Muslims and Matriarchs: Cultural Resilience in Indonesia through Jihad and Colonialism

229 Pages·2008·2.8 MB·English

by  Jeffrey Hadler

Muslims and Matriarchs

MUSLIMS
AND
MATRIARCHS
Cultural Resilience in Indonesia
through Jihad and Colonialism
JEFFREY HADLER
Cornell University Press
ITHACA AND LONDON
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(cid:2)928—dc22 2008016674
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and
materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials
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Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Culture of Paradox 1
1 Contention Unending 17
2 Shapes of the House 34
3 Interiors and Shapes of the Family 58
4 Educating Children 87
5 Intimate Contention 112
6 Earthquake 138
7 Families in Motion 156
Conclusion: Victorious Buffalo, Resilient Matriarchate 177
Bibliography 181
Glossary 199
Index 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’s kopi-oand lontong 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 monumental Historical 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 ix
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-
shrouded rumah 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 matrifocal rumah
gadang, to Noe, Maia, and especially Kumi, for putting up with this thing for
so long.
J.H.
Berkeley, California