chapter i Introduction Ajattappareng (‘the lands west of the lakes’, B.) is a political and geographi- cal term that relates to a former confederation of five kingdoms, located to the west and north of lakes Tempe and Sidenreng on the southwest penin- sula of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi (figure 1).1 These kingdoms were Sidénréng, Sawitto, Suppaq, Rappang and Alitta. Today, the people who inhabit the areas of Suppaq, Rappang and Alitta are, with the exception of recent migrants, all of the Bugis ethnic group. In Sidénréng and Sawitto, the Bugis are the most numerous ethnic group, but various non-Bugis peoples who speak one of three Massenrempulu languages inhabit low hill and mountain areas in the northern parts of these two kingdoms. This book has two main objectives. The first is to write a history of the rise and development of the Ajattappareng kingdoms from about 1200 to 1600 CE using oral, textual, archaeological, linguistic data and geographical informa- tion and analysis. The upper date shortly predates the arrival of the Dutch in South Sulawesi in 1605, and the musuq selleng (wars of Islamization, B.) of 1608 to 1611 in which the Makasar kingdom of Gowa defeated and Islamized the neighbouring Bugis kingdoms.2 The lower date immediately precedes the emergence of the lowland South Sulawesi kingdoms at about 1300. The second objective of the book, which is intrinsic to the first, is an inquiry into oral tradition of a historical nature in South Sulawesi. This inquiry runs throughout the book and encompasses its functions, processes 1 A Bugis, Makasar or Massenrempulu kingdom is a political unit occupying a defined geographic territory within which there exists one primary settlement with a paramount ruler chosen from the highest-ranking nobles of the ruling family and a varying number of secondary settlements, each with their own paramount rulers, laws and government. The name of the king- dom is derived from the primary settlement, to which are attached all other settlements through tributary relationships. This definition also appears applicable to many of the small Toraja settle- ments briefly described by Hetty Nooy-Palm (1979:58-63) and the Mandar kingdoms (Darmawan Mas’ud Rahman, personal communication, 2001). 2 The first South Sulawesi ruler to convert to Islam was La Patiwareq of Luwuq in January 1605, who took the name Sultan Muhammad Wali Mu’z’hir al-din. The rulers of the Makasar kingdoms of Gowa and Talloq followed as Sultan Ala’uddin and Sultan Abdullah in August of the same year. STEPHEN C. DRUCE - 9789004253827 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 02:19:10PM via free access STEPHEN C. DRUCE - 9789004253827 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 02:19:10PM via free access I Introduction 3 of transmission and transformation and its uses in writing history. In South Sulawesi there is a close relationship between oral tradition and indigenous written texts (Pelras 1979). Indeed, as will be shown, most texts of a historical nature are derived from oral tradition. Any inquiry into the nature of South Sulawesi oral traditions must therefore take into account the close relation- ship between the oral and written registers. This second objective aims to build upon the previous work of Jacobus Noorduyn (1955, 1961, 1965), Campbell Macknight (1984, 2000), Ian Caldwell (1988) and Macknight and Caldwell (2001) in order to provide a greater understanding of the nature of South Sulawesi historical sources, particularly those which claim to tell us something about the period before 1600. Outline of the book Of the remaining sections of this introductory chapter, the first sets out the methodology and primary sources used in the book. This is followed by an overview of South Sulawesi, its languages and peoples and some back- ground on the Ajattappareng kingdoms. The political structures of the South Sulawesi kingdoms are then discussed and explained. The final section of the chapter sets out a theoretical perspective on the rise and development of the lowland South Sulawesi kingdoms from about 1300 CE. The focus of Chapter II is South Sulawesi oral and written traditions of a historical nature. After discussing these oral traditions, I turn to their trans- mission and ask why, how, and by whom oral traditions in South Sulawesi have, and continue to be, passed on from one generation to another. The following section examines their functions and transformations, and dem- onstrates how the importance, meaning and function of an oral tradition during its transmission will be continually affected as a consequence of socio-cultural and political changes within a community; how one tradi- tion may become conflated with another tradition, and how anachronisms appear. I then turn to the written tradition, which begins with an overview of South Sulawesi manuscripts and scripts, followed by an investigation into the origins of the written tradition. The chapter then focuses on South Sulawesi writings of a historical nature and discusses the anomaly of the chronicle tradition and its origins. The following sections discuss the rela- tionship between oral and written tradition and concludes that any distinc- tion between the two forms is largely irrelevant, and that oral and written information collectively make up a large corpus of knowledge that can be recalled, or referenced, whenever the need may arise. The final section of the chapter presents five related oral and written traditions that not only emphasize the close relationship between the oral and written register but STEPHEN C. DRUCE - 9789004253827 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 02:19:10PM via free access 4 The lands west of the lakes also provide further examples of the dynamic processes of transmission and transformation in the South Sulawesi context. Chapter III provides a historical perspective on the geography and peoples of the Ajattappareng region. I first examine, and then refute, Christian Pelras’s argument that during the sixteenth century a vast, deep single lake occupied the central area of the South Sulawesi peninsula. The chapter then investigates several important changes in the physical geography of the Ajattappareng region, which were suggested by early twentieth-century Dutch geologists. The most important of these changes concerns the Saddang river, which was fundamental to the political and economic development of the western part of the Ajattappareng region. I reconstruct the former course of the river and discuss the relationship between rivers, trade and settlement patterns in the region before 1600. In the second half of Chapter III, I focus on the peoples and languages of Ajattappareng. The chapter aims not just to emphasize the pre-modern lin- guistic and cultural diversity of Ajattappareng, but through a combination of oral and written traditions, archaeology and linguistic data to argue that the ruling elite in some highland areas were influenced by Bugis cultural prac- tices in the period before 1600. It is further argued that there was a southward movement of highland peoples down to the low hills and lowland areas of the Ajattappareng region as a consequence of increased economic and cul- tural interaction with the lowland Bugis after 1300. I show how some of these highland people founded settlements in lowland areas and that several multi- ethnic polities emerged in the Sawitto region. Chapter IV explores the concepts of origin and precedence in Ajattappareng and South Sulawesi in general in a historical context. I first discuss how notions of origin and precedence function in South Sulawesi on two basic levels: between rulers and commoners and between the ruling families of South Sulawesi’s settlements. The chapter then turns to origin and prec- edence in Ajattappareng and discusses a number of origin traditions and written genealogies from the Ajattappareng region. These traditions show how precedence between the Ajattappareng kingdoms has changed over time as a consequence of changing political and economic circumstances. This chapter aims to bring to light some of the early histories of the individual Ajattappareng kingdoms. Based on an analysis of oral traditions and written genealogies, I argue that Sawitto was the last of the five kingdoms to join the Ajattappareng confederation. Chapter IV also supports conclusions made in Chapter III concerning a southward movement of highland people into the lowland areas of Ajattappareng. Chapter V presents a history of Ajattappareng from about 1200 to 1600 CE. I begin the chapter with a speculative overview of the Ajattappareng region, and South Sulawesi in general, in the period immediately before 1300. STEPHEN C. DRUCE - 9789004253827 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 02:19:10PM via free access I Introduction 5 The remainder of the chapter endeavours to explain ‘what happened’ in the Ajattappareng region up to the conversion to Islam at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The conclusions of the book follow Chapter V. Sources and methods The primary written sources for this book are Bugis and, to a lesser extent, Makasar lontaraq texts (indigenous writings in the Bugis script). Both Bugis and Makasar lontaraq texts include short stories derived from oral tradi- tion, genealogies, treaties, tributary and domain lists and a small number of chronicles.3 Some, such as the chronicles of Gowa (Wolhoff and Abdurrahim n.d.), Talloq (Rahim and Ridwan 1975), Wajoq (Noorduyn 1955; Abidin 1985) and Boné (Macknight and Mukhlis n.d.), have been translated into Indonesian, Dutch or English