Terima kasih atas informasi yang diberikan oleh Pak "Maifil Eka Putra" tantang Karajaan Minangkabau karangan Jane Drakard Hardback berjudul A Kingdom of Words. Saya sendiri sudah lama memiliki buku tersebut. Yang berminat bisa pesan copynya. Sebaiknya buku tersebut diterjemahkan, tapi siapa bisa bantu cari sponsor.
Mestika Zed, Pdg.
> >Ruling despotically by the letter >An academic treatise titled `A Kingdom of Words' bends over backward to >accomodate a trend > >By Bradley Winterton > > > >What the author of this strange book describes and struggles to understand >is a kingdom on the island of Sumatra (in modern Indonesia) during the 17th >and 18th centuries. It left no written records of a chronological kind, and >the evidence has had to be pieced together from fanciful, myth-based texts, >plus the accounts of the Dutch colonizers. > >Minangkabau was an important state, situated midway down the west coast of >the island. The kings, living in a mountainous interior far away from the >coastal settlements, reigned over their people without armies to enforce >their will. They were perceived as sacred beings, and ruled largely by >sending out elaborate letters. These letters, rhetorically worded and >lavishly illustrated, form the main object of the author's study. > >Economic historians, and others trained in the materialist Western >tradition, have always seen court rituals and the like as mere symbols, >cover for a more ruthlessly physical exercise of power. Leaders dazzled the >ignorant populace with processions, but what they were really doing was >taking the people's wealth in taxes, collected by force if necessary. But >here is a kingdom, Drakard argues, where claims of magical power were the >beginning and end of all authority. > >This is not an easy book to read. It is awash with words like "semiotic," >"syntagmatic"and "paradigmatic" (all three occurring in a single sentence). >But what it describes is curious indeed. The author's attitude to her >material, however, is even more intriguing. > >A typical Minangkabau royal letter would begin by establishing the king's >lineage, would then list his possessions, and end by issuing a brief >instruction, such as that the bearer be given safe passage. > >The lineage invariably claimed by the kings was one of direct descent from >Iskandar Zulkarnain, whose three sons were considered to have fathered the >dynasties of China, the Ottoman Empire, and Minangkabau respectively. > >Among the magical objects the Minangkabau kings claimed to possess were a >crown that had belonged to Adam, a loom that moved of its own accord, once >every year, and wove a fabric that had existed since the beginning of time, >a sword that bore marks from a fight with a devil, a dagger that resisted >being sheathed, and a drum made from the skins of lice. > >The Dutch unsurprisingly looked on such things with a skeptical eye. Though >they were undoubtedly eager to lay their hands on the gold for which >Minangkabau was famous, they were also heirs to a national tradition of >tough-minded practicality that held all myths, and most religions, as >fanciful fabrications. > >But Jane Drakard leans over backward not to mock any of her material, and to >resist the obvious conclusion that such claims were put about to deceive the >gullible and ensure taxes, payable in gold, were handed over to their >sovereign. > >Emperors and kings worldwide have sought to impress their subjects using >very similar methods. So, there's really nothing unusual about these royal >Sumatrans. The populace may have been so extensively fooled by their claims >that little force was needed to maintain their hold on power, but that's the >only way they differ from the norm. For Jane Drakard to claim otherwise >suggests that she has been subjected to some very odd ideological pressures. > >It is not, unfortunately, hard to see what these pressures might have been. >The particular preconceptions that apply in this case are that the >perceptions of colonizing powers were always wrong, that all cultural >assumptions have equal claims to truth, and that it's necessary to listen to >the voices of formerly oppressed peoples whose plight has hitherto been >overlooked. > >These aims and ambitions are eminently worthy, except when they fly in the >face of the facts. And the facts here are unmistakable -- that the claims of >these kings of old were as ridiculous as the Dutch considered them to be. > >Moreover, it's doubtful if the modern descendants of the people described in >this book would be very grateful for such present-day endorsements of the >trickery of their former rulers. > >One other feature of the book is more than a little surprising. Historians >and modern travelers invariably point to the Minangkabau people's >matrilineal social structure. Bill Dalton, in his Indonesia Handbook, >credits them with being perhaps the world's largest matrilineal society. >Oddly, Jane Drakard makes no mention of this issue. > >Nevertheless, what remains of interest in this book is the light it throws >on the way words can be used, not only to educate and enlighten, but to >baffle and confuse. In societies where most people can't read, books and >elaborately penned letters can be objects of considerable power. >
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