The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 5 | Issue 4 | Article ID 2410 | Apr 02, 2007

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Oceans Unbounded: Transversing Asia across "Area Studies"

Barbara Watson Andaya

Oceans Unbounded: Transversing Asiaacross “Area Studies”

Barbara Watson Andaya

Recent endorsements of maritime history as anintegral part of world history should be centralin any attempt to transverse the academicdivides separating the study of “South”, “East”and “Southeast” Asia (AHA Forum. 2006;Buschmann 2005). Nonetheless, envisaging aninterconnected maritime Asia that is notsubservient to the boundaries of area studiesand modern nations, and yet does not descentto the simplistic and overly general, is aformidable challenge. A number of studies havetracked trading diasporas and economiclinkages, but the place of the oceans in thecultures of Asia’s littoral societies has receivedmuch less attention. It may not be difficult tolocate the reasons. Although in simple terms,“maritime history” is the history of humaninteraction with the sea in all its facets(Finamore 2004, p. 1), most Asianists havereached adulthood located within a nation-statewith identifiable territorial borders and carryinherent intellectual biases that privilege aland-based perspective.

In modern times, when long-distance oceantravel is normally envisaged in terms of aholiday cruise, it is difficult to imagine dailyexistence among the communities of boatdwellers who once occupied an importanteconomic n i che in As ia ’ s mar i t imeenvironment. Today the groups Malays calledorang laut or sea people are marginalized inthe nation-states that claim jurisdiction overthem, yet in the past they were essential assuppliers of the marine products so critical to

Asian trade, especially between Southeast Asiaand China (Andaya 1975, pp. 29-52, 256; Chou2003; Ivanoff 1997; Sather 1997; Sopher 1965;Zacot 2002) Individuals whose experience hadbeen shaped by the land were amazed at thedegree to which water was the naturalenvironment of these peoples; as a twelfth-century Chinese account puts it, “they can divein water without closing their eyes” (Hirth andRockhill 1911, p. 32). Orang laut knowledge oflocal conditions was especially critical in placeswhere navigation was difficult, and in theStraits of Melaka and other offshore areas theytraditionally helped to guard the sea lanes,often compelling passing ships to stop andtrade in certain ports. The respect onceaccorded them (evident, for instance, in thetitles bestowed by Malay kings) shows thatwhat one scholar of modern China sees as atypically inferior status for boat people has notalways applied. In coastal China and Vietnamtheir relegation to the lower ranks of the socialsystem may be very old, but one could arguethat it can ultimately be traced to the advent ofland-based kingdoms with their land-basedorientation (Andaya 1975, p. 322; Anderson1972, p. 7; Ptak 2001, p. 398).

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Orang Laut houseboat, Riau Archipelago 1991.Courtesy of Cynthia Chou

Orang Laut woman preparing food, RiauArchipelago 1991. Courtesy of Cynthia Chou

Though now rarely attempted, the possibility ofcross-cultural comparisons among such sea-oriented cultures opens up interestingpotentials for research. For instance, the

concept of compass coordinates is notnecessarily congruent with the indigenousknowledge of non-Western societies; the spatialorientation of peoples who spend most of theirtime at sea has therefore been a topic ofconsiderable interest for specialists in Indonesiaand the Pacific. It might be illuminating to askwhether directions such as north and south arerelated to “up” and “down” among sea-goingcommunities in other areas of coastal Asia asthey are in the huge Austronesian linguisticfamily that covers most of the Pacific and islandSoutheast Asia. (Blust 1997, pp. 38, 48; Adelaar1997, pp. 53-81; Sather 1997, p. 93). Let meprovide a visual example from the Galela peopleof Halmahera, in eastern Indonesia. The mapshown here, drawn by a Japanese scholar,represents Halamahera and the surroundingarea upside down because according to theGalela orientation system, which is related tothe monsoon winds and a land-sea axis, “up”lies in a southerly direction, and “down” is tothe north (Yoshida 1980, pp. 36-37).

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Galela perspective on the world (Yoshida 1980:36)

The inherited vigilance of societies whoseexistence is closely calibrated with the rhythmsof the sea, and who maintain an ability to readnature’s portents , was dramatical lydemonstrated nearly two years ago, when aterrible tsunami devastated so much of the areaaround the Indian Ocean. It was reported thatisolated groups on the Andaman and NicobarIslands in the Bay of Bengal recognized warningsigns like changes in bird cries and the behaviorof land and marine animals. They thereforemoved to higher ground well in advance of thedestructive walls of water that penetrated so farin land. Nonetheless , a l though manycommunities are still living with the tragicresults of December 2004, the Asian seas areknown less for their ferocity than for their longfunction as a medium for connecting quitedistant regions through the exchange of people,goods, and ideas. It is the human dimensionthat makes this interlocking relationshipbetween land and ocean such a compellingteaching device. If we insist that the sea andthose who live with the sea deserve a moreprominent place in our study of Asia, we willtake an important step in developing theframework required for any comparativeoverview. In turn, this framework will go a longway towards overcoming the confines of so-called area-studies while redressing thescholarly preoccupation with land-basedsocieties that has so informed the presentationof Asian cultures.

Relief from Borobudur, central Java. Courtesy ofJohn Miksic

A shift in orientation is not necessarily an easytask, for the polities and governments whosenarratives dominate historiography have rarelyseen the oceans as an integral part of theirterritorial domain. More frequently, the sea isregarded as a boundary, separating landinhabitants from other land inhabitants. AsJohn of Gaunt proclaimed in Shakespeare’sRichard II, the “silver sea” served England, “inthe office of a wall/ Or as a moat defensive to ahouse/Against the envy of less happier lands”(Shakespeare 2003, pp. 96-97). In India,despite a long tradition of maritime trade,Hindu insistence on the need to maintain ritualpurity judged sea travel polluting for those ofhigh caste, and by the twentieth century self-imposed restrictions were even being acceptedby some Sudra groups (Bindra 2002, p. 36).Ming prohibitions forbidding coastal dwellersto cross the seas except as a member of anofficial mission were clearly ineffectual.Nevertheless, a perception of the ocean asmarking off an imagined set of land dwellersfrom the “other” are apparent in a sixteenth-cen tury Ch inese map , in wh ich thecartographer inserted a stylized sea separatingChina from the area we now know as mainlandSoutheast Asia (Teng 2004, p. 37; Wade 2004,p. 6).

Even as representatives of land-basedkingdoms took to the sea with the goal ofreaching places only dimly imagined, the sheer

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immensity of the earth’s oceans was daunting;after all, they cover 70.8 percent of the earth’ssurface. In these ventures the trepidationaroused in contemplating the unknown couldbe a l layed through explanat ion andclassification that made the unfamiliarimaginable. In the tenth century, for instance,the geographer Al-Muqaddasi affirmed that“the realm of Islam” was encircled by just oneocean “and that this is known to everyone whosails,” but he also acknowledged that Muslimtreatises often spoke of three, five, or eightseas (Chaudhuri 1985, p. 4; Collins 1974,pp.148-64; see also Lewis 1999). On the otherside of the world China’s scholars also becamecaught up in efforts to categorize the known“oceans” and “seas”. Within a larger “Western”and “Eastern” Ocean, Chinese cartographersidentified smaller sectors on the maritimeroutes to Africa, a technique that allowed largeexpanses of water to be visualized simply ashighways linking one land area to another. Amap produced fo l lowing Zheng He’sexpeditions thus depicts the Indian Ocean as aschematized corridor between India to thenorth and Arabia to the south (Needham 1954,3, p. 560; Ptak 2001). A similar privileging ofthe land appears among early Portuguese andDutch cartographers, who scattered the namesof rivers, mountains, and towns across theirmaps of Asia, but presented the sea as afanciful domain of belligerent whales, pitchingships and seductive mermaids (SuaÌ�rez, 1999,pp. 166-67).

Ultimately, however, it was Europeancartography that identified and named theworld’s oceans as we know them today– theAtlantic, the Arctic, the Indian, the Pacific and,in 2000, the Southern Ocean – with boundariescreated when necessary; in the SouthernHemisphere, for instance, the Atlantic isseparated from the Pacific by an artificial linedrawn from Cape Horn to Antarctica. Even so,the human capacity for categorization isindefatigable, and within these five oceans theInternational Hydrographic Bureau currently

identifies as many as fifty-four different seas.

To a considerable degree this desire forcategorization, like national borders on theland, has created boundaries and subsets foracademic inquiry. Several universities maintainCenters of Pacific Studies; we have a center forArctic Studies in Washington, D.C. and variousCenters of Atlantic Studies are located inEuropean and U.S. institutions. We are allfamiliar with Braudel’s notion of the specialcharacter of the Mediterranean, “a sea . . . soalive, so eternally young” (Braudel 2001), andhis work has inspired many disciples. BarryCunliffe has spoken of an “Atlantic mystique”linking coastal peoples like the Celts, Bretons,and Galicians, who had more in common withone another than they did with their inland kin.(Cunliffe 2001)[1]

In Asian Studies the fine detail this focusedresearch can produce is most evident in regardto the Indian Ocean, the world’s third largest. Asubfield in its own right, “Indian OceanStudies” can now support dedicated journals,conferences, and summer institutes. Furtherrefinements are possible even within whatwould seem a very specific domain, and wethus find specialists on the “Eastern” and“Western” Indian Oceans. As Asianists, we aremore familiar with the “eastern” orientation,although our view might change somewhat ifwe were interested, for instance, in theextensive networks of Arab trade thatconnected Africa to India and beyond.[2]Indeed, in his latest book, A Hundred Horizons,Sugata Bose joins others (2006; Pearson 2003)in arguing for the organic unity of the IndianOcean by tracing the economic and culturalcommunication that made it an integrated andinterregional arena well into the twentiethcentury.

As the geographer Martin Lewis has noted,these divisions of “sea space” do allow foreffective communication among people withlike interests. There is, however, a danger that

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our imaginations can be directed “along certainpreset pathways . . . that reflect specificcultural and political outlooks” (Lewis 1999, p.211). In light of this comment, it is interestingto note that Southeast Asia – located betweentwo of the world’s great oceans – remains ashadowy presence even when the theme of“maritime Asia” is employed. Nearly thirtyyears ago Donald Emmerson made a strongcase for a “maritime perspective” on SoutheastAsia (Emmerson 1980), and if we agree thatgreater attention should be given to the role ofthe sea in Asian communities, then SoutheastAsia is a good place to begin. In the Malay-Indonesian and Philippine archipelagoes, forinstance, between 95 and 100 percent of thepopulation lives within 100 km of the coast andthese cultures still posses the world’s “richestresidue” of ancient maritime technology (Lewis1978, p. 63). Historical discussions of mainlandSoutheast Asia typically emphasize the culturaland economic base in agriculture, but it isworth remembering that 40 percent ofThailand’s population, and over 80 percent ofpeople in Vietnam, live in areas designated ascoastal.[3] As one geographer has put it, “thedegree of marine inf luence over theenvironment, settlement, communication anddevelopment of resources, both in Mainlandand Island Southeast Asia, is probablyunmatched in any other part of the world.”(Barrow 1990, p. 78)

In this context, the uniqueness of SoutheastAsia can also be attributed to its location at thecrossroads of Asia’s seaborne trade. Themaritime connections between China and Indiathrough Southeast Asia are well documented(Hall 2006), but it is also useful to rememberthat winds and ocean currents linked southernJapan and the Ryukyu Islands to Taiwan andthe Philippines, and that there are a range oflinguistic and cultural similarities that go wellbeyond coincidence (Kumar and Rose 2000;Toichi, 1974; Waterson 1990, pp.15-17).Although the policy of sakoku under theTokugawa shogunate institutionalized the idea

of the sea as a barrier, the Japanese effort topresent itself as a maritime power after 1941can be seen as an attempt to revive earliertraditions. Included in a royal Ryukyuanthology of 1531, the chant of a priestess whosummons the spirits of Japan, China, Java and“the southern seas” is compelling evidence ofthis older vision (Hokama 1998, p. 256).[4]

As innumerable studies have shown, one of themost effective means of tracking suchconnections in early times is through aconsideration of trade. It is not enough,however, just to talk about port cities andmaritime routes, and to treat the oceans assimply a “transport surface,” a medium bywhich products and trade goods moved fromone place to another. If we accept thatexplorations of resemblance and divergencemay themselves be illuminating, we need toimagine the human reality that initiated andsustained commercial exchanges along oceanpathways. In viewing the seas as a space forcreative human activity (Lowe 2003, pp.121-122; Steinberg 2001, p. 46), we can onlywonder at the human ingenuity that developedthe sailing technology required to link far-flungareas, and that located and provided much-desired products for distant and unknownconsumers. Is it not amazing, for example, thatearly communities in tropical Asia discoveredhow to roll the fibers of the sugar palm (Arengapinnata) together sufficiently tightly even tolash a boat together? Or that resin from theRhus vernicifera (Japanese lacquer) tree mixedwith sawdust, shredded bamboo, or water-buffalo dung could be used for caulking(Burningham 1994, p. 223, Manguin 1985, p.336)? Equally remarkable is the distancetraversed by certain items that may have littlesignificance in today’s commercial world.Human cooperation over thousands of milesthus meant that beads made in Europe, Africa,the Middle East, India, China or Java couldbecome prized heirloom possessions of buyersas far afield as Timor and Palau (Francis 2002).

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Bamboo basket boats, Vietnam, 2000.Traditionally caulked with resin

and fillers such as sawdust, shredded bamboo orcattle dung. Courtesy

University of Hawai‘i Center for Southeast AsianStudies picture archive

Let us take as another example the case ofcowry shells. Although the species of cowriesused for money (Cypraea moneta) was widelydistributed through the Indo-Pacific area, thebest come from the Maldives, and it was thecommercial production here (breeding shells onpalm fronds and other leaf matter lying inshallow water) that supplied Cypraea monetafor most of the world’s trade until theeighteenth century. The tentacles of theseoperations were far-reaching; in Yunnan acowry-based system of exchange for payingtaxes, buying land, and making donations waswell established by the ninth century CE andcontinued until the seventeenth century (Yang2004). Another area where cowries were muchused was northern Thailand, with local rulingsthat were often very precise: for example, onelaw code specifies that if an officer “grasps thebreasts of a woman who is willing” he shouldbe fined 22,000 cowrie shells, but (to our mind,paradoxically) only half the amount if he putshis hands inside her blouse (Wichienkeeo andWijeyewardene 1986, pp. 22, 29). It seems thatthese networks linking Bengal and coastalSoutheast Asia only declined with theexpansion of Han control into Yunnan and anexpanding globalized market based on coinage.

Cowry trade (Yang 2004. Used with permission)

A third trade item that might pique studentinterest is the edible holothuria, the sea slug orteripang. Again, tracking the distances coveredby what early Europeans called a “repulsive”product requires us to think far beyond area-studies boundaries, and serves, if we need it, asanother reminder of the great lengths to whichhuman beings will go to satisfy the demands ofcommerce. Although teripang occur throughoutthe world’s oceans – there are in fact about1200 known species – the greatest diversityand the largest numbers were found among theislands of Southeast Asia and adjacent areas.The primary consumers in the early modernworld were in China, where by the late Mingperiod sea slugs were standard in mostbanquets. The increasing demand fueled anexpansion of the teripang trade, particularly ineastern Indonesia, where remote islandsbecame drawn into a global exchange. As themarket grew, even northern Australia became amajor area for teripang collection, primarily byBugis and Makassar traders from Sulawesi.Evidence of stone fireplaces, tamarind trees,and Muslim graves supply material evidence oftheir presence, as does Aboriginal art,linguistic borrowings, and legend (Macknight1976). The gathering of sea cucumbers, still animportant trade today, provides an intriguing

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example of a complex train of relationshipsthat, as in the case of beads or cowries,encourages us to think of the manifold ways inwhich the sea has faci l i tated humaninteraction.

Makassar fishermen smoking teripang for theChina trade, 1845.

Port Essington, North Australia,(Macknight 1976, plate 11. Used with permission)

Comparisons of the cultural environments thatare enmeshed in these attenuated chains ofcommunication also deserve attention, for it ishere that the human dimension most clearlyemerges. I can only reiterate that there areinteresting possibilities for comparison acrossAsia and for testing the proposition that littoralsocieties “have more inc common with otherlittoral societies than they do with their inlandneighbors (Pearson 2006, p. 353). Does thereceived wisdom that women in seagoingcommunities are relatively independent stillhold among, for instance, the pearl divers ofJapan and South Korea (Cho 1989; Martinez2004, p. 47; Norr and Norr 1974, p. 249)? Inwhat ways do cultural singularities explain thedifferences between female fish traders insouthern India and those in the coastal areas ofVietnam or Indonesia (Pham 2004; Ram 1989;Volkman 1994, pp. 574-76)? Although ananthropologist might urge her colleagues toaccept the sea as a “place” that, like the land,generates “creative human activity,” anyhistorical investigation faces real challenges; as

Roderick Ptak has pointed out, official Chinesesources dealing with seafaring rarely reflectthe views of ordinary sailors and merchants,and there is little room for integrating China’scoastal towns and provinces into a maritimesetting (Lowe 2003; Ptak 2001, p. 401).Nevertheless, because our academicorientation is normally territorially grounded,we may have overlooked material that isavailable to us and in the process haveunderestimated the importance of the sea-landexperience in our representations of Asia. In arecent article Charles Wheeler calls for a “re-thinking” of the place of the sea in Vietnamesehistory. In his words, “We typically invoke thecentrality of water in Vietnamese cultural life,whenever we talk to our students.” However,with few exceptions, he goes on, the historicalevidence of the sea’s significance has remainedonly supplementary to interpretations thatpresent Vietnam as an “enclosed, earthbound,agrarian society” (Wheeler, 2006, p.126)

In responding to this comment, I turn to theisland-rich environment of insular SoutheastAsia, [5] and particularly to those areas of theAustronesian world where the symbolism of thesea and of boats is integral to political andsocial systems (Coedès 1968, pp. 3-4). Theintimate relationship between land and sea soclearly articulated in these systems shouldencourage participants in larger conversationsto think more seriously about the place of theoceans in As ian states tradi t ional lycharacterized as agrarian. In a 1984conference on Southeast Asia, Pierre-YvesManguin (1986) spoke of “ship-shape societies”and the range and variety of references heassembled remains impressive. Although somescholars have cautioned against over-readingthis symbolic language (Waterson 1990, pp. 20,93), one cannot deny that the migration ofancient Austronesian-speaking peoples fromsouthern China or Taiwan would have been byboat or that words connected with boating andsea travel are prevalent in l inguisticreconstructions of proto-Austronesian

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vocabularies (Pawley and Pawley 1994, p. 329;Zorc 1994, pp. 543-45). More than threethousand years later, when the Spanish firstreached the Philippines in 1521, boats werestill the only means of long-distance transport,and there is no evidence of wheeled vehicles(Scott 1994, p. 5).

Island Southeast Asia

In this context, historians can gain much fromconversations with archaeologists. The boat-shaped coffins found throughout this water-connected world, often in locations that facethe sea, provide convincing evidence that manyearly societies thought of the afterlife as aplace that would be reached after a voyageacross water. Indeed, the words for “boat” and“coffin” are sometimes interchangeable, andfrom very early times “ships of the dead” are arecurring motif in Southeast Asia’s indigenousart (Ballard et al 2004, pp. 394-97; Glover1972, p. 42; Manguin 1986, pp. 193, 196). Astriking example of this imaginaire is found onthe cover of a well-preserved burial jardiscovered in a cave complex on the island ofPalawan in the Philippines. Shown in theirvoyage to the next life, both boatman andpassenger wear a band tied over the head andunder the jaw, a style of laying out a corpsestill found in the southern Philippines centurieslater (Fox 1970, pp. 113-114, 123). It is unclearwhether any parallels exist between the boatcoffins in Southeast Asia and ancient boat

burials found in China’s Sichuan province,although in both places this mode of intermentseems to have been associated with the elite. Inthe seventeenth century Spanish missionariesthus talked of Filipino chiefs buried in boats“which the natives call barangay”; in one suchinstance, the body was surrounded by seventyslaves, ammunition and food “as if he were tobe as great a pirate in the other life as this”(Blair and Robertson 1903-9, 7: 194; 40: 81;Quirino and Garcia 1958, pp. 396, 415-16; Sage1992, pp. 67, 140)

Cover of burial jar representing souls sailingto the afterworld, Palawan, Philippines

(Fox 1970:114)

The symbolism that linked the sea to the land isalso apparent in the house architecture ofnumerous Indonesian cultures. Though thederivations of curved and allegedly “boat-shaped” roofs in certain societies have beendebated (conversely, the best known are the

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inland societies of Minangkabau and Toraja),studies of communities in eastern Indonesia,notably between Timor and Tanimbar,persistently employ boat terminology inreference, for instance, to the main posts(“masts”) of the house and the space under thehigh roofs (“sails”) as well as to otherarchitectural features like the “keel” or“rudder” (de Jonge and van Dijk 1995, pp.33-34, 74-77; Manguin 1986, pp. 190, 204 n17;Vroklage 1940, pp. 263, 265, 266;). Even whenvillages are located at some distance from thecoast and the economy is based on agriculturerather than seafaring, the association betweenboats and the human community can still apply,albeit adjusted to an inland environment. In theSahu (northern Halmahera) village describedby Leontine Visser, the ceremonial house iscompared to a perahu pulled up on land(kagunga tego-tego) rather than a seagoingboat (Visser 1989, p. 177). Equally, it is notuncommon to find that household relationshipsare expressed in terms of shipboard life. Anearly seventeenth-century Bicol dictionary fromthe Philippines thus glosses the word laygay asboth “in command of a ship” and “to issueorders in charge of servants and slaves in thehouse” (Mintz 2004, 2: 704). More intimately, akelong, a genre of traditional Makassaresepoetry, imagines the union of a husband andwife as being “like two fishing boats/Fishingtogether the big shiny fish /Tied together forlife’s long voyage” (Knappert 1999, p. 94; cf.Gonda 1947, pp. 101-05).

Minangkabau house near Bukkitinggi, Sumatra,2004.

Courtesy of Sara Orel

As one might expect, similar metaphors alsocan be found in regard to communityorganization. The earliest historical referencesagain come from the Philippines, whereSpanish friars noted that the smallest politicalunit of Tagalog society was called a barangay,or boat (Blair and Robertson 1903-9, 40:83;Manguin 1986, p.189). The same heritage,however, is found through much of easternIndonesia, and it is against this backgroundthat we read the names of villages in centralFlores, like Laja (sail), Udi (rudder), ManguLewa (high mast), or Kutu (great oar length),and of headmen honored with titles such as“steersman,” or “leader of the great perahu”(de Jonge and van Dijk 1995, pp. 40, 55; Röder1939, pp. 100-1; Vroklage 1940, pp. 268-269).As Visser (1989. p. 177) has noted, themetaphorical conception of the village centeras a perahu is widespread in the Austronesianworld, but the cultural dynamics of acommunity built around the concept of a boathave been most graphically described in theTanimbar Islands in eastern Indonesia. In 1940Petrus Drabbe published his remarkableaccount of pre-Christian villages located oncliff-top sites, where the center and place ofworship was built in the shape of a stone boat,and in one case was even equipped with ananchor taken from a shipwrecked Dutch

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steamer. When men were absent on long-distance trading voyages a “crew” of womenmaintained watch on land. Assuming the samepositions as men on a ship – captain, jurumudi(in charge of steering), or jurubatu (responsiblefor the anchor) – they followed prescribedrituals until the boat returned (Drabbe 1940,pp. 47-51, 140-41). A more recent study bySusan McKinnon has recorded the persistenceof many of these practices, including theceremonial language and dance formations thatcelebrated the unity of a boat and its crew, andthe “friendship voyages” by which intervillagealliances were renewed. Encoding the villageas a perahu lying at anchor, she suggests, thestone boat imparted a sense of unity andstability to a people whose cultural memorieswere infused with legends of migration andresettlement (de Jonge and van Dijk, pp. 76-81;McKinnon 1988, pp. 165-66; 1991, pp. 68-83).

Singing and dancing, people from Sera Island(Tanimbar archipelago)

set out to renew their alliance with a village onYamdena Island,

1980. Courtesy of Susan McKinno

Tanimbar women dance on a stage builtin the form of a boat (from Drabbe, 1940)

Boat-shaped stage, Tanimbar (from Drabbe,1940).

In eastern Indonesia a cultural order that tiedthe sea to the land has been most clearlyidentified in relation to villages, but the samemodels could be easily elevated to higher levelsof governance. On the other side of thearchipelago the notes accompanying aprecolonial map of the Malay state of Perakthus explain that the raja is the captain andthat the duties of ministers mirror those ofcrewmembers, with one identified as “he whowields the starboard paddle” and another “theperson who bales the boat if she leaks (Andaya1979, p. 28; Manguin 1986, p. 193; Shellabear1885, pp.19-20). By the same token, it wasthese ruler-centered courts that producedSoutheast Asia’s impressive corpus of maritimelaw, providing judicial advice for a multitude ofproblems that could develop during a voyage,during trading negotiations, or when a ship

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made landing. “The captain is as a king onboard his ship; the steersman is like the primeminister; the person in charge of castinganchor and taking soundings is like the chief ofpolice.” Crewmen were expected to follow thesame standard of conduct as they would onland, particularly in regard to married women,and one article reads: “Anyone using a mirrorfacing towards the bow of the ship commits aserious offence, since the captain’s wife orconcubine might be on board [and her imagebe reflected]. The punishment is seven lashesand a fine of gold” (Winstedt and de Josselin deJong 1956, pp. 32, 49, 51, 58).

In promoting the comparative framework thatlies at the heart of area studies, one obviousapproach would see differences and similaritiesamong sea-oriented communities primarily ineconomic terms, because their livelihood is soclearly reliant on access to the water and itsresources. In the words of a female fish traderin Mandar (southwest Sulawesi), “our garden isthe sea” (Norr and Norr 1974; Volkman 1994,pp. 567, 569). There are however, moreintangible dimensions. As Raymond Firth andothers have emphasized, the uncertainty of afishing-based economy is great, since “the yieldis precarious, the risk considerable,” and thespirits of the sea required constant andunremitting propitiation if the fisherman (oroccasionally fisherwoman) was to be successful(1984.p. 1147; Kalland 1995, pp. 42-50). In thePhilippines the Spanish friar Francisco Colinmentioned the many offerings made to theanito of the sea and the gifts necessary toconciliate other spirits associated with the“rocks, crags, reefs and points along theseashore” (Blair and Robertson 1903-9, pp. 40,70, 72). Such spirits were particularly prone toanger if a crew ignored prescribed ritual oremployed inappropriate words, especially thoseassociated with the land. Traditionally, forexample, Acehnese fishermen at sea could notcall a mountain by its proper name, gunung,lest waves as high as mountains overwhelmtheir vessel (Barnes 1996, pp. 295-97). Still

today male pearl divers in the easternIndonesian island of Aru believe that theirsuccess depends on developing a rewardingand productive relationship with a demanding“sea-wife” who will guide them to places wherethe most valuable pearls are located. Because adiver’s “land-wife” and his “sea-wives” worktogether, a man’s domestic relations must beharmonious (Spyer 2000, pp. 17-18, 137-38). Abelief in the ability of underwater deities toaffect the well-being of an entire community isperhaps best attested in central Java,frequently and misleadingly categorized as anagrarian kingdom. Its royal center (todayidentified with Jogjakarta), however, waslocated not far from the beach of Parangtritis,home of Ratu Kidul, goddess of the southernocean. Periodically, her mystical sexual unionwith the Javanese ruler rejuvenated the realmand guaranteed its prosperity (Ricklefs 1998,pp. 6-13).

The intimate association that correlates thefertility of the sea with the fertility of the landis nicely illustrated in the ritual attached toboatbuilding itself, and of the many examplesavailable I use here Michael Southon’s casestudy from the island of Buton, near Sulawesi.Here the whole construction of the boatmirrors the union of men and women, and it isunderstood that an owner and his wife shouldhave sexual relations before the keel is joinedto ensure good fortune. In this sense the boatsymbolizes the partnership implicit inmarriage; in the words of one informant “Thehusband is like the leader or captain . . . [but]it’s the woman who knows the contents of theperahu . . . it’s the woman who orders things inthe perahu.” The presence of a pregnantwoman at a launching can thus be a potent signof the boat’s birth and an expression of hopesfor its future cargo-laden prosperity. Further,the relationship between those who wait athome is supposed to mimic the father-sonrelations that ideally operate while the boat isat sea; a captain’s wife should thus treat thefamily of her husband’s crew members not as

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employees but as her children and relatives(Southon 1995, pp. 93-119; see also de Jongeand van Dijk 1995, pp. 40-41, 54-55, 70-71;Liebner 1993, p. 25).

In the constant and finely-tuned interactionbetween land and sea, seasonal shifts in thepatterns of winds and currents were critical tothe timing of agricultural as well as maritimeactivities. In several areas of easternIndonesian and the western Pacific theswarming of sea worms (nale or palolo) occursonce or twice within a given period of the lunaryear and for this reason has traditionally beenused as a calendrical marker. In some placesone even finds the appearance of the worms –themselves a symbol of fertility – personified ina female spirit, Inya Nale (Ecklund 1977, pp.4-11; Hoskins 1993, pp. 90-91, 342-44;Mondragón 2004, p. 293). Before theirconversion to Islam or Christianity, sculptors ineastern Indones ia represented th issea/land/fertility nexus in statues of thefounder-mother (luli), often carved against atree rising out of a boat, which in turn calls upassociations between male-female unity and thewomb itself. In combination, the boat, tree andancestress become a forceful image offecundity and new birth (de Jonge and van Dijk1995, pp. 54-55).

Luli carving, Indonesia. Courtesy of JeromeFeldman

In a different medium and always the work ofwomen, a similar correlation is evident in theLampung ship-cloths from southern Sumatra.The boat motifs for which these textiles arerightfully famous are obviously far more thanships. The masts sprout leaves and the hullsare decorated with luxuriant tree-like forms;ancestors crowd the decks, while dugong andturtles swim in the surrounding sea. Conceivedas a total design, each piece becomes anindividual affirmation of the centrality ofprocreation and the absolute necessity ofcontinuing the lineage (Gittinger 1976; Solyom2004, 95).

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Example of a Lampung “ship-cloth.”Courtesy of Bronwen and Garett Solyom

As we place this maritime-oriented world in alarger framework, it is also understandable thatthe legitimacy of influences from outside isoften enhanced through an association with theocean. Accordingly, legends found throughoutSoutheast Asia frequently recall somelegendary figure, a “stranger-king” who arrivesby sea, marries a local woman and becomes theconduit by which a new cultural order isinstituted. In explaining the acceptance ofIndian ideas, an oft-cited example comes fromthe middle of the fifth century, when twoChinese envoys to a “country” called Funan,apparently located in southern Cambodia,recorded a myth of origin that tells how a localprincess paddles out to meet the vessel of anincoming Brahman. The latter gives theprincess a cloth to cover her naked body andmakes her tie her hair in a knot; following theirunion he becomes ruler of Cambodia (Coedès1968, p. 37). The spread of Islam, too, iscommonly attributed to merchants and traderswho appear on ships, but one particularlygraphic image from the Chronicle of Kutai(eastern Borneo) dating to about 1620,describes how the first teacher of Islam arrived

from neighboring Makassar riding on the backof a swordfish (Jones 1979, p. 147). The use ofthe maritime metaphor to present Islamicmysticism in ways that were intelligible to localaudiences is effectively captured in aseventeenth-century Malay poem that speaks ofthe gnostic setting sail on a perilous sea where“many ships sink/Its surges are immenselyfierce/Its reefs are as sharp as spears/If [theseafarer] is not experienced and skilledenough,/[His] ship will strand and break intopieces” (Braginsky 1975; 2004, pp. 148-49).

A similar pattern could be tracked in thePhilippines, where the incorporation of pre-Christian iconography is evident in statues ofthe Immaculate Conception; one of herattributes, the stylized crescent moon, was attimes thickened so that she appears to bestanding on a curved boat (Gatbonton 1979, p.105; Zóbel de Ayala 1963, p.109). Presumably,such associations would have been helpful inthe missionizing project. Vietnamesefishermen, for instance, readily likened theMadonna’s swirling veil and surroundingclouds to a small boat riding on the waves, andsaw her as possessing protective powers likethose of Mazu, the goddess of the oceans(Forest 1998, 3: 286). The picture of Christ as afriend and guardian of fishermen would havebeen equally compelling. A boat-shaped lecternin a church on the main island of the Sangirgroup north of Sulawesi, with an attachedplaque bearing the biblical reference Mark 4:35-41, reminds the congregation of how Jesuscalmed the storm, much to the awedamazement of his disciples: “Even the wind andwaves obey him.”

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Pulpit at a church in Desa Mala, Sangihe,Indonesia, 1999.

Courtesy of Jennifer Munger

In sum, the Southeast Asian examples suggestthat the real and symbolic communicationbetween sea and land merits closer attentionfrom those who study the region we term Asia.This is far from saying, of course, that theoceans were seen as an unquestioned bearer ofpositive influences or that their frightening andunpredictable powers were ever regarded withanything less than deep respect. The tragedy ofthe 2004 tsunami still hangs over us, but theregion has since experienced numerous otherdestructive typhoons and tidal waves. Even innormal times tropical storms could bring aboutshipwreck, and the shallow waters could hidereefs and rocks on which vessels could wellfounder. One of the most interesting areas ofmaritime studies has been the growth ofunderwater archaeology, sometimes producingquite spectacular discoveries (e.g. Flecker2002). Nor do I mean to present coastalsocieties as Utopian communities, living inharmony with each other and exemplifying amutually beneficial relationship between landand water. In her study of the South China Sea,Dian Murray (1987, pp. 14-19) notes thatpirates were often former fishermen, and formany orang laut groups in Southeast Asiaraiding under a ruler’s auspices could be aseasonal occupation. From the late eighteenthcentury, fleets of Ilanun raiders from Mindanaoannually swept down into the Indonesian

archipelago, and the terror felt by their victimsis vividly portrayed in a Malay account of howone trader “was strangled with his shouldersash and left to rot. His penis was cut off andstuffed into his mouth” (Ali Haji 1982, p. 262).Yet a great sea raider could still be respected,and the perception of the ocean as a pathwayto fortune is encapsulated in the Malay phrase“mencari rezeki”, to seek one’s fortune, whichbecame a code-term for officially sanctionedpiracy. Indeed, it was the image of a journey bysea that an unknown Sufi poet (probably fromSumatra) felt best conveyed the idea of aspiritual path that would lead to personalenlightenment: “Oh youth, know thyself!/ Like aboat is thy body . . . Avail thyself of a rudderand compass/Equip thy boat:/Such is the way ofperfection for man” (Braginsky 1975, p. 414;Maier 1992, pp. 2-5). What Australians of myvintage called “o.e.,” or overseas experience,remained for Southeast Asians a source ofprestige and new knowledge, whether it wassimply to a neighboring island, to Mecca, or inthe colonial period, to study in Europe.Ultimately this enlargement of an individual’sworld almost always involved travel by sea.

This brings me to my last point. Althoughgeneralizations are always problematic, I followO.W. Wolters (1999, p. 46) in suggesting thatan environment of acceptance and openness tothe outside, “a tradition of hospitality,” wasgenerally characteristic of coastal and seagoingcommunities. The sailor who has a wife in everyport may be a cultural cliché, but it had veryreal significance in a trading environmentwhere a family base was absolutely vital for amerchant to pursue his business. Kinshiprelations, both real and fictive, were keyelements in creating and maintaining thepersonal relationships that underpinned ane c o n o m y w h e r e l a n d a n d s e a w e r einterdependent. The vignette I use to illustratethis point is one of my favorites. It concernsJohn Pope, a young Englishman, whoseinsightful and well-written diary records hisexperiences as a seventeen-year-old apprentice

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sailing between India, Burma, Sumatra andMelaka in the 1780s. An early port of call afterleaving India was Kedah on the west coast ofthe Malay Peninsula, where he was received inan audience by the ruler and the king’smerchant, a Tamil Muslim from Coromandel.The latter’s son (probably born of a Malaymother) was about the same age as John, andthey became quite close, spending a good dealof time in each other’s company and evendiscussing matters like religious differences.“My new friend Dul Baddul,” wrote John,“wishes much that I should stay here, promisesme everything that I can wish.” On John’sdeparture Dul gave him a kris “inlaid withgold”; in return, Pope presented his “newfriend” with his own silver buckles and a pencilcase, “the only things of any value in mypossession,” and promised to learn to writeJawi (Malay in modified Arabic) so that theycould exchange letters. “We parted,” he wrote,“not without many tears on both sides” (Bulley1992, p. 60).

Conclusion

The year 2005 marked the 600th anniversary ofthe first of Zheng He’s voyages, an impressivevision of a world that could be connected viawater. At the same time, these voyagescontributed to the goal of knowing, describingand taming the oceans and thus of confirmingtheir conceptual subservience to the land.Today we live in communities that have littleappreciation of the importance of the sea in thesocial and economic lives of early societies.Roads have replaced rivers, airplanes havedisplaced long-distance ocean travel, andcartographic traditions and the demands ofmodern states have asserted the supremacy ofland-based cultures. In this essay I have triedto make a simple point: Given the physicalenvironment in which most of us operate, wehave to work hard to imagine how it might havebeen in Manguin’s “ship-shape societies.” Yetregardless of whether the goal is to engagestudents or interact with colleagues, I would

argue that the effort is worthwhile. More thantwenty years ago Wolters remarked that “thesea provides an obvious geographicalframework for discussing possibilities ofregion-wide [Southeast Asian] historicalthemes.” He went on to stress, however, theunity of “‘the single ocean’ – the vast expanseof water from the coasts of eastern Africa andWestern Asia to the immensely long coastal lineof the Indian subcontinent and on to China”(Wolters 1999, pp. 42, 44). The “transocean”standpoint may enable us not merely to workwith a larger canvas, but to capture somethingof the human encounters that underwrite thecommunication between areas and betweenpeoples. Although there is probably no way wecan be what Rhoads Murphey once termed a“complete Asianist” (Murphey 1988), we can doour best to think across the boundaries ofdisciplines, areas and a presentism thatprivileges the land. As we work ever harder tobring Asia into the academic mainstream, anunderstanding of the ocean and of how itshaped the lives of real people may open upnew perspectives on the intertwined historiesthat should be integral to our projection of“Asia.”

Barbara Andaya is Professor of Asian Studiesand Director of the Center for Southeast AsianStudies, University of Hawai’i. She waspresident of the Association for Asian Studies,2005-6.

This article is a revised version of herpresidential address, delivered at the AnnualMeeting of the Association for Asian Studies inSan Francisco, April 2006. The original waspublished in the Journal of Asian Studies 64, 4,(2006). It is reproduced here with permissionfrom the Association and from the publisher ofJAS, Cambridge University Press. Posted atJapan Focus on April 17, 2007.

Notes

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[1] In a similar mode, Paul D’Arcy arguesthat the oceanic environment transverses thedivisions traditionally employed in PacificStudies by linking Polynesia and Micronesia(D’Arcy 2006: 9). See also Pearson 2006, whoargues for a world-wide consideration oflittoral societies.

[2] References here are extensive, but for arecent work see Barendse 2002

[3] “The Seas of East Asia,” p. 19; see alsoWheeler 2006.

[4] Reference kindly supplied by AnnaNagamine

[5] Currently Indonesia is said to compriseover 17,000 islands and the Philippinesaround 7100. In both cases the definition of“island” is open to debate. One needs toremember that there are areas, like Timor,that lack a sea-faring tradition (McWilliam2002:6).

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