|
|
|
|
|
|
The propensity of the Bugis people to migrate is a well known fact, but its factors and processes have until now been insufficiently studied, in spite of a few excellent researches by Abu Hamid, Acciaoli, Lineton, Maeda-Matsumoto, Mukhlis and Robinson, as well as by Riwanto Tirtosudarmo. Likewise, the historical role of Bugis migrants and adventurers, especially in the western part of the Malay-Indonesian archipelago, has been addressed by Andaya, Matheson-Hooker and Peluso, but to my knowledge no major work has ever attempted to give an overall view of it in the scope of the whole area; and little has been written about their acceptation (or rejection) by, assimilation to and impact on the local populations among whom they have established themselves, especially for the period from the end of the XIXth century to the present. My paper will try, in part, to answer the last question, namely with regard to the coming and establishment on the south-western and western coast of the Malayan state of Johor, in the two last decades of the XIXth century and the 1960?s, of Bugis people, mainly from Wajo?, who both have maintained until now their Bugis identity and language, and have become an integral part of the Malay society. My first data on the Johor Bugis were for the most part collected during the five months I spent in 1967 in the Pontian district, mainly in the Benut mukim (parish), especially in the village of Parit Makkuaseng (although in fact my first ever encounter with Bugis people took place in the neighbouring Senggarang sub-district of the Batu Pahat district); later I paid short visits to my friends in Parit Makkuaseng successively in 1968, 1972, 1974, 1977, 1979, and 1987. Then, on invitation of the Institut Bahasa, Kebudayaan dan Kesusastraan Melayu (now called ATMA) of the Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia in Bangi, I spent in 1991 again four month in Malaya, visiting places scattered between Kukup in the south to Muar in the north of the Johor western coast, interviewing Bugis and Malay elderly informants, knowledgeable people and community leaders, asking among others the Bugis what they knew about the process of their migration and settlement in their present location and which changes they had observed from their youth to the present, and both the Bugis an Malays about what they feel they have in common, what still differentiates them, and what is their opinion about each other. According to a Malay tradition that has been incorporated into the Malaysian constitution, to be considered as Malay, one has to speak Malay, to follow the Malay adat and to be a Muslim. Thus, to become assimilated to the « true » Malays, the Bugis newcomers had to become bilingual - which was not too difficult for them, although I still met in 1991 a handful of old persons who could only speak Bugis; they readily adopted Malay ways of life, house types, clothing and food styles, tools and techniques (just maintaining a few pecularities such as given recipes or customs, or even coining new Bugis variants of Malay adat).
With regard to religion, being Muslim was indisputably not only an integrative factor but also an important asset, due to the important role played, in the first decades of Bugis migration to Malaya, by several Bugis syeikh hajI living in Singapore as intermediaries in the process of chain migration; then, in the places where they had settled, as Friday mosques were only to be found in their mukim?s main settlement, the Friday prayer was an occasion to mix, not only with true Malays, but also with migrants of other origins (mainly Javanese and Banjar people) with whom Malay was the language of communication ; at the same time, heterodox religious practices (some of which could even be termed as « pagan survivals) still be observed, sometimes until very recently, in South Sulawesi, were abandoned much earlier by the Bugis living in Malaya. Such a trend towards « orthodoxisation » seems to be a common trait of Bugis migrants in other parts of the archipelago. |
Jointly organized by IIAS the Netherlands and The State Institute of Islamic Studies, Makassar