Negotiating History: Myth, Power and Ethnicity in Manggarai

(Flores, Eastern Indonesia)

Maribeth Erb
Department of Sociology
National University of Singapore

to appear in ASEAN in the Global System, H. M. Dahlan, Jusoh

Hamzah, Ong Jin Hui and Ai Yun Hing eds., Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
(presented at the ASEAN Inter-University Seminars on Social Development,
Nov. 13-15, 1993, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah)

NOT FOR CITATION OR QUOTATION WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF

THE AUTHOR

Negotiating History: Myth, Power and Ethnicity in Manggarai

(Flores, Eastern Indonesia)1

Maribeth Erb
Department of Sociology
National University of Singapore

"All ... history is a human construction

from the perspective of certain interests, conscious
or unconscious", Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of
Germany, Cambridge University Press (1990:2).

There is very little neutrality to history, and this is particularly true of what
we call "oral history". Different persons have vested interests in various
details being accepted or rejected. This entails a kind of negotiation. People
exchange information, tentatively put forth suggestions, and then if
provisionally accepted, they may later be considered "facts". This
negotiation about the past goes on all the time, so it is not surprising to find
that people declare as different "facts", that which directly or indirectly,
consciously or unconsciously support their own particular needs that exist in
the present. Through this negotiation, and conscious or unconscious
"manipulation", different people or different groups may construct highly
divergent versions of the same "history". I witnessed this negotiation in
process in recent fieldwork in the regency of Manggarai on the island of
Flores in eastern Indonesia. I also noticed that due to conflict originating
from certain political and economic circumstances, there may be people
that one does not negotiate with. It is through this non-negotiation that
different interpretations of history arise. In this paper I deal with a number
of very different constructions of history that I encountered in Manggarai,

1    Research in Manggarai was conducted in 1983-85, 1986, 1992, 1993, under the
auspices of the Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia, and the sponsership of Nusa
Cendana University and Universitas Indonesia. The first years of research were supported
by a Social Science Research Council Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Grant
for Improving Doctoral Dissertation Research and were done in an isolated corner of
Manggarai. Later research was supported by funds arranged by Father Stanislaw Ogbrabeck
S.V.D. from the S.V.D. funds for special projects, for research done specifically in Todo. I wish
to thank all of these institutions for their support. Discussions with Dr. Robert Lawang of the
Universitas Indonesia has been very beneficial in formulating many ideas and questions in
my present research. The people in Manggarai are always very generous with their time and
always make guests feel welcome. I wish especially, in the context of information and ideas
advanced in the present paper, to thank Bapak Fitus Tamor of the Todo royal family and
Bapak Kepala Desa of Gulung who hails from Desu, for many hours of discussion and
negotiation.

2
and attempt to show what the "interests" or motives of the individuals and
groups who tell these histories are. At the same time I argue that there is
not only a different interpretation of historical events,but also a
fundamentally different construction of "epistemological ages" (McKinley
1979). These different constructions of "ages" express different
philosophical views that are ultimately political, and that encapsulate
present day concerns and result in a fundamentally different way of
interpreting and presenting history, power relations and ultimately concepts
of "ethnicity".

Negotiated History: Outside Interpretations

One of the "negotiated" histories about Manggarai is that which has been
compiled by outside or reputedly "objective" scholars, sometimes in
conjunction with Manggarai people, often by using various written sources
that originate from different places and eras in Indonesian history.
Manggarai is located on the western end of the island of Flores, which has
experienced rather different influences and historical processes than the
eastern end2. The first mention of Flores is in the Buku Negarategama of the
Kingdom of Majapahit in 1297. Majapahit laid claim to this island, but
probably had little direct interest in it. Possibly even as early as during the
reign of Majapahit, powerful groups (who held a high position under the
reign of Majapahit [Orin Bao 1967:24]) on the island of Sumbawa, as well as
Sulawesi, may have had more direct interest in controlling the western part
of Flores for purposes of obtaining products such as cinnamon and
sandlewood which were to be found there. Once the kingdom of Majapahit
started to decline it is probable the Kings of Bima, and Goa began a struggle
to control western Flores that was to continue for some centuries. It is
certain that the two polities were closely associated for many centuries
(Hitchcock 1987:128), and for that reason it is somewhat difficult to sort out
which of the two might have been the first to have claimed control over
Manggarai. The Manggarai always say it was Goa, and indeed Ricklefs

2    Eastern Flores in the 16th century was occupied by Portuguese, searching for a
strongheld from which to control the spice trade. This early colonization of the Portuguese
brought very early contact with Catholicism, and, in fact, unknown to anyone at the time,
sealed the religious fate of Florinese on the far western end of the island, who were not
introduced to Catholicism until three to four centuries later. 

3
states that around 1530 the Kingdom of Goa on South Sulawesi started to
expand and conquer its neighbors (1981:45), so that it may have been from
as early as this that Goa tried to claim Manggarai 3. However there are a
number of linguistic uses, i.e., the name "Manggarai" itself, and the political
system established there, that support the hypothesis that the earlier, or at
least more effective, control might have been that of Bima4.
To at least some of its internal inhabitants, Manggarai originally was known
as Nuca Lale', "the island of lale'" (Artocarpus elastica, Verheijen 1967:245),
a tree whose bark was used by inhabitants to fashion clothes. One
Manggarai man suggested that the tree was one of the products of
Manggarai that was of interest to external traders, since it could be used as
a dye. Most tales about the name "Manggarai" tell that it was the Bimanese
who gave the area this name. According to Verheijen (Verheijen 1967:311,
1991:1), a Bimanese tale tells how when they first tried to land on the
shores of Manggarai, at the port of Reo(k), the anchor was caught by a
current. The man who threw over the anchor yelled out, "Mangga rai!",
"The anchor has run off!" and hence the men in the boat thought this was
the name that was given to the new land5. Another is that an indigenous
king (of the area of Cibal in northern Manggarai), rebelling against the
presence of Bimanese troops in the Reo harbor fought with them and stole
their anchor. So the people of the area were thus named, "those who had
run off with the anchor" (Hemo 1975: 5-6). A final version of this tale
allegorically associates "the anchor that flees", with the Manggarai people
themselves who were sold as slaves in the 17th-18th century and fled back
to Manggarai (Djagom 1975:2). (For the Todo version of this tale see below).
This external interest in Manggarai at some point, had a tremendous
impact on the social and political organizations. The imposition of taxes by
alien rulers, either from Bima or Goa, apparently necessitated the setting up
of a bureaucratic system to collect these taxes, and to maintain some kind
of order and rule. In the system implemented, called dalu6, the whole of
3    Father Verheijen suggests that Goanese influence preceded conversion to Islam (which
was in 1605), because many things in Manggarai carry Makassarese words, but do not show
any influence of Islamic expressions (Verheijen 1991:24).
4    However one very widespread term used to refer to nobility, keraeng, is Goanese.
5    Another interpretation of the name Manggarai is that it is composed of the words
manga- "there is, to have", and raya- the name of a place (Lawang 1989:217). However it
is unclear to me exactly how this should be understood.
6    Dalu is a Bimanese word (Verheijen 1991:31), so presumably it was Bima who

4
Manggarai was divided up into 38 dalu, or sections, each with their own
leader also called dalu and a number of representatives called gelerang
who were in charge of a number of villages. The traditional village leaders,
who had obtained their positions through age and the kinship organization,
were incorporated at the local village level into this bureaucratic hierarchy.
When this system of bureaucracy and hierarchy was instituted is very
uncertain. It could have been as early as the 16th century, but given the
power relationships that developed and the accelerated interest in
controlling Manggarai that emerged at that time, it is more likely to have
been sometime early in the 17th century.
At this time a number of factors originating from outside Indonesia began to
have a marked impact on relationships between kingdoms in the region, as
well as their interest in western Flores. The first of these was the conversion
to Islam on the part of the King of Goa, while the second was the growing
domination of the Dutch in Indonesia, and the dramatic changes that they
brought7. As to the first factor, the King of Goa converted to Islam in 1605
(Noorduyn 1987:314) and after this with the zeal of the new convert, he
carried Goa to a tremendous peak of power, where they conquered and
controlled not only Sumbawa and Flores, but as far east as some of the
Moluccas (Andaya 1981:1). Goanese zeal also eventually succeeded in
converting the King of Bima to Islam about 15 years later (Noorduyn 1987).
The embracing of Islam by the Bimanese, seems to have had an effect on
the way they subsequently treated the people of Manggarai. Tthey were
never allowed to mix with them or settle in the mountain communities,
because of the Sultan's fear that the purity of the religion would be
compromised (Nooteboom 1950:210).
Shortly after the Dutch entered Indonesia they felt threatened by the power
of the Sultan of Goa, attempting at first warfare and limited treaties

introduced this division (Verheijen 1991:24), though there is by no means a consensus on

this point.
7    Although the Portuguese arrived in Indonesia a century earlier, and had tremendous
impact on some of the cultures of Eastern Indonesia, particularly on Flores, this was only
Eastern Flores. Western Flores was never visited by the Portuguese. The only impact the
Portuguese had was very indirectly, a number of centuries later. Once they ceded full
control over the island to the Dutch in 1859, they did so with the agreement that the Dutch
would send only Catholic missionaries (Orin Bao 1969:231-232). When missionaries were
sent to western Flores starting in the early 20th century, they abided by this agreement,
and this had an important impact on Manggarai history, and, of course, their situation in the
present day.

5
(Ricklefs 1981:45), but eventually seeking help from the Buginese to break
his control (Ricklefs 1981:61-62, Andaya 1981). They were forced to accept
the Treaty of Bongaya in 1667, which liberated Bima from Goa, and also
apparently returned to the Sultan of Bima what were by that time
considered his possessions, i.e., Manggarai, on western Flores8 (Andaya
1981, Lawang 1989:137).
Even after the Treaty of Bongaya, Goa continued to maintain an interest in
Manggarai, and this had an important impact on Manggarai internal history.
Goa tried by means of requests, marriage and war to gain control of parts of
northeastern Manggarai for almost 100 years after the Treaty. Sometime in
the 18th century a princess of Goa (who may have married a prince of Bima
and gained control over part of Manggarai in this way [Coolhaas 1942:165,
Lawang 1989:139]), who was living in northern Manggarai, in the town of
Reo, reputedly made an alliance with one of the more powerful Manggarai
leaders in the dalu of Cibal in the northern section of Manggarai. Exactly
which came first is hard to say, but some versions of this history say that
this alliance was formed in order to offset the emergence of Todo, a
powerful dalu in southern Manggarai. Its ruling family had apparently
migrated into Manggarai, possibly before the end of Goanese reign, and is
reported almost unanimously nowadays to have come from the area of
Minangkabau on Sumatra9. The Cibalese, who were autochtonous
Manggarai, were alarmed at the spread of Todonese influence, and so
attacked Todo, burning the house of the leaders and scattering the
populations. Later the leaders of Todo were reportedly joined by 13
neighboring dalu, to plan a revenge against Cibal. However Todo did not,
apparently attempt this plan until they had sought the help of Bima. Some
early accounts even say that it was after the victory over the Cibalese that
Todo asked Bima to remain and rule Manggarai (Van Bekkum 1946a:69).
Internal accounts also state that it was after this defeat, that the princess of

8    In 1661 Dutch records from Batavia note that Manggarai was a territory of Bima. This
suggests that Bima may have been thought hold suzerainity over Manggarai before Goa
seized control over it. However there is also an historical document, from the court of Bima,
that relates that Goa gave Manggarai to Bima in 1658 (1072 A.H.). However if this is true,
than it doesn't seem entirely logical that the control over Manggarai should be returned to
Bima, since presumably Goa had only recently, themselves, seceded authority over
Manggarai to Bima.
9    It is uncertain whether in earlier times the certainty of origin was as fixed as it is now
(certainly many in earlier decades talk about Bonengkabau [Van Bekkum 1944:148,
Nooteboom 1950]). 

6
Goa fled from Manggarai, and Goa renounced all claim to Manggarai (Stapel
1914, Van Bekkum 1946a:69). External accounts say that Goa gave up
fighting over Manggarai in the 1760's (Coolhaas 1942, Nooteboom 1950).
The most striking impact of the Dutch rule over Indonesia, unlike initial
European interest in Indonesia, was their concern to control land-use and
hence the creation of, in particular, pepper and sugar plantations. This
necessitated a large amount of imported labor. With this need for labor on
the part of the western colonial powers, slaves became a big trade
enterprise. Slaves for early labor needs, initially were brought from outside
Indonesia (Bengal), but after the 1660's (with political unrest in Bengal) it
seems that there was intensification of slave-taking from within Indonesia
(Sutherland 1983:266). Makassar on Sulawesi was one of the centers of a
network that shifted slaves from the south and east to the pepper and sugar
plantations of the west (Sutherland 1983:267).
Eventually the demand for slaves as taxes superceded interest in all other
goods from Manggarai (Coolhaas 1942:163). Due to this lucrative trade,
Bima, particularly with Manggarai most securely under its rule, stepped up
its demands, and hence Bimanese rule over Manggarai became increasingly
harsh. This, of course, created much internal strife. To meet the quota for
slaves demanded by the Bimanese, villages raided other villages to steal
human beings for the required tribute (Van Bekkum 1946a:69). The alliance
of Todo and its thirteen other dalu increasingly seemed to become a haven
for people running from Bimanese control (Lawang 1989:169), which at
least is what the Todonese themselves brag of in the present day.
After the explosion of the volcano Tambora on the island of Sumbawa in
1815, a drastic weakening of Bimanese control probably allowed the internal
leaders to grow in confidence and power10. Thus when the Bimanese
attempted to return to their former control over Manggarai around mid-
century, and step up the slave demands to an even higher level because of
their own needs for labor to replace lost lives in Bima, they met for the first
time considerable resistance. The organizers behind this resistance were
apparently Todo and its allies, who grew in reputation and respect in the
10    Goethals writes dramatically of the loss of life on the island of Sumbawa due to this
volcanic explosion. Direct death due to the eruption in Bima, seems to have been negligible,
(though in other areas it was high), but the resulting starvation and illness seems to have
claimed one quater of the population; another quater fled to Java, Sulawesi and a number of
other islands. Bima actually suffered less than some other more western regions of
Sumbawa, which lost up to 70% of its population in these ways (Goethals 1961:17-19).

7
eyes of other Manggarai because of their opposition to foreign tyranny
(Lawang 1989:161-162). Lawang suggests that Todo gained an
unprecedented ascendency in Manggarai at that time, though there was still
no sense of a unification of the whole region.
The Dutch who had tolerated Bimanese control over Manggarai in previous
centuries, arrived to take direct control over Manggarai in 1907. They
immediately heard of the glory and might of the "King" of Todo from many
local villagers. They went directly to Todo to set up a post there, and for a
few years met with some resistance. However eventually Manggarai in its
present form was united under one ruler. Initially the Dutch wanted
Manggarai to remain under the Sultan of Bima, as a kind of independent
territory, but eventually with support from the populace, stirred up by
Catholic missionaries who started arriving to Manggarai in the 1920's, it was
decided that a local ruler should be picked11. The Dutch searched for
someone who would be appropriate, but also suit their specifications for a
ruler. Eventually they decided on Alexander Baruk, a man who originated
from the clan of the Todo "kings" and had been highly educated with the
help of the Catholic missionaries. This first king of Manggarai, did much for
the reputation of the Todo clan. He brought tremendous innovations to
Manggarai in the shape of irrigated wet rice (Lawang 1989:220), to a people
who had traditionally known only swidden technology. His way of life also
impressed people greatly; he himself worked very hard and was considered
sympathetic and well-mannered (ibid:206,222). This brought people to a
point where they saw the nobility of Todo as truly apart from the masses,
and strengthened the belief that they originated from outside of Manggarai,
and that their reign and benevolence in earlier centuries must have been as
great and that therefore their rise to leadership in Manggarai was in
someway pre-ordained (ibid:222-228). Raja Baruk, a democratic king, who
was truly of and for the masses, ruled until the end of World War II; his
brother Cornelius Ngambut, a man with similar education, was understood
to be the natural successor. However when Baruk died in 1949, due to the
end of Dutch colonization of Indonesia, Ngambut was never installed as the
11    Here can be seen the important role the Catholic Church had in Manggarai history,
since missionaries did not like the idea of Manggarai remaining under the rule of a Muslim
Sultan on the island of Bima. So when Manggarai was officially released from Bimanese
control in 1924, but still under the Raja of Bima, protest from the Church supported and
ignited protest from the people in 1926. Eventually the Dutch agreed to Manggarai having
their own "king" in 1928 (Lawang 1989:203-205).

8
new ruler.
With the changes in Manggarai over the ensuing decades, inspired initially
by the Dutch government and missionary influence, a new category of
respected individuals emerged, those who were educated. Initially most of
these educated individuals came from outside of Manggarai, in the form of
schoolteachers, most of them from Eastern Flores, where Catholicism and
education had been more deeply rooted. Along with the Dutch missionaries,
these were a new class of foreigners to be admired and emulated.
Eventually the category of pegawai, (which included schoolteachers) the
new Indonesian administration, those who had received a number of years
of education and obtained a salaried position, became a new, highly
respected category of individuals: the new elite (Lawang 1989:235-236).
People aspired for their children to become pegawai, as a clear means of
upward social mobility (ibid:236-237). However this new class of prestigious
individuals became somewhat of a threat and a challenge to the class of
nobles, who had previously enjoyed no rivals. To maintain their prestige and
continue to be seen as "pioneers" in development, the nobles of Todo (and
its sister village Pongkor) had to also attempt to become pegawai
(ibid:238). However as Lawang notes many nobles, spoiled by the respect
they received, started to take the respect for granted, and therefore did not
bother to better themselves in new ways, and this led, over the following
decades to a drastic reduction in their influence, particularly economically
(ibid:326-336), but also, I believe, in terms of respect.
In the beginning the great respect for the Todo nobility precipitated by
Baruk's way of life and innovations, caused the rest of the Todo nobility to
attempt to ride on his coat tails, so to speak. With the center of government
in a "self-governed" Manggarai located and flourishing in Ruteng, many of
the Todo nobility also moved to Ruteng (Lawang 1989:210). With the
opening of sawah in the Cancar region (west of Ruteng), the Todo nobility
also seized the opportunity to get hold of land in Cancar (ibid: 220-221).
Because of their highly respected position, the people who originally owned
the land of Cancar, willingly gave the nobility of Todo any amount of land
they wanted (ibid:265). However over the ensuing decades, new
innovations passed them by (such as planting coffee, or other cash crops
[ibid:309-310]). They never worked the land very hard, considering
themselves nobles they thought it was below them to do so (ibid:327), their

9
children never worked hard in school, again taking for granted their
superiority, so few ever became salaried government officers (ibid:331-
332), so that with the passing of a few generations, the situation has
become rather critical. This was because in every generation the sawah
land that they had received gratuitously, had to be divided among their
descendents. So every new generation has less land than the previous one.
The migration of segments of the nobility out of Todo itself, meant that the
village of Todo remained very poorly developed and in fact drastically cut off
from any means of development because of the difficulty of building a road
there12. Since most Todo nobility had their main source of subsistence in
Cancar and Ruteng, their concern with Todo itself was in fact very little.
Since the fortunes of those who had left Todo themselves had begun to
decline, little attention could be paid to the state of affairs in their
"homeland". The poverty of Todo village meant that those members of the
Todo noble families who remained, resorted to drastic measures to obtain
money to attempt to better themselves and their children. They sold
valuable hierlooms to antique dealers and in doing so created a situation
that left them open to even further scorn.
The recent move to rebuild the Great House of the Todo nobility has spurred
on the people of Todo to attempt to gain back some of the prestige they had
in previous generations. The presence of the Great House would re-center
attention back to Todo, simliar to the way they perceive it to have been in
the past. Others see the rebuilding of the House as a restatement of the
importance of adat (customary) law, once upheld by the "King of Todo". In
my assessment, however, all of these goals have failed miserably, due to
the infighting the rebuilding of this house has created within the Todo
nobility itself. The inflow of large amounts of money to rebuild this house
has essentially been monopolized by a segment of the Todo population.
They have ignored what others see as traditional relationships which should
have had a crucial role to play in the rebuilding of this house. Many people
who are in various kinds of traditional relationships to the people of Todo,
either through marriage or distant descent, have lost all respect for them

12    A road to Todo was only finished in 1991. It was built by a priest who had worked in
Todo for many years and aspired to see the village opened up to communication with the
rest of Manggarai. However it took many years to build, much foreign capital, and much
complicated permission from the government because of the need to dynamite a
mountainside before the road could connect with Todo.

10
because of the way the rebuilding of this house has been handled.
This brief historical sketch has attempted to lay the groundwork for
speculation on two points. On the one hand one can speculate that the view
towards foreigners and foreign control has developed in a particular way
over the centuries. Manggarai contention that a different form of "power"
and social organization came from outside is consistent with the common
theme of the "stranger king", elucidated by Sahlins (1981:112). Of course
historically the foreign control by outside powers on other islands and
eventually by the Dutch, and the innovations they were said to have
brought, had certainly led to a considerable respect and exaltation of the
foreigner which is likely to have been behind at some point the Todo
nobility's keeping alive a history of the "stranger king", in their claiming
origin from outside of Manggarai. On the other hand the rise and fall of the
fortunes of Todo and this "immigrant" clan of "nobles" in the present century
is, I argue, quite likely to have had an impact on the way foreigners and
foreign rule is thought of in the present by the people of Manggarai.
However there is a considerable amount of ambiguity here, because I think
that we must examine the view of the Todo nobility, and foreigner rule, from
two different perspectives. From the perspective of the whole of Manggarai
and Manggarai history, Todo is considered to be an integral part of this unity.
The promotion of a Todo noble to "king" of all Manggarai was a logical step
in the minds of Manggarai of the way history unfolded. But from the
perspective of the people who live in the dalu of Todo, Todo's role in history
is evaluated very differently. The people who claim to have been indigenous
to the dalu Todo, who were present there before these immigrants arrived,
see history, power and ethnicity in a very different way.
What this means is that at the local level, in the dalu of Todo, there have
developed two very different ways of interpreting history, and, as I will
show, two different ways of building that history into "epistemological ages",
representing different philosophical statements about power, politics and
ethnicity, so as to disguise the underlying petty quarrels and enmities that
lie below the surface of relationships in the local environs of Todo.

Todo: Various Interpretations of History

11
Todo Village: The Descendents of Mashur
Today's people of the village of Todo, unanimously state that their ancestors
immigrated to Flores from Minangkabau on the island of Sumatra 13. It is
quite easy to imagine, given foreign domination of Manggarai for at least
three centuries, that claims to have originated from outside would lend
legitimacy to the rule of individuals and a clan hoping to control villages
outside their own. Something of Todo's rise to power and prestige in
Manggarai has been traced above, and in retrospect, as Lawang suggests,
events in various eras, particularly the choosing of a king from Todo by the
Dutch, tended to legitimize and lend truth to all the claims about the past
greatness and origin of the nobility of Todo (1989:223-224). In the beginning
of this century, with the conspicuous rise of Todo to a position of "royalty", it
is quite likely that the stories about the Todo ancestors' migration into
Manggarai became very widespread, even "common knowledge", for other
Manggarai. I also contend that a number of other prominent clans began to
claim origin from Minangkabau as well (most probably in the past couple of
decades), in imitation of the Todo nobility.
The tale of Todo's ancestors is probably the most famous, and most retold
story in Manggarai. However one hears very different details of the story,
depending on who tells it, and it is here that one can see very clearly how
no detail is a neutral one. As will be seen in the configurations below, some
of the things most important to the nobility in the narrative of their
ancestors' migration to Manggarai are the characterization of their
ancestors in comparison to the alleged autochthonous populations, and the
way their ancestors interacted with them. These details are crucial for
contemporary Todo villagers in maintaining a legitimate claim to the land on
which they live, and are absent from other people's versions.
The set of tales most frequently related about why the group of people left
"Minangkabau" for Flores, follows a motif common to the Malay world
(Wessing 1993:2), and certainly found in many clan histories in Manggarai,
the rivalry between two brothers. One version I heard told how the younger
brother borrowed a fishing hook from his elder brother and went fishing.
While he was fishing, he got the hook caught and couldn't get it out. He
wanted to replace the hook with another one, but the elder brother was
angry, and insisted that he return the same hook. Eventually the younger

13     See appendix for speculation as to the truth of this claim.

12
brother through great effort managed to get the same hook back. Then one
day, the elder brother's child pulled all of the leaves off of a talas tree in the
younger brother's yard. The younger brother (to be as equally stubborn as
his elder brother) insisted that all of the same leaves be sewn back onto the
tree. The elder brother could not do this, and became angry that the
younger brother insisted it. The elder brother wanted to fight, but his
younger brother said no. So they decided to fight buffalos (kerbau,
Indonesian, kaba is the Manggarai word) instead. The elder brother had a
large 8 toothed male buffalo14, while the younger brother picked a baby
buffalo. He starved the baby buffalo for three days before the fight, and
then attached knives to the top of his head. When the fight started the
hungry baby buffalo went straight for the genitals of the male buffalo,
thinking they were a teat to drink milk. He butted his head up into the
stomach of the large buffalo, as baby buffalos do when nursing to let down
the milk, and stabbed the large buffalo to death 15. The name
"Minangkabau", therefore, aaccording to the Manggarai, refers to the
"winning of a buffalo", menang kerbau (in Indonesian). In an interesting
twist, the people of Todo use this story of the "winning of a buffalo", to
explain their ancestors' migration from that land16. The younger brother, for
fear that the conflict would continue despite his win, left Minangkabau and
travelled east.
According to most people in the village of Todo itself, there were five17
brothers who left Minangkabau by boat18. The way they tell the story it is
14     My understanding of bovine dentition is that early in life they have no teeth on the
top, except for the molars that come in later in life, as in human beings. I believe that the
Manggarai reckoning of the ages of buffaloes according to the number of their teeth has to
do with the growth of these molars. A buffalo with eight molars (presumably four on each
side), called in Manggarai kaba ngis alo- (kerbau gigi delapan in Indonesian)- "a bull of
eight teeth", would be fully grown.
15     Another person said the baby buffalo had bitten the genitals of the older bull, and in
this way killed him, but since baby buffaloes have no teeth, this must have been an
individual who has little experience of buffaloes.
16    A Minangkabau man resident in Manggarai for 11 years, told me that a similar tale is
told in Minangkabau itself.
17     The number five figures constantly in Manggarai ritual and myth and seems to be a
number symbolizing completion. So it is not surprising that there always seem to be five
brothers both in Minangkabau (as told by the Manggarai), and in Manggarai. Some
Manggarai like to speculate that pancasila, the five principles of Indonesian democracy,
were thought up by President Sukarno while he was incarcerated on Flores, showing that he
was influenced by the Florinese importance of the number five.
18     Some of them were said to settle other places on Flores, see also Van Bekkum

13
they who gave the name "Manggarai" to Nuca Lale'. They had a kind of
magical anchor that put itself down where it wanted the ship to stop. As
they approached the shores of Flores, the anchor would drop itself at a
place, one of the five brothers would descend from the ship, and then the
ship would move on. Actually there is an enormous anchor kept in Todo
village, which the Todo folk say is this anchor. Some say the ancestor who
settled in Todo took the anchor because he was the last to descend from the
boat, though this was not consistent with other interpretations that implied
he was the first, since his brothers were supposed to have gone on to settle
other parts of Flores further east.
Most people know this first immigrant to Manggarai by the name of Mashur;
though many different people are mentioned by the Todo family as
comprising the members of the immigrant group, all include Mashur as the
main ancestor. The place Mashur and his family and followers first landed,
according to most, is Warloka, on the western coast of Manggarai (see also
Van Bekkum 1944). One of the reasons, I suspect, that so many people
popularly accept Warloka as the site of the landing of Mashur is because of
diggings that took place there back in the 1960's which uncovered
enormous troves of wealth: gold, porcelain, and other items 19. The tales,
however, about the immigrants from "Minangkabau" stopping in Warloka
before moving on, easily predate these investigations. One reason for tales
centering on Warloka before even the cache of valuables was found there, is
apparently because of "pillars" made of stone that are conspicuous in this
place (Van Bekkum 1944:148), and make it a popular tourist site. Because
they are forged of stone, the pillars provide an additional support to the idea
that these outsiders had a superior civilization and had come to "civilize"
Manggarai20.
An interesting part of the tale of the travels of Mashur and his company,
which is the most well-known, was that Mashur followed a pig, which led
him eventually to Todo, where according to some the pig gave birth. Some
1946a.
19    Plates uncovered in this digging are on display in the Bupati's offices in the capital
Ruteng.
20     I came across similar pillars in far eastern Manggarai, in Rembong, and I believe the
same formations can be found in Rajong as well (people told of them, but I did not see
them). To the people eastern Manggarai people, these pillars also represented the superior
ability of people in the past, but not outsiders, their own ancestors, who had magical ability
to carve stone. These stone "pillars" seem to be a geological formation of large crystallized
rock.

14
tales21 say they followed the pig from Warloka to a number of places in
Manggarai, where some of their ancestors remained. Other people focused
on different places the pig started from, depending on their own personal
versions of the tale, and possibly what they thought was credible.
One Todo informant's interpretation was that Mashur and his father were
itinerant traders who travelled to many places in Manggarai, settling and
then moving on. But in Welo (not too far from Todo) they started to take
care of pigs. Then one (or more) of the pigs ran away, and Mashur followed
it to a spot, which is the present-day Todo. Mashur saw this place and liked
it. Later he met up with the tua teno, the leader of the land, in the nearby
village of Todo Koe (which means "small Todo") who told him that the land
was called bia kalo- "the flat land", and that no one lived there. Mashur
lived two years in Todo Koe, and married a daughter of the tua teno, but
eventually he asked if he could move to the "flat land". The tua teno
agreed, and gave him the land of the present-day Todo. After doing this, the
tua teno left for Rua, near Pongkor (to the east of Todo, across a large river,
Waeq Mese). He felt that he was not as good as Mashur (possibly because
Mashur was Muslim, this informant said), so did not want to continue living
near him in Todo Koe. Later a new tua teno was appointed by the "King" of
Todo, whenever he needed someone to perform the tasks associated with
this position (such as rituals of agriculture and dividing the land).
The irony, pointed out by several informants, is that Mashur was likely to
have been Muslim (coming from Minangkabau as he allegedly did), and yet
he followed a pig, which brought him to the place where his descendents
eventually found glory. Some of the people of Todo mentioned that he was
not a true, strictly practicing Muslim, and that because he followed a pig, his
descendents have a taboo on eating, not pig, but porcupine, considered to
be closely related (ceki rukun- "taboo on porcupine"). Any one who
recognizes a taboo on eating porcupine is considered to be descended from
the same line, this includes people who later branched out from the main
family and migrated to places like Pongkor, and Narang, (later fortresses of
the Todo "Kingdom"), and who are considered nobles and still have rights
and representatives in rooms (kilo) of the main house in Todo (niang
wowang).
In Todo, according to some, Mashur met up with a woman, who became one

21     See also Van Bekkum 1944.

15
of his wives. She was in reality a darat (a type of forest spirit), an ata
palasina- "someone from the other side", not a human being. Some say it
was she who sent the pig to lead Mashur to her, where she lived in a cave,
just behind the present day village of Todo. They argue that it was she who
brought Mashur farther from the Muslim religion, because she gave Mashur
and his family permission to eat pork. Some informants say Todo rulers
continued to have a relationship over the centuries with this spirit wive of
Mashur. In her cave the Todo people stored weapons, and made sacrifices
when they went to war. Her tears were said to drip off the overhang of the
"King"s house (the niang wowang), and were caught in a small bottle and
hung in the rafters. This protected the house against fire, the great secret
that initially helped to preserve the house of Todo from burning when Cibal
attacked them (see below).
The Todo nobility had nothing flattering to say about the autochtonous
populations who lived in Todo before their ancestors arrived22. They claimed
that the aboriginal inhabitants had long fur, no fire, no agriculture, no
techhnology of any kind; in fact they were not really human at all. Therefore
according to Todo residents, these aboriginals learned everything from
Mashur and his family. Thus Mashur is represented by his descendents as a
great culture hero, who brought civilization to a backwards, even animal-like
race. In the narrative of the Todo nobility these people eventually became
the servants of the immigrants, because they were grateful for the higher
standard of living that had been brought.
In their narrative, Todo rule spread thoroughout the land as a benevolent
rule of high culture. It wasn't until the fierce, uncivilized inhabitants of the
dalu Cibal viciously attacked Todo, that trouble began for their ancestors.
The house of the Todo rulers was a sign of their power and high culture,
some suggest that it was built according to the Minangkabau style and
hence this is the reason it was called niang dangka- "a branched house".
The Cibal leader, jealous of Todo's growing might, attacked Todo and
managed to gain access to the village by the use of a traitor among the
ranks of the Todo nobility. The Todo families were forced to flee the village,
but one old crippled woman remained, hiding under a pig trough. The Cibal
armies tried to burn the niang dangka, but were unsuccessful. Searching
around they found the old woman and forced her to tell the secret of why

22     In fact some denied that there any people in Manggarai at all.

16
the house would not burn. She told them of the bottle of water (the tears of
the spirit wife) which was hanging in the rafters of the house. Upon
removing this bottle, they burned the house, with the woman in it 23. This
treachery and cruelty was built up by the Todo family as a sign of the cruel,
inhumane practices of the aboriginal Cibal folk. A curse against them that
she spoke before she died (Van Bekkum 1946a:67, Lawang 1989:156), is
thought to be effective even today. The people of Todo point to the
population of Cibal and say that so few of them have ever amounted to
much. This tale fits, of course, the purpose of exalting the high civilization of
the "foreigners", compared with the uncivilized, savage characteristics of
the aboriginals that is the strongest theme of Todonese historical narrative
in the present day.
The reputation of Todo in the centuries following their alleged immigration
into Mangggarai grew to such proportions, particularly at the end of last
century and beginning of this century when they achieved their peak of
prestige and respect in Manggarai, that one will find nowadays many
people, who by all accounts are actually descendents of autochthonous
Manggarai, claiming origin from Minangkabau. I found this to be true in both
Ruteng and Cibal, places actually reported by earlier observers to be
aboriginal inhabitants who said they originated from the tops of mountains
(Keers 1948:49, Van Bekkum 1946a). In fact this building up of Minangkabau
origin has become so exaggerated that one Manggarai man himself, in his
M.A. thesis, went so far as to say that most "tribes" in Manggarai originated
from Minangakabau! (Djagom 1958:7).
When I asked the noble families of Todo about history before they had
arrived in Manggarai, for example how the world originated, the origin of
food plants (a popular myth in eastern parts of Manggarai) or other events
at the beginning of the world, they simply drew a blank. In some ways, as
far as they were concerned the world began when their ancestors entered
Manggarai. History began with them. Although it was in some respects
presented as an historical event, this arrival has taken on mythical
connotations for them. They were claiming in some ways the responsibility
for diety-like transformations in Manggarai. Therefore when I asked about
other kinds of origin "histories" people said, "Don't ask us, you must ask the
aboriginal inhabitants of Manggarai, they have stories like that". So that's

23     See also Van Bekkum 1946a:67 and Lawang 1989:155-157, for versions of this tale.

17
what I did, and I got more than I bargained for.

Desu Village: Aboriginal History

No one who has related Manggarai history (that I have come across) has
ever told the story of the aboriginal people who were living in Todo before
the immigrants from Minangkabau arrived. Van Bekkum mentions them
(1946a:65), but does not, as far as I know, anywhere relate their history.
Descendents of the aboriginal people who lived in Todo before Mashur
arrived, live today in the village of Desu, on the mountain west of Todo
village in the Todo dalu. This village now falls into the desa of Gulung,
which borders the desa of Todo in the present administrative divisions. I
met a prominent member of that village in April 1992, and he told me their
interpretation of history24.
According to the residents of Desu at the beginning of the world there were
no people. The first two people emerged from a stalk of a thin kind of
bamboo called in Manggarai belang. It had been "fertilized" by the first
rays of the morning sun, shining on the bamboo, high on top of the
mountain. These first two people were a man, named Poca, and a woman
named Nalas. After they emerged from the bamboo, they took it and
camped out in the lingko (garden) called Nawal. There they ate forest
roots, the leaves of trees and fungus, for there was nothing else for human
beings to eat.
Eventually they took the bamboo belang and split it open. By rubbing the
two pieces together they produced fire. They used the bark of the lale' tree
for clothing. After a time they gave birth to a son, named Tandang. When
the son was about five years old, Poca had a dream sent to him by Madara
Surula (this seems to be a name for God, but this is unclear), who asked him
if he loved his son. Poca, apparently understanding what this question
meant, gave himself over to the will of the diety. So Madara Surula told him,

24    The part of this mythological history about the origin of food plants is a very common
myth told throughout Southeast Asia in various forms. I relate a version of this myth told in
Northeastern Manggarai, among the Rembong people in a recent publication (Erb 1994a).

18
"You must kill your child. Take some teno wood (Sterc. Melochia umbellata,
Verheijen 1967:639), some laru (Knema, Myristica, Verheijen 1967:252)
wood and rocks. Burn the rocks so they will fragment and use the rocks to
cut the wood. Then kill and cut up your child into little pieces and plant the
flesh in the field. So Poca went and cleared the lingko Nawal, and then
burned it. When he had finished preparing the field, he asked his wife to
send Tandang to the fields with some food for him. When the child arrived
Poca cut him up and spread his flesh around in the field. In the afternoon,
when he returned home, he pretended that Tandang had never arrived to
deliver the food. Nalas said she had sent the child. So Poca said, "This
means that our son must have been stolen by forest spirits". So they cried
and cried for their only child.
After three days, plants started to grow in the lingko. There were five
different types: maize, rice, millet, pumpkin and cucumber. The first to
flower were the cucumbers and then the pumpkins. Nalas, still upset, did
not want to go into the lingko. Then after the cucumber and pumpkins
flowered, the maize ears started to emerge. Poca went into the lingko and
started to pull at the maize plants. The maize plants cried out, "Ame aku
ceqe!", "Father, I am here!". At last Poca understood that this was his child,
grown into different plants. That night he dreamed again of Madara Surula,
who said, "Those plants that do not call out to you are the ones that are
ripe. They are old enough to be eaten. Those that call out are still too
young.". He then told Poca the names. "The plant that crawls along on a
vine is timun (cucumber). The other plant on a vine with bigger fruits is
ndesi (pumpkin). The plant with the small leaves is hocu (millet). The
shorter plant is woja (rice), while the taller plant is latung (maize). To eat
them you can bake them over the fire (tapah) or cook them (teneng). The
cucumber you can eat raw (taqa)".
So Poca went to the fields again and held onto the different fruits. Those
that screamed out he didn't take; those that were silent he picked. He
brought the ripe vegetables to the garden hut and told his wife they could
be eaten. She was surprised. So they cooked the vegetables and ate them,
and found them delicious. Nalas asked Poca where he had gotten the plants
from. Poca said, "Go into the fields, but do not be afraid of what you
encounter there". So Nalas went into the lingko and all of the plants that
she stepped on cried out, "Endeq, aku ceqe!", "Mother, I am here!". She

19
was frightened, thinking it was some kind of spirit, so she ran back to the
hut, without bringing anything with her. She told Poca what she had heard,
and it was then that he admitted what he had done; that the plants were
indeed their own child. Nalas was sad, but also delighted that they had so
many delicious plants to eat. After this happening lingko Nawal became
known as lingko Wri Ata- "the lingko of the planted person".
Eventually Nalas died, without giving birth to anymore children. Poca was
alone. One day he went in search of some lale trees for clothing. He
brought some fire with him to burn the wood and prepare it, and also
brought rice to eat. It took Poca about three days to cut enough bark from
the tree. On top of the tree under which he camped was a nest of a peti
kondo bird (Lonchura p. Pallido, Verheijen 1967:500). The first evening he
returned after cutting bark, and found rice already cooked and waiting for
him. He was amazed and a bit worried about this, but since he was hungry
he ate the rice. Again the next day when Poca returned to his camp the rice
was already cooked. So on the third day, instead of leaving for the fields,
Poca hid behind his hut so he could see who was cooking the rice. He saw
two birds take off their skin and feathers (kodo, Verheijen 1967:224 glosses
kodo as "disguise") and become women. They were elder and younger
sisters. They pounded and husked the rice and cooked it. Poca stole the
kodo of the elder sister, named Menjing, while the younger sister, Lenjing
grabbed her kodo and flew away to Sumba (the island to the south of
Flores). Menjing called out, "Lenjing, tell father that I have been taken by
Poca. Tell them to come here". So Menjing and Poca became wife and
husband. Her family came on boats from Sumba. As gifts they brought pots,
machete knives and all kinds of tools made from metal 25. Eventually Menjing
and Poca had a son named Kolas.
The grandchildren of Kolas moved down from Desu to the place where Todo
village is now, called Todo Me'se' (Great Todo). At that time there were no

25     They did not bring cloth or the knowledge of weaving, however, and hence in
Manggarai they continued to use the bark of trees for clothing. An example of this kind of
clothing had been given by my informant's father to Msgr. Van Bekkum many years ago.
The origin of weaving in Todo is indeed a very controversial point, since they weave cloth
very different from the typical Manggarai "black cloth" woven in the northern dalu. One old
informant told me that weaving was taken up by Todo women only at the beginning of this
century. It was learned from Muslim populations originating from Endeh (further east on
Flores). For a discussion of weaving and its meaning to another peoples living in Manggarai
see Erb 1994b, and other chapters in Hamilton 1994.

20
"Keraeng" in Todo, that is there were no nobility 26. All people were equal. It
was "Keraeng ngai tanan", everyone was a "keraeng". No one had
united all of the people and no one was above any other. When the
immigrants arrived from Minangkabau they landed first in Warloka, and
travelled until they reached Todo Koe', not far from Todo Me'se'.
At that time the Desu folk, living in Todo Me'se', had taken a wife from the
village of Limba, across the river Wae'q Me'se'. The folk from Limba were
very rich. They had so much gold that their ladders were made of it. When
they went to tap the tuak (sugar palm) tree, they used luju (long chains of
gold). When they went to catch eels they used Indian patola cloths instead
of nets. The child of the bride from Limba died. The folk from Desu informed
their Limba wife-givers (anak rona) about the death, but the later never
came to bury their nephew (bangkong). The immigrants in Todo Koe' saw
this as an excuse to incite the Desu folk in Todo Me'se' to action. This was
the beginning, according to the folk of Desu, of the purak of Mashur and his
descendents.
Purak is a term that apparently can mean different things, depending on
who is using it, and whether the interpretation of the actions is one of
legitimacy or not. My Desu informant said that the descendents of the Kings
of Todo use the word purak to speak of the unification of a number of dalu
under the Ruler of Todo, the actions that they took to force people to
recognize the power of Todo. However he said in reality purak was just
plunder and pillage. The descendents of Todo see the actions of their
ancestors as being a legitimate struggle for the unification of Manggarai
under the power of the king of Todo. The descendents of the aboriginal Todo
villagers see this as a crude form of colonization, one could say, but even
more crudely, the actions of bandits. It seems that in the view of the
aboriginal Desu folk, the immigrants were bloodthirsty and greedy bandits,
who wanted to use any excuse to steal and pillage, and that their claim to
power and kingship, was only a later development of what started as greed
and a belief in their own superiority.
So the immigrants urged the Desu villagers in Todo Me'se' to move against
Limba and seize all of their wealth. The Desu folk resisted this idea at first,
asking what would happen to the relationship of inherited marital alliance

26     The word keraeng is of Goanese origin.

21
(anak rona/anak wina) between them if they were to attack Limba 27? But
the immigrants in Todo Koe' told them not to bother about that.
At that time Desu had three weapons of great value and power. Two were
knives: one called cio ceret- "the spray of urine", which means that a
person's blood would spray like urine if he was stabbed with this knife; the
second called waeq dandas- "flowing water", again symbolizing the blood
that would flow without stopping if a person was stabbed with this knife. The
third weapon was te'mba jera, a sword (meaning unknown). This sword in
particular was claimed to be a symbol of legitimate "government".
Eventually the Desu folk were persuaded to attack Limba, and together with
the immigrants, they decimated the village. Because Limba was unprepared
for an attack, this could not be called war; it was instead purak. Any Limba
folk left in the village were killed, many ran off. After this neighboring
villages were terrified of Todo. However Desu aborigines and the
Minangkabau immigrants saw that they were vulnerable to revenge, so the
immigrants moved in with the Desu folk, into Todo Me'se', where their
descendents remain to the present day. This was the beginning of the rise to
supremacy of Todo.
Neighboring villages started to avenge the annihilation of Limba, and the
Desu folk felt that they were not strong enough to keep the lead position in
Todo village, so they handed over te'mba jera to the immigrants. However
the immigrants were still actually under the authority of the gendang- the
drum, of Desu. A gendang or tembong is the symbol of a village, its right
to exist as a separate entity. It represents the control over land that is
associated with a village and the rituals that must be done to ensure the
continuation and prosperity of the community. It is it always in the
possession of the tua teno- "the ritual land leader", who is also the tua
beo- "the leader of the village". He lives in the mbaru tembong- "the
drum house", that is the main house in the village (see also Lawang
1989:62, for the characteristics of a village [beo] in Manggarai.)
So although the immigrants, were given the symbol of power and

27    Though there is no space to discuss this here, the marital alliance relationship is of an
almost sacred quality in Manggarai as in many places in eastern Indonesia. The anak rona,
that is the clan from which one takes wives has an almost diety-like power over their anak
wina, being seen to have both cursing and blessing powers over them. This is because they
are the "source" of life. (See for example Gordon 1980, and other articles in that collection
of Fox 1980, and Erb 1991 for a description of the process of marriage in another part of
Manggarai).

22
government, the sword, they were in reality still subordinate because they
were immigrants, and did not have the right to work the land without the
consent of Desu. Although at that time the Minangkabau immigrants lived
together in the same house with the aboriginal Desu folk, the Desu people
lived in the ulu kilo- "the room at the head of the house", the room in the
house occupied by the eldest branch of a family or clan that lives together
in a house. Part of the social relationship between them was that the
immigrants took wives from the people of Desu. This also put them in a
subordinate position (being anak wina or "wife-takers"), particularly since
they lived in the same house which would mean to a Manggarai that they
had not yet received the rights of independent, adult existence.
The story of how Desu split with the immigrants in Todo seems to be placed
in a later time period. At that time there were other houses in Todo village,
those that were offshots from the main house. One of the inhabitants of
these houses raped a wife of one of the Desu folk, and killed a child.
Because of this incident the people of Desu became frightened of the
descendents of immigrants, and ran back to their lingko up in the
mountains. The offenses of this Keraeng, both jurak- "incest/adultery" and
murder, created a kind of curse on the people of Todo. Many died because
the "blood" of the murdered child (and the adultery) had not been
resolved/avenged. The blood was still "raw", and the bones were still "bent"
(dara taqa, toko tekok). So eventually, (some say the beginning of this
century), a gong was given to Desu to end the curse of the dara taqa (the
"raw blood"). A gong is considered equivalent to a human being; it was
given to Desu to replace the child that was killed. The folks of Todo wanted
to bring this gong up to Desu, but the Desu folk said no need, the gong
should stay with the gendang (which are both beaten at ritual
performances).
Now according to the aboriginal interpretation of the tale, both the
gendang and gong were the property of Desu anyway, who as the tua
teno, that is as the "owners" of the land, would have controlled these
instruments that legitimized access to land through ritual sacrifice. They
had left the gong and gendang behind in Todo when they had fled.
Because of this, Todo villagers must call Desu every year when they want to
carry out the new year's ritual, which should be done before the planting.
Perhaps significantly in light of this history, this ritual has not been held in

23
Todo since the early part of this century.
The land in Todo is, according to the people of Desu, under the control of
three different tua teno: the land in the north, on the opposite side of Waeq
Daqat (the river Daqat) is the property of Lando; that in the south the
property of Welo, and Desu is in control of the land in the middle. No one
who lives in Todo village itself has the right over the land that is invested in
a tua teno, since they are immigrants. Afterwards, of course, they set
themselves up as nobility and rulers.

Interpreting the Interpretations of History

It is evident that the descendents of Mashur and the descendents of

aboriginals have two quite different ways of looking at the history of the
settlement and development of Todo. The reasons they interpret the history
the way they do can only be understood in the context of present day
circumstances and relationships. This contemporary context, which can be
guessed at from the Desu version of history, has to do with conflict over the
rights to land. Land has become a critical issue in some parts of Manggarai,
where people have actually been killed in disputes over borders. In an area
not far from Todo village eight people were killed a few years back in a
dispute over land that has still not been resolved.
As noted above, traditional land control was in the hands of the village
leader called tua teno, who controlled access to the land through rituals. A
large piece of land, called a lingko was communally worked, each
household, or family head in the village having the right to obtain a parcel
of this land for the needs of his family. In the present day land allocation in
Manggarai is increasingly complicated because of government policies that
attempt to individualize land holdings. In some parts of Manggarai much
progress has been made towards this goal. In others tua teno still control
the land use. The position of tua teno is not only one of great respect and
power in the traditional land tenure system, but is quite powerful and
relevant in the present situation when pieces of land are being transferred
to individual ownership. If a person wants to own a piece of land, he must
approach the tua teno with "payment" for the land. This "payment" has
always been just a bottle of palm wine and a chicken, but it could potentially
be something more substantial. It can be well understood, therefore, that

24
who is said to be ultimately in control of a particular territory is still an
important issue in present day Manggarai, despite changes that have been
taking place in land access and use.
From what I understand, the conflict between Todo villagers and the people
of Desu became very serious when missionaries first approached the village
for land to build a Church28. I do not know which faction it was, either Desu
or Todo, but one of them was presumably approached by this priest, and
handed over a piece of land. The other faction was incensed, since they
considered that it was themselves only who had the right to control,
maintain and give away land. Ever since then, so gossip has it, the people of
Desu and Todo villages have been sworn enemies. I was told, for example,
that if they meet together on the soccer field, always a fight will break out.
The histories related above, of the Todo nobility and of the aboriginal Desu
are both designed to support their claims to having the ultimate control
over the land around the village of Todo. They do this in what I see as a
series of subtle constructions of historical ages and political relationships.
Their different ways of knowing and constructing the past, are the basis of
their way of proposing how the present should be understood.
The two constructions of history present the condition of the land of
Manggarai in the past as very different. The nobility say it was either empty,
or as good as empty, since it was inhabited by people who were less than
human. By denying the aborigines any culture at all, the Todo nobility
legitimate their ancestors interference in aborigine life, and more than that,
their claim to control the land they now live on. On the basis of their
presence the land of Manggarai was elevated to high civilization. Though
they acknowledge that in other areas of Manggarai a tua teno has the right
of control over land, in Todo they argue a tua teno is just an appointed
office. Aboriginal peoples in all their accounts are presented as cruel and a
cursed race. The Todo immigrants set in motion the "progress" of foreign
rule in Manggarai, which was later continued by the Bimanese and the
Dutch. Thus for them the ages of Manggarai history are simply two: and
uncivilized, pre-colonial past, and a civilized present starting with the arrival
of their own ancestors.
The people of Desu in many subtle ways deny the Todo nobility's claim that
28    When exactly this was I am still not sure. The first land in Todo given to the Church
must have been in the 1930's. But I understand that there has been more recent land
disputes, when a new Church was built there about a decade ago.

25
their ancestors civilized Manggarai. Their ancestors discovered fire, "God"
gave them agriculture, other outsiders in a cooperative relationships gifted
them other technology. Instead the Todo immigrants are the ones pictured
as the barbarians. They refused to recognize proper social relationships of
any kind: those based on marriage, land or kinship, and they murdered,
pillaged, and even showed no loyalty to their own kind.
Against a background of recent changes in Manggarai, and the general
decline of the status of the Todo nobility thoughout Manggarai (as discussed
above), it may eventually become more believable for other people to
accept the aboriginal Desu version of history. Whereas at the end of last
century and the beginning of this one, the rise to greatness of Todo
legitimized their past history and their claims to high civilization, recent
trends and actions on the part of these same people may lend credence to
Desu's accusations of barbarism. Selling family heirlooms, and denying
traditional inherited relationships, becomes a kind of proof that their past
misdeeds must have been as great.
It is interesting that the "epistemological ages" of Desu history conform to a
political ideology much more in line with government (particularly local
government) ideology, as well as popular ideas. The glorious pre-colonial
past was a time of harmony, peace and equality. Rapacious foreigners
changed this, bringing inequality, exploitation and strife. However in present
day Indonesia (no matter what the reality might be), as they see it, an age
of equality and peace reigns once again. The Desu way of knowing and
understanding historical "ages", therefore, is likely to find a certain amount
of accord with political ideology in the present (particularly at the local
Manggarai level). They are the ones who are aboriginal, they are the people
of the land, they are the ones who belong.

Conclusion

What these stories and their use and interpretation point to is a particular
idea of history. History is in the past, certainly, but it is also very much in the
present. Todo villagers see that the civilizing acts that generations of their
ancestors reputedly brought to Manggarai to better them, continues in the
present day, and continues to justify them and their existence, even though
it is certainly quite clear to them the state that they have deteriorated to.

26
Desu see what happened to their ancestors, a purak that violated their self-
determination, land and property rights, as continuing to happen in the
present by the people who were spawned from immigrants. So there is
clearly a sense of "standing [still] in time and place" (Fox 1979), while at the
same time there is a constant changing of the facts and the details of these
histories, even the interpretations of them. The negotiations, as well as the
"non-negotiations" go on, forming and shaping what is considered to be
immovable and immutable. The past is alive and exists, but it has very
much been changed and been negotiated into the needs and the
circumstances of the present.

APPENDIX Did the Todo ancestors really originate from Minangkabau?

Although it is impossible to answer this question, it is possible to indicate its

plausibility. For example, other questions can be answered, such as were
there Minangkabau traders or communities in other parts of the region?
Initially my reaction when people first told me that their ancestors came
from Minangkabau was to chalk it up to mythical imagination or claims to
some kind of prestige. Father Verheijen (personal communication 1986) said
he had had the same reaction. However after looking into history more
closely, and talking with other people who have worked in the region, it is
now quite a conceivable possibility, that Minangkabau settlers could have
made their way into Manggarai. Whether they did or not, or whether their
descendents are the nobility of Todo, is a much more difficult question to
assess.
The first thing that seems certain is that Minangkabau traders were in the
general region. According to documents viewed by Dr. Christian Pelras
(personal communication 1992), who has done research on the island of
Sulawesi, traders from the Kingdom of Melayu extant in the 12th-13th
century, frequently visited South Sulawesi. These traders are refered to in
the texts as "Marangkabau", apparently the way the people of Sulawesi
referred to the Minangkabau. Indeed he argued many Malay traders were
actually Minangkabau. Malay traders were very willing to travel long
distances in search of metals, and in South Sulawesi there was apparently
alot of iron, hence their interest in this area. To this day, according to Dr.
Pelras, there are villages on the Gulf of Bone, called "Marangkabau".
Apparently the "Marangkabau" did not settle in South Sulawesi; the name
was simply given to places where they typically went to trade on their
journeys.
Earlier scholars in this century seemed to favor the name Bonengkabao,
which was reputed to be located on the island of Sulawesi (Celebes) (Van
Bekkum 1944, Nooteboom (1950:208). According to Dr. Pelras, however,

27
there is no such place as Bonengkabao on Sulawesi, though of course this
might have been a kind of conflation of Bone/Marangkabau. Now the
question is what would these traders want from Flores, since, according to
Pelras they were interested mostly in metal? In the 17th century the answer
to this question is clear, slaves. Sutherland establishes that one vast
network of slave trading centered on Makassar in South Sulawesi, and that
Malay/Sumatran traders were involved (1983:267).
Although Christian Pelras maintains that they did not settle in Sulawesi, it is
possible however that they had children there. These children may have
been told by their mothers that they were
"Marangkabau"/"Minangkabau/"Bonengkabao", taking on the "ethnicity" of
their fathers. It may have been some of these individuals, a kind of "half-
breed", who migrated to Manggarai once war broke out between the
Buginese and the Dutch versus the Goanese in the mid-17th century. This is
one way of accounting for the fact that the Todo nobility do not have
matrilineal descent, an often commented objection to their ever possibly
having originated from Minangkabau (for example Lawang 1989:225).
However this problem of matrilineal descent, even if the immigrants came
straight from Minangkabau, can be resolved, since in Minangkabau the
royalty (at least traditionally) traced their descent patrilineally (de Josselin
de Jong 1988:12-13). Hence any Minangkabau would have this alternative
type of descent known to him, and if he had pretensions to royalty, as would
be quite likely in a new land (even if he were not of royal descent himself),
he would trace descent patrilineally.
The people of Todo village and dalu give various reasons, "proofs" of their
own, that their ancestors came from Minangkabau. Among this proof are
certain cultural traits and customs that they have heard about the
Minangkabau people which they say are exactly as theirs. One man from
Minangkabau who had lived in Flores for 11 years when I met him in 1992,
had just recently visited Todo, after hearing about them and their reputed
origin from his homeland for many years. Just after his visit I had met him,
and he listed all of the things that he was amazed at in the style of life of
the people of Todo. The "way they receive guests", the utensils and
paraphenalia in their houses, reputedly the round fields and the whip
dances, the myth of the fight between the buffalos, all are the same in
Minangkabau. Of most of this I am highly skeptical. People see similarities
where they wish, and I am sure that it is possible to say that life in Indonesia
in general in the present is becoming far more homogenous than it once
was, so that the way people "receive guests" is likely to be much the same
throughout Indonesia, as is all of the general things they have in their
houses.
One thing that is quite interesting as a "proof" of their origin from
Minangkabau is a piece of buffalo horn (that I have seen and photographed)
that is kept by a branch of the noble clan that lives in the village of Narang
(in the dalu Todo to the south of the village of Todo), said to have been
brought with the travellers on their journey from Sumatra. The interesting

28
thing about this is that the people of Todo village did not know that this horn
existed, and yet they told me of a Manggarai schoolteacher who went to
Minangkabau years ago (he has since passed away), and was shown five
buffalo horns that were adorning the roof of a house in a village. One of the
horns was broken off, and this man was told that a long time ago one of the
ancestors of that village had left for the east, taking the horn, and never
returned. There is much uncanny coincidence about this tale, but at least it
shows that there was apparently the idea that the horns were things to
bring and keep and adorn, as indeed they are in an indirect way in
Manggarai, a carved set of buffalo horns, usually on a human head, is
placed on the house of the village leader. Indeed I had always thought, upon
hearing about "Minangkabau" origin of some people in Manggarai, that this
tale had originated because of the importance of the symbol of the buffalo
(kaba or kerbau), and the adornments of buffalo horns on the tua teno's
house.

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