ofthe SAME TREE

This depiction is not at variance with what is known from other historical
evidence. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Dutch East India
Company (VOC) envoys to the Malayu courts remarked on the fact that the
official letters were read aloud in court and heard by an assembled crowd that
gathered to observe the entire proceedings. Tales composed or translated by
court poets and scribes were often recited for the pleasure not only of the
court but also of the ordinary people who gathered for the occasion. Neither
physical nor cultural barriers were erected to alienate the ruler from his subjects,
and even the production of literary works was often the result of mutual
borrowing between court and village. In daily life the distinction between the
ruler and subject was never marked. Western observers often commented that
except for size, there was little to distinguish the “palace” of a local Malayu
ruler from the dwelling of his subjects. Perhaps for this reason, status differences
were affirmed through sumptuary laws.
While the external manifestations of kingship were evident to the people,
more important was the internalized belief in the superior descent of the ruling
family that established difference and accounted for the ruler’s daulat,
the supernatural forces that surrounded majesty. Nevertheless, there was a
mutual dependency that characterized the relationship between the ruler and
the Malayu people. Through good deeds performed for the ruler, the people
would not only acquire a good reputation (nama) but would also be rewarded
by the ruler with “robes of honor” and titles, both of which were imbued
with the spiritual potency of kingship. 105 Royal letters were received with special
ceremony because they had come in contact with and thus contained the
supernatural powers associated with kingship. The Malayu were not coerced
to perform service to the ruler but did so willingly with the assurance that they
would be more than compensated by a good reputation and the reciprocal royal
gifts consisting of objects imbued with the protective powers of majesty.
Genealogy is particularly important in Malayo-Polynesian societies
because it is the primary determinant of royal succession and rank. The selection
of marriage partners, however, can be based either on a principle of
descent or one of alliance. 106 A close analysis of the early seventeenth-century
Raffles 18 and the late eighteenth-century Shellabear recensions of the
Sejarah Malayu reveals a shift in emphasis from alliance to descent, 107 which
corresponds to the political changes in the Malayu world. Beginning in the
late eighteenth but culminating in the nineteenth century, colonial rule was
gradually imposed on the Malayu world by the Dutch and the English. Conflict
between the two European powers was forestalled by the 1824 Anglo-
Dutch Treaty, which divided this world into an English and a Dutch sphere
of influence. Then began the process by which both colonial governments
sought to assure stability in their spheres by relying on those families with
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