own [Lontara], as did Palawan, whose Tagbanwa script resembled Tagalog Baybayin, and Mindoro, whose related script was known as Mangyan [or Buhid, or Hanunoo]. There is debate over whether Baybayin was the result of Bugis influence – with which its script shares some unique features – or from Sumatra or elsewhere. But the essential point is that basic literacy in a local script was common throughout the archipelago.

The arrival of paper to replace palm leaves and other traditional media, and the coming of printing, undermined the position of the traditional scripts. An additional source of weakness was that they were used mainly for transient purposes such as brief letters rather than for recording laws or literature. There were important exceptions to this, notably Javanese poems and epics, and Makassarese annals. Spanish priests made some effort to translate Christian doctrines into Tagalog using Baybayin, and elsewhere some Muslim texts were written in local languages using their scripts. But the weight of religious orthodoxy and then of administrative demands, plus the commercial use of Malay written in Jawi, proved too much. The result was that Nusantaria, which in 1500 had perhaps been the most literate place in the world, at least if central Luzon is a guide, lost what could have been a singular advantage for a future era when mass literacy became a necessity for economic progress.

Nor was pre-Hispanic Luzon unique. Elsewhere, old writing systems survived for centuries. There is evidence of high levels of basic literacy in Bali, and the same may have applied to much of Java and parts of Sumatra. As late as the 1930s a survey found that the most literate province in the Dutch East Indies was Lampung in south Sumatra, where schools were few. Male literacy was 45 per cent, female 33 per cent, but the literacy was mostly in the local Lampung script, not Roman or Jawi. It was particularly used in the exchanges of poetic verses between courting couples – just as described by Alcina in the Visayas. Literacy was higher among older people, indicating that the knowledge was handed down through families, not formally taught, and was by then slowly dying.

Rise of Brunei Sultanate

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 247-248:

The end of the Melaka sultanate was by no means the end of its influence on Islam and the Malay world. Melaka had inherited the language and culture of Srivijaya and hence of trading centres around the archipelago which had been part of the Srivijayan and Javanese systems. Melaka added the ingredient of Islam. For many Malay and Muslim seemed inseparable. Johor inherited the Melaka sultanate, and a family connection to the Melaka dynasty helped the development of the Perak sultanate. Though never a trading hub, Perak modelled itself on Melaka and became increasingly important as a source of tin and forest products. Malay Patani, with its family links to the Melaka sultanate, grew in importance as a trade rival to Siam, looking more to the north-east, to China, than to the south.

Exiles from Melaka were instrumental in spreading Islam. Johor played a leading role in the conversion of the Brunei ruler which took place shortly before the visit in 1521 of Ferdinand Magellan, who was much impressed by the wealth of the Brunei court and the size of Borneo island. (The name is a derivation of ‘Brunei’. The Indonesian name ‘Kalimantan’ derives from Sanskrit and means ‘burning hot island’.)

‘Boni’, as Brunei was known to the Chinese, was a relatively late addition to the Chinese links. It had only first been officially noted in 971 with a mission which advised that it was 30 sailing days away from Champa and 45 from Srivijaya. They brought camphor, turtle shells and documents with unknown characters written on a glossy material which they rolled up. The envoys described some aspects of their country: their use of longbows and brass armour, finger rings for marriage, water buffaloes for ploughing, coconut liquor to drink, and rice, fish, fowls and goats to eat.

Regular trade with China did not develop until much later, spurred by a mission in 1405. Brunei was well placed for trade links with Champa, Luzon and the eastern islands, as well as with Java and Sumatra, and expanded its influence along the Borneo coast. Islam, to which its ruler converted in the mid fifteenth century, strengthened Brunei’s trading role and it expanded its hegemony to include the Sulu archipelago and Luzon’s two trading settlements on Manila bay. The southern one was called ‘Seludong’ by Malays, though to local Tagalogs it was known as ‘Maynila’, after a flowering mangrove. Thus for 60 years, between the Portuguese capture of Melaka and Spain taking Manila in 1571, Malay Islam expanded its reach partly thanks to the loss of Melaka.

Brunei for a long time was the only Islamized part of Borneo. Farther east, Islam advanced with trade. Ternate in the Malukus, centre of the clove trade, was an early convert. By then, however, Christianity was hard on its heels in the Spice Islands, thanks to the Portuguese sending priests. Among the first was one of the founders of the Jesuit order, Francis Xavier, who visited Ambon and other islands before moving on to China and Japan. But on all sides trade and power interests could lead to religious compromises. Thus Muslim Ternate allowed the Portuguese to build a fort even while it was trying to Christianize other islands.

Early Chinese Views of Taiwan

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 243:

Some of those Austronesian ways and skills could be found too among the peoples of Taiwan – except the sailing ability. Taiwan remained almost completely off the trade map despite the fertility of its western lowlands, its proximity to the China coast, to Okinawa and the Japan trade, and, via island stepping stones, to Luzon. Geographically Taiwan is linked to the Asian mainland, of which it was once a part, while separated from Luzon by the deep waters of the Bashi channel. But in other ways it was much closer to Luzon. Many of its peoples shared language and culture with those of the Philippine archipelago. Why was it that the inhabitants of this large island, unlike those of the Philippines and Ryukyus, turned their backs on the sea and made their living from the land and forests? There is no ready explanation. Although evidence of some overseas trade dating to around 2,500 BP is provided from discoveries of Taiwanese jade elsewhere and Indian glass beads on the island, the identity of the traders is not known. As in the archipelago, there was not a specific bronze age, iron- and bronze-working arriving about the same time.

Even Chinese annals had very little to say about Taiwan despite its proximity. There were occasional traders and fishermen visiting from the mainland, but almost nothing written about it. One of the few who did write was Ma Duanlin, a compiler of knowledge about China’s neighbours. Writing around 1300 and using varied sources, he described characteristics of the people including hair and dress styles, crops, foods, animals, intertribal wars and the freedom of the young men and woman to choose partners without parental consent. They were not literate and followed a lunar calendar but were strong and good fighters. Ma noted that in around 606, during the Sui dynasty, the emperor had sent a mission to learn more about the place and demand the king send tribute. This was refused, so the emperor sent forces which killed the king and many others and destroyed his palace. But thereafter ‘all communication with the country ceased.’ (Ma referred to the island as Liu Kiu (Ryukyu), but the size and position clearly meant that he was referring to Taiwan.)

The early seventeenth century saw a Chinese expedition against (mainland) pirates using Taiwan as a base, which gave rise to An Account of the Eastern Barbarians by Chen Di, written in 1603. Chen noted a matrilineal kinship system, and the easy relations between young men and women. He remarked on the ability of the men to run down and catch deer. They ate all parts of the deer including the intestines and their contents, which appalled the Chinese, but they in return were appalled by Chinese eating chickens. ‘Strange indeed are the Eastern Barbarians,’ wrote Chen.

First European Views of the Marianas

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 242:

The first Spaniards reaching the remote Marianas islands noted how tall and fit they were, and recent examination of remains suggests they had a life expectancy of 44 years, much higher than in Europe at the time. The islands had been settled some 3,000 earlier, from either Luzon or Sulawesi, and had typical Austronesian characteristics such as a matrilineal system, weaving skills and megaliths known as latte stones, and a language, Chamorro, roughly comprehensible to Ferdinand Magellan’s Malay interpreter. Magellan (in Portuguese ‘Fernão Magalhães’, in Spanish ‘Fernando Magallanes’) was so impressed with their sailing skills that he called them the ‘Islas de Velas Latinas’ (‘Isles of the Lateen Sails’) after their small but remarkably agile sailing craft. The late sixteenth century Spanish document known as the Boxer Codex noted that their lateen sails were made of waxen palm leaves of many colours and designs. The boats could sail very fast whatever the wind strength and direction. The people were described as ‘thickset with large and stout limbs […] larger than we are’. They had a ‘pleasant appearance’ apart from filed teeth and widespread yaws – a disfiguring but not fatal skin disease common in the tropics. However, less appreciative Spaniards called them the ‘Islas Ladrones’ (‘Robber Islands’) on account of their sense of communal possession, a name which lingered long after they were renamed Marianas in 1668 after Mariana, widow of Spain’s King Philip IV. They are now divided as Guam, the largest, which is an unincorporated US territory, and the Northern Marianas, a US-dependent Commonwealth.

Flowering of Malay Law and Literature

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 224:

Melaka did not just become a renowned commercial centre. It also saw the flowering of Malay law, governance and literature. Long after the sultanate had ceased to exist, it remained the embodiment of all that was noble in the Malay world. This was the product both of its own Palembang-Melayu origins and of the multi-ethnic character of a city where Tamils, Gujaratis, Chinese, Javanese, Arabs, Persians, Ryukyans, Buginese and others could all be found. ‘In the port of Melaka alone very often 84 languages have been found spoken […] In the archipelago which begins at Singapore and Karimun up to the Malukus there are 40 known languages.’ Traders from Egypt, Persia and Arabia, and others such as Turks and Armenians were also there. They could not reach Melaka in a single monsoon but came via Gujarat with trade goods ranging from arms to pearls and including opium from Jeddah and Aden.

At its height prior to the Portuguese conquest, it had four syahbandars, or trade superintendents. The syahbandars were responsible for managing markets and warehouses and checking weights and coinage. There was one for (mostly Muslim) Gujaratis, the biggest group, one for Tamils and Bengalis, one for the archipelago including Java, Luzon and Maluku, and one for China, Champa and the Ryukyus. The syahbandar trader groups show that trade with India and points west was extensive while the Chinese role by the early sixteenth century, following official restrictions on trade by the Ming, was relatively modest. Disputes between trading communities were settled by the ruler. The reputation for good governance further increased Melaka’s role. No one did more for Melaka than Sultan Mansur (reigned 1459–77). In 1468 he wrote to the King of the Ryukyus, which were almost equally trade-dependent: ‘We have learned that to master the blue oceans people must engage in commerce even if their countries are barren […] Life has never been so affluent in previous generations as it is today.’ Likewise, in 1515 the Portuguese ruler of Melaka would write to his king: ‘Melaka has nothing of its own and everything of the world.’

Melaka gave birth to the Sulalat al-Salatin (Genealogies of the Sultans), which became the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals), a semi-historical work which aimed to entertain and inspire new generations with edifying stories of past monarchs, their trials and achievements. It traced the Melaka kings back to Alexander (Iskandar) the Great, via India and a sacred hill in Palembang. The dynasty, according to the Sejarah, prospered and long resisted Javanese domination, but was eventually driven out by treachery, forcing its move to Temasek, which it renamed ‘Singapura’, and eventually to Melaka.

Large Javanese Junks in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 214:

The commercial merit of large Javanese junks was immediately apparent to the Portuguese. Assuming stable ratios of length to beam to depth, a 30-metre junk would have had a tonnage of about 150 tonnes, while one with 1,000 tonnes would have a length of about 55 metres. For their first commercial voyages after seizing Melaka, the Portuguese collaborated with an important Hindu businessman who had two junks of around 200 tons burthen, each with a crew of about 80. Another witness was the Portuguese adventurer and writer Duarte Barbosa, who was based in Kerala, spoke the local language, Malayalam, and sailed much of the Indian Ocean. He wrote around 1518:

There also come hither many ships from Java, which have four masts, very different from ours and of very thick wood. When these ships become old they fit them with new planks and in this manner they carry three or four plankings, one above the other; the sails are of woven osiers and the ropes of the same.
They carry much rice, meat of cow, sheep, pig and deer dried and salted, many chicken, garlic and onions. They also bring hither many weapons for sale, that is to say, lances, daggers and swords worked with inlaid metal and of very good steel.
They bring likewise a yellow dye which they call cazumba and gold which is produced in Java. They bring their wives and children on these ships and there are some mariners who never leave the ship to go onshore […] These ships also fetch pepper from Sumatra, silk and benzoin and fine gold and from other islands they fetch camphor and aloes wood and they also navigate to Tenasserim, Pegu, Bengal, Calicut, Coromendel, Malabar, Cambay and Aden with all kinds of goods.

Spread of Islam in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 193:

The establishment of Melaka and rise of Demak and other Muslim-dominated communities on the north coast of Java coincided with a power struggle within the Majapahit realm. Islam presented a challenge to Java’s Hindu-Buddhist kingship notions. Internal dissension was also apparent, possibly caused by conversion of some of the aristocracy to Islam, and by intermarriage with Muslims, such as the Cham princess who married King Kertawijaya. This eventually forced the Majapahit to focus on the land base of the kingdom, moving the capital back to Kediri on the upper Brantas. Meanwhile the north coast saw the rise of independently minded trading entities dominated by Muslims, many from India, China and Arabia.

Trowulan was reported to be thriving until very shortly before it was utterly destroyed in 1478 in a war, exacerbated by a dynastic dispute, with Demak. The young sultanate effectively conquered Majapahit but claimed dynastic continuity. The end of Trowulan was the beginning of the end for all Hindu Majapahit, which finally saw its remnants retreat to Bali as Islam made a huge step towards eventual dominance of most of the southern part of the Nusantarian archipelago.

After being razed, Trowulan became overgrown with a teak forest. Stamford Raffles, who, as lieutenant-governor of Java under its brief British rule, initiated the first excavations there in 1815, described it as ‘this pride of Java’ Even then, few physical remains were left of a once great city. Yet the years of Majapahit glory remain deeply embedded in the Javanese collective memory. The memory (and myth) of Majapahit and its empire in Nusantaria remains at the heart of modern Indonesia’s sense of identity, generally overriding Muslim identity and also proving an historical basis for a state created in its present geographical form by the Dutch. Wawasan nusantara, or ‘an archipelagic outlook’ brings the islands together, while the national motto, bhinneka tunggal ika (‘unity in diversity’), is from a Javanese poem, ‘Sutasoma’, of the Majapahit era.