Table Of Content^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^9
TRANSLATION OF
CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE
SCHOLARSHIP
ON
SOUTHEAST ASIA
READING SOUTHEAST ASIA
VOLUME I
SEAPJ
Southeast Asia Program
120 Uris Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853-7601
Project Leader
George Kahin
Participating Researcher
Takashi Shiraishi
Assistant Researchers
Jose Cruz
Saya Shiraishi
Sadako Taylor
Translation
EDS (Tokyo)
Editing and Production
Audrey Kahin
Roberta Ludgate
Dolina Millar
Published under the auspices of the Toyota Foundation
© 1990 Cornell Southeast Asia Program
ISBN 0-87727-400-2
CONTENTS
Introduction 5
1. Patjar Merah Indonesia and Tan Malaka: A Popular Novel 9
and a Revolutionary Legend
Noriaki Oshikawa
2. A Study of Bustanu’s-Salatin (The Garden of the Kings) 41
Saya Shiraishi
3. State Ritual and the Village: An Indonesian Case Study 57
Teruo Sekimoto
4. Javanology and the Age of Ranggawarsita: An Introduction 75
to Nineteenth-Century Javanese Culture
Kenji Tsuchiya
5. Popular Catholicism in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines: 109
The Case of the Cofradía de San José
Setsuho Ikehata
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INTRODUCTION
Born as "Southern Studies'' (Nampo Kenkyu) in the late 1930s and early 1940s, South-
east Asian studies in Japan is now passing from the second to the third generation,
while the fourth generation of scholars in their twenties and early thirties is now
emerging on the horizon. The preceding generations have produced excellent works,
only some of which are available in English. Tatsuro Yamamoto's classic, Recherches
sur I'histoire de I'Annarn, and the "Overseas Chinese" studies by scholars affiliated
with the East Asia Economic Research Bureau of the Manchurian Railway are among
the best works of the first generation, while the writings of such scholars of the sec-
ond generation as Akira Nagazumi, Yoneo Ishii, and Toru Yano represent Japanese
scholarship on Southeast Asia at its best.1 These and other studies, cross-bred with
non-Japanese language works on Southeast Asia, have formed a beautifully mestizo
scholarly tradition of Japanese research on Southeast Asia, now rebaptized as Tonan
Ajia Kenkyu (Southeast Asian Studies), in which the succeeding generation of
Japanese Southeast Asianists, among whom I belong, have worked over the last
twenty years.
Yet each generation of Japanese scholars working on Southeast Asia carries its
own historical birth marks. Many members of the first generation entered "Southern
Studies" in the 1930s when Japan was starting its fatal southward expansion. No
wonder, then, that one of the major contributions of these scholars lay in their work
on the "Overseas Chinese" and on the anti-Japanese Chinese national salvation
movement in Southeast Asia.2 Members of the second generation started to study
Southeast Asia in the 1950s and early 1960s when Japan was notable by its absence
from the region and when American scholarship was fast replacing the old colonial
studies of Southeast Asia. Akira Nagazumi, the first Japanese to obtain a PhD in
- Tatsuro Yamamoto, Recherches sur I'histoire de I'Annam (Tokyo: Yamakawa, 1950); Mantetsu
Toa Keizai Chosakyoku, Tai-koku ni okeru Kakyo [Chinese in Thailand] (Tokyo, 1939); Firipin ni
okeru Kakyo [Chinese in the Philippines] (Tokyo, 1939); Ranryo Indo ni okeru Kakyo [Chinese in
the Dutch Indies] (Tokyo, 1940); Eiryo Marat, Biruma oyobi Goshu ni okeru Kakyo [Chinese in
British Malaya, Burma and Australia] (Tokyo, 1941); Futsuryo Indo-shina ni okeru Kakyo
[Chinese in French Indochina] (Tokyo, 1943); Akira Nagazumi, The Dawn of Indonesian
Nationalism: The early years of the Budi Utomo, 1908-1918 (Tokyo: Institute of Developing
Economies, 1972); Yoneo Ishii Jozaha Bukkyo no Seiji-Syakai-gaku: Kokkyo no Kozo (Tokyo:
Sobunsha, 1975) Translated by Peter Hawkes, under the title Sangha, State, and Society: Thai
Buddhism in History (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986); Toru Yano, Tai Biruma
Gendai Seijishi Kenkyu [A study of Thai and Burmese political history] (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1968)
and "Nanshin" no Keifu [The lineage of "southward expansion"] (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha,
1975).
2 A side from the works on "Overseas Chinese" cited in fn. 1, see also Toa Kenkyu jo, Dai 3
Chosa linkai, Nan'yo Kakyo Konichi Kyukoku Undo no Kenkyu [A Study on the Nanyang Chinese
Anti-Japanese National Salvation Movement] (Tokyo: Toakenkyujo, 1944).
6 Reading Southeast Asia
Southeast Asian history at an American university, thus clearly marked the coming-
of-age of the second generation.
The third generation of Japanese Southeast Asianists, some of whose works ap-
pear in this and future volumes of this series, also display special characteristics. In
terms of age they are now in their forties, and they entered Southeast Asian studies in
the mid-1960s to early 1970s, when Japan was fast returning to Southeast Asia, and
there were expanding opportunities for conducting research in the region and/or
graduate studies abroad. Many of this generation spent one or more of their forma-
tive years outside Japan—in Southeast Asia, in the United States, in Australia, and in
Europe. They viewed a knowledge of all the languages needed for their studies as a
self-evident requirement, "translation works" (those based on non-Japanese works)
were no longer acceptable, and many were well aware of most recent research by
non-Japanese Southeast Asianists. Yet when they first entered Southeast Asian stud-
ies Southeast Asia was still remote and it remained so for some time. Scholars of this
generation felt themselves fortunate to visit the region once in five years; library col-
lections on Southeast Asia were poor, a book or a journal article had to be pursued
from one library to another. Besides, there were few places where one could learn
Southeast Asian languages. At the same time, events were moving swiftly in South-
east Asia: the killings and the establishment of the New Order in Indonesia in 1965-
1966, the American war in Vietnam, the 1969 riot in Malaysia, the anti-Japanese
movement and the revolution in Thailand in the early 1970s, the anti-Japanese riot in
Jakarta in 1974. Since then things have changed very much. But scholars of the third
generation have not forgotten this past and the contrast it presents with the way
things now are. And this memory still leaves its marks on many of their studies—on
the questions they ask, on the approaches they take, and on the sources they use.
The essays included in the four volumes of the present series, Contemporary
Japanese Scholarship on Southeast Asia, are chosen to illuminate the scholarship of this
third generation, especially in fields where few Japanese works are available in
English. The studies included in the first volume, Reading Southeast Asia, are attempts
to read Southeast Asian "texts" in the broader sense: Noriaki Oshikawa has written
on Indonesia's "Scarlet Pimpernel" popular novels of the 1930s; Saya Shiraishi on
Acehnese historical texts; Teruo Sekimoto on the huge signs which appear on the
roofs of village houses commemorating August 17, Indonesia's independence day;
Kenji Tsuchiya on Dutch Javanology; and Setsuho Ikehata on a nineteenth century
Tagalog religious text. All the essays are undoubtedly inspired in one way or another
by the kind of textual reading exemplified by scholars such as Ben Anderson, Rey-
naldo Ileto, and James Siegel, but they also represent an attempt to go beyond the
scholarly tradition created by the preceding generations.
The essays to be included in the second volume of the series will explore
Japanese language sources on Vietnam in the 1940s, and the articles based on these
sources represent an effort by the Japanese authors to make their own contributions
to Vietnamese history. Most of the works in the third volume were originally written
by the research group led by Hajime Shimizu at the Institute of Developing
Economies. Building on Toru Yano's pioneering work on Japan's southward expan-
sion they investigate the origins of the Japanese presence in Southeast Asia. And,
finally, the fourth volume will include works on Suharto's New Order in Indonesia,
the country where since the late 1960s the Japanese presence in the form of aid, in-
vestment, and trade has been the most pronounced in Southeast Asia.
Introduction 7
This project to make Japanese works on Southeast Asia available to English read-
ers has been carried out by a team at Cornell, headed by Professor George McT.
Kahin and funded by the Toyota Foundation. All the draft translations were done by
EDS (Editorial and Design Services) in Tokyo with great care. For all this, I would
like to thank Ms. Kazue Iwamoto of the Toyota Foundation who first brought up the
idea; Ms. Yoshiko Wakayama who patiently saw the project through to completion;
Ms. Suzanne Trumbull and her colleagues at EDS who put so much work into the
translation effort; Dr. Audrey Kahin, without whose effort this project would have
never got off the ground; and Jose Cruz, Roberta Ludgate, Dolina Millar, Saya
Shiraishi, and Sadako Taylor who contributed to the project in many and valuable
ways.
Finally, many Japanese scholars of the third generation owe an enormous intel-
lectual debt to the late Prof. Akira Nagazumi in whose seminar some of us, including
myself, were initiated into Southeast Asian studies and whose works set a standard
to which all of us have had to aspire. His untimely death in 1988 was an enormous
loss for us all. But his works are still with us, and his soft voice, his gentle and quiet
manner, and his rigorous scholarship are still in our memory. To his memory we
would like to dedicate this book.
Takashi Shiraishi
Ithaca
February 1990.
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1
PATJAR MERAH INDONESIA AND
TAN MALAKA: A POPULAR NOVEL
AND A REVOLUTIONARY LEGEND
Noriaki Oshikawa
INTRODUCTION
Patjar Merah Indonesia [The Scarlet Pimpernel of Indonesia] is a five-volume popular
novel published in Medan, East Sumatra, between 1938 and 1940. As the title sug-
gests, the work is inspired by The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy's famous 1905
novel about the French Revolution and a secret society led by Sir Percy Blakeney (the
Scarlet Pimpernel) that rescues French monarchists from the guillotine and smuggles
them to England.1 Patjar Merah Indonesia is a similar tale of adventure with political
overtones on an international scale about Indonesian nationalists of the 1930s who
pursued an underground struggle against the oppressive power of the Dutch colonial
government, namely imperialism, and against Stalinism. The Patjar Merah, or Scarlet
Pimpernel, is the nationalists' exiled leader, an elusive and protean hero.^
Swinging back and forth between historical fact and incredible fantasy, the story
is peopled with characters who are for the most part readily identifiable historical
figures whose names are only thinly disguised. Some of the leading figures in the PKI
(Partai Komunis Indonesia; Indonesian Communist Party) of the 1920s—Semaun
(1899-1971), Alimin (1889-1964), Musso (1897-1948), and Darsono (1897-?)—appear
in supportive roles under the Russian-style names Semounov, Alminsky, Mussotte,
and Darsonov, respectively. The Scarlet Pimpernel himself uses a variety of aliases,
depending on where he happens to be: Vichitra in Thailand, Tan Min Kha in China,
Ibrahim el Molqa in Palestine. These names are on file in intelligence agencies around
the world, but his true identity is never revealed. Nevertheless, through his actions,
* There is a Japanese version, Benihakobe [The Scarlet Pimpernel], translated by Nishimura Kpji
(Tokyo: Sogen Suiri Bunko, 1970), that is a translation of the 1950 popular edition published by
Hodder & Stoughton, London. There is also an Indonesian version, Patjar Merah, translated by
R. Poeradiredja and published as Balai Pustaka Serie 746 (Weltevreden: Balai Pustaka, 1930).
However, this is the second edition; the publication date of the first edition is unknown.
^1 first learned of the existence of this novel from Anas Ma'ruf (1922-1980) when he was a vis-
iting professor at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in the 1960s. A native of West Suma-
tra like Tan Malaka, he belonged to the generation that fought for Indonesia's independence
and was an admirer of Patjar Merah Indonesia in his youth. The novel is also discussed in Harry
A. Poeze, Tan Malaka: Strijder voor Indonesia's Vrijheid, Levensloop van 1897 tot 1945 (The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1976), pp. 482-90.
