Muslims and Matriarchs

Jeffrey Hadler

Description

Muslims and Matriarchs is a history of an unusual, probably heretical, and ultimately resilient cultural system. The Minangkabau culture of West Sumatra, Indonesia, is well known as the world's largest matrilineal culture; Minangkabau people are also Muslim and famous for their piety. In this book, Jeffrey Hadler examines the changing ideas of home and family in Minangkabau from the late eighteenth century to the 1930s. Minangkabau has experienced a sustained and sometimes violent debate between Muslim reformists and preservers of indigenous culture. During a protracted and bloody civil war of the early nineteenth century, neo-Wahhabi reformists sought to replace the matriarchate with a society modeled on that of the Prophet Muhammad. In capitulating, the reformists formulated an uneasy truce that sought to find a balance between Islamic law and local custom. With the incorporation of highland West Sumatra into the Dutch empire in the aftermath of this war, the colonial state entered an ongoing conversation.These existing tensions between colonial ideas of progress, Islamic reformism, and local custom ultimately strengthened the matriarchate. The ferment generated by the trinity of oppositions created social conditions that account for the disproportionately large number of Minangkabau leaders in Indonesian politics across the twentieth century. The endurance of the matriarchate is testimony to the fortitude of local tradition, the unexpected flexibility of reformist Islam, and the ultimate weakness of colonialism. Muslims and Matriarchs is particularly timely in that it describes a society that experienced a neo-Wahhabi jihad and an extended period of Western occupation but remained intellectually and theologically flexible and diverse.

Sujets

• Indonésie
• Islam
• Anthropology
• History of religions
• History of Asia
• Indonesia
• Southeast Asia
• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 juin 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801461606
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Muslims and Matriarchs

MUSLIMS AND MATRIARCHS

Cultural Resilience in Indonesia

through Jihad and Colonialism

JEFFREY HADLER

Cornell University Press I T H A C A A N D L O N D O N

Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges a grant from the University of California, Berkeley, which has aided in the publication of this book.

Copyright © 2008 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2008 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Hadler, Jeffrey. Muslims and matriarchs : cultural resilience in Indonesia through jihad and colonialism / Jeffrey Hadler. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9780801446979 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Minangkabau (Indonesian people)—History. 2. Islam—Indonesia—Sumatera Barat—History. 3. Matriarchy—Indonesia—Sumatera Barat—History. 4. Women, Minangkabau—History. 5. Family—Indonesia—Sumatera Barat—History. 6. Sumatera Barat (Indonesia)—History. I. Title.

DS632.M4H34 2008 305.89928—dc22

2008016674

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Cloth printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction: Culture of Paradox

Contention Unending

Shapes of the House

Interiors and Shapes of the Family Educating Children Intimate Contention Earthquake Families in Motion Conclusion: Victorious Buffalo, Resilient Matriarchate

Bibliography Glossary Index

vii

1 17 34 58 87 112 138 156 177

181 199 201

Acknowledgments

In 1985, I signed up for the American Field Service high school student ex change program and was placed with a mixed MinangkabauMandailing fam ily in Jakarta. I have been returning to Indonesia and living as part of this extended family ever since. I did a stretch of longterm fieldwork in West Sumatra in 1994–1996 and in Jakarta in 1998–2001. I spent a stray month or two in the Netherlands, Sumatra, or Java in 1996, 2005, 2006, and 2007. I am indebted to many people in all these places as well as in the United States. Among them are, in Berkeley: Beth Berry, Ben Brinner, Lawrence Cohen, Va sudha Dalmia, Penny Edwards, Robert and Sally Goldman, George and Kausalya Hart, Susan Kepner, Tom Laqueur, Ninik Lunde, Cam Nguyen, Aihwa Ong, Nancy Peluso, T. J. Pempel, JosÉ Rabasa, Raka Ray, Alexander von Rospatt, Virginia Shih, Clare Talwalker, Sylvia Tiwon, Bonnie Wade, and Joanna Wil liams. Berkeley’s Southeast Asianist graduate students have been a real source of camaraderie and conversation. Two in particular, Ian Lowman and Scott Schloss berg, helped me with texts and ideas that were incorporated into this book. In Indonesia: Taufik Abdullah, Adriel Adli, Gusti Asnan, Azyumardi Azra, Langgeng Sulistiyo Budi, Yusmarni Djalius, Erwiza Erman, Yasrul Huda, Nelly Paliama, Rusydi Ramli, Suribidari Samad, Noni Sukmawati, Edy Utama, M. Yusuf, and Mestika Zed. Pak Taufik not only sponsored the original re search, he inspired it. I have spent years hanging around the campuses of An dalas University in Padang and the State Islamic University in Jakarta talking with teachers and students. Without question those conversations—in the An dalas Department of History and U.I.N.’s Center for the Study of Islam and Society (P.P.I.M.)—have shaped my thinking in fundamental ways. And Bung Edy, Iman, and Uli are the real reasons I keep heading back to West Sumatra. (Along with Om Liong’skopioandlontong sayurat Nan Yo Baru.)

viii

Acknowledgments

I thank friends and colleagues scattered around the world: Ben Abel, Barbara and Leonard Andaya, Joshua Barker, Tim Barnard, Franz von BendaBeckmann, Renske Biezeveld, Evelyn Blackwood, Martin van Bruinessen, Freek Colom bijn, Don Emmerson, Mike Feener, Michael Gilsenan, Mina Hattori, Anthony Johns, Sidney Jones, Audrey Kahin, Joel Kahn, Doug Kammen, Niko Kaptein, Tsuyoshi Kato, Pamela Kelley, Paul Kratoska, Ulrich Kratz, Michael Laffan, Tamara Loos, AbdurRazzaq Lubis, Ted Lyng, Barbara Metcalf, Rudolf Mrázek, Jim Peacock, Ian Proudfoot, Tony Reid, Jim Rush, John Sidel, Kerry Sieh, Suryadi, Eric Tagliacozzo, Peter Vail, Marcel Vellinga, Nobuto Yama moto, and Heinzpeter Znoj. The Indonesianist world is convivial, everyone has a spare bed and drink to share, and I have been looked after more times than can be counted. Four mentors passed away without really knowing how much they have shaped my scholarship and especially my sense of scholarly responsi bility: Khaidir Anwar, Herb Feith, George Kahin, and Onghokham. I have benefited from great teachers, and their influence is felt throughout this book. The lessons of James Scott, Hal Conklin, Joe Errington, Rufus Hendon, Ben Anderson, Takashi Shiraishi, and David Wyatt unfolded as I did research and wrote. At its best, I hope that this book represents a blending of the Yale, Cornell, and Berkeley schools of Southeast Asian studies—an intellectual his tory that is attentive to literary traditions at the level of the village. Sarah Maxim, Nobertus Nuranto, and Sunny Vergara have been part of my life for twenty years, more or less, and we seem to follow one another around. They have kept me sane. Peter Zinoman, Henk Maier, and Munis Faruqui must be singled out for their detailed advice about this book and academic life in general. Michael Peletz gave the manuscript a thorough goingover and helped to firm up my anthropological footing. CheeKien Lai created illustra tions of longhouses, and Cecilia Ng gave us permission to adapt two of her il lustrations to create a single image of the “lifecycle within the longhouse.” Robert Cribb, whose monumentalHistorical Atlas of Indonesiais soon to appear in electronic format, drew new maps. Danielle Fumagalli checked for holes in my bibliography. Julie Underhill and Chi Ha hunted typos in a late draft. Roger Haydon has been a kind and patient editor from the beginning, nudging me and this book back onto the path more than once. Two anonymous reviewers for Cornell University Press were exemplary in their critical reading of the manu script. Teresa Jesionowski pulled it all together with great humor, and Julie Nemer’s copyediting brought clarity when things were hazy. Kevin Millham compiled the index. Thank you all. Teaching in a department of South and Southeast Asian Studies forced me to juxtapose Indonesia and India, if for no other reason than to have conversa tions with colleagues. Thinking comparatively drew me into discussions with Robin Jeffrey, and these led to two sequential panels at annual meetings of the Association for Asian Studies, “Politics and Matriliny: Comparative Historical

Acknowledgments

i

x

and Anthropological Perspectives” (in 2003) and “The Futures of Matriliny in South and Southeast Asia” (in 2004). Without this comparativist move, I would never have realized the role that the Padri War and Islamic reformism played in the persistence of matrilineal traditions in Sumatra. My initial research and writing were supported by grants from Fulbright, the Social Science Research Council, and the Charlotte W. Newcombe Founda tion. The revision was supported by the Townsend Center and a Humanities Research Fellowship from the University of California, Berkeley. I would like especially to thank Mary Ann Mason and Cal’s “Family Friendly Edge Policy” for making it possible for me to be an assistant professor and a dad at the same time. In the course of conducting research, I made use of the following libraries and archives: the Indonesian National Library and National Archive in Jakarta (with Pak Ali and Mas Langgeng as my guides); the libraries of the Genta Budaya, An dalas University, the Office of Civil Records, Provincial Library, and the mist shroudedrumah gadangof the Yayasan Dokumentasi dan Informasi Kebudayaan Minangkabau in West Sumatra; the Museum Sonobudoyo library, the Yayasan Hatta library, and the nowdefunct Perpustakaan Islam in Jogjakarta; the Lei den University Library and manuscript collection, the Royal Institute for Lin guistics and Anthropology (KITLV) library, and the Van Vollenhoven law library in the Netherlands; and the Cornell and University of California, Berke ley, libraries in the United States. The librarians of Berkeley’s NRLF annex de serve a special thanks for fielding what must have seemed like an endless series of online requests from a faceless assistant professor. This is a book about peculiar families, and I have three to thank. I thank my own parents for their trust and support. I thank the Baharson family in Jakarta for giving me a love of Indonesia and Minangkabau (with a promise to the Malaon side of the family: Mandailing will not be neglected in future projects). Finally, this book is dedicated to the contents of my own matrifocalrumah gadang,to Noe, Maia, and especially Kumi, for putting up with this thing for so long.

Berkeley, California

J.H.