G.

Knaap
The Saniri Tiga Air (Seram); An account of its discovery and interpretation between about 1675
and 1950

In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 149 (1993), no: 2, Leiden, 250-273

This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl

GERRIT J. KNAAP

THE SANIRI TIGA AIR (SERAM); AN

ACCOUNT OF ITS 'DISCOVERY' AND
INTERPRETATION BETWEEN ABOUT
1675 AND 1950

In March 1684 the governor of Ambon, Robert Padtbrugge, sent a

commission of four persons - two Europeans and two Christian Ambonese
village chiefs - to the southeast coast of the island of Seram to establish
peace in a bloody conflict between certain coastal villages on the one hand
and a number of groups of 'mountain people' on the other. The
commissioners were told, amongst other things, that they should make an
inquiry into the customs and religious convictions of the mountain people,
the so-called Alifuru, with a view to preventing any further head-hunting
activities by them in the territory of the coastal villages. The commission
returned and presented the govemor with its report within a few weeks. It
told the govemor that the commissioners had done their best to find out
something about the Alif'uru religion, but had not succeeded: their
respondents had evinced such a diversity of opinions that it had been almost
impossible to draw any significant conclusions. These people were 'so
superstitious that each village would require almost a volume of paper for
everything to be noted down' (VOC 1403:21v-25v,25-34v).
To the twentieth-century historian or anthropologist interested in this
area, this early failure to obtain information about Seramese religion and
society may be quite a disappointment. Who is to blame for it? Perhaps the
commissioners questioned the wrong informants. Probably they themselves
were not especially interested in the subject in any case. Or perhaps they
were just lazy. AI1 of these arguinents may partly apply. The
commissioners' observation that they were unable to report on the subject
because every village would have required almost a volume of its own was
also uue, however, as was proven some 250 years later, in the 1930s, by
P- P

GERRIT J. KNAAP, who obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Utrecht, is Head
of the Department of Historica1 Documentation of the Koninklijk Instituut voor
Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV). Specialized in Indonesian history, his
publications include Kruidnagelen en Christenen; De Verenigde Oost-Indische
Compagnie en de bevolking van Ambon 1656 - 1696 , Dordrecht, Foris, 1987,
and Memories van overgave van gouverneurs van Ambon in de zeventiende en
achttiende eeuw, 's-Gravenhage, Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, 1987.
Dr. Knaap may be contacted at the KITLV, P.O. Box 9515,2300 RA Leiden.
 The Saniri Tiga Air (Serum) 25 1

the three German ethnographers of the Frobenius Expedition, who instituted

a thorough investigation into the religion and society of West Seram.
Amongst other results, they produced an almost 450-page compilation of
433 myths and legends gathered in about fifteen villages (Jensen 1939). The
impression that the reader of these myths and legends gets is one of
numerous local variations in the oral uadition.
'Volumes of paper' were indccd written on Seram, more particularly West
Seram, in the period between roughly 1910 and 1950. The series was opened
some years after the subjugation of the last 'tribes' by h e Dutch, and ends
with Jensen's analytical interpretations of the results of the Frobenius
Expedition, the publication of which was dclaycd by the outbreak of the
Second World War (Jensen 1948). Rclevant publications in this period were
those of both Dutch military officers who had been involved in the sub-
jugation, administration and surveying of the newly acquired territory
(Sachse 1907, 1922; De Vries 1927) and mcmbcrs of German ethnological
expeditions such as the Frciburg Expedition of 1911-1912 (Tauern 1918;
Suesemann 1918, 1923) and the above-mentioned Frobenius Expedition of
1937-1938 (Jensen 1939, 1948). While the Dutch officers restricted
themselves mainly to descriptive accounts of the country and its people, the
German ethnographers were inspircd by larger schemes which might throw
light on some sort of general evolution of mankind in its primitive stages.
The only important analytical study by a Dutch ethnographer was that of
Duyvendak (Duyvcndak 1926). However, this was based entirely on
published sources. After Jensen's magnum opus, there was a pause in
scientific interest in the area which more or less coincided with a new period
of turbulencc in the Scram mountains, this time caused by RMS (Rcpublik
Maluku Selatan) guemllas.
Traditional West Seramese society possessed several interesting features
which attracted ethnographcrs in particular. The mountain people or Alifuru
were not only representatives of a primitive sort of society of hunter-
gatherers and swidden agriculturists, but were also head-hunters. Head-
hunting had been a widcspread phenomenon, playing an important rolc in
the social and religious life of the Alifuru since time immemorial. More-
over, Alifuru society was full of 'puzzling' phenomena such as
menstruation huts, tooth-filing ceremonies, and a pre-Islamic form of
circumcision. The 'pièce de résistance', however, was a secret brotherhood,
cailed Kakéan. Conncctcd with this brothcrhood was an institution that was
obviously meant as a counterbalance to the island's perpctual state of
warfare rcsulting from hcad-hunting. This was the 'Saniri Waele Telu', as it
was called in the local languages, or 'Saniri Tiga Air' in Malay, the lingua
franca. Literally translatcd these tcrms meant 'Council of the Three Rivers'.
By the time the ethnographcrs became interested in them, both the
Kakéan and the Saniri Tiga Air were already becoming 'history'. These
institutions were dying out because of the submission to colonial rule and
the profound transformation of society going hand in hand with it.
 Gerrit J . Knaap

Consequently. twentieth-century discussions about these phenomena were

mainly of an 'academic' and 'interpretative' kind. During the three preceding
centuries - from the beginning of the seventeenth to the beginning of the
twentieth century - the wriuen accounts of West Seram often formed part of
a debate of a 'political' or 'adrninisuative' nature.
The present study is an attempt to reconstruct the history of the
'discovery' and political exploitation of the Saniri Tiga Air by the colonial
authorities. This reconsuuction is by no means complete. Much more
information is bound to lie hidden in archives, in particular those pertaining
to the nineteenth century. In addition, attention wil1 be given to sorne of the
views of the principal authors writing on the subject in the above-rnentioned
twentieth-century interpretative stage. These views wil1 be reviewed in
relation to the evidence frorn earlier centuries. Here the reader should not
expect definite answers explaining the origin of the phenomena concerned,
however. For this evidence provides no clear-cut facts conducing to any final
solution to the debate. I wil1 begin with a few general rernarks to introduce
West Seram and its population.

West Serarn: Population and Society

West Serarn was inhabited by only two ethnic groups: the Wernale in the
southem and eastem parts of the area, and the Alune, also called Makahala,
in the west. Both ethnic groups had their own language and possessed
several distinctive cultural features. According to the local tradition, the
Wernale owed their name to their origin from the area of the 'Wai', or
'river', Mala in the southeast of West Seram. The name Alune, on the other
hand, was said to be derived from the word for the girdle which the female
mernbers of this ethnic group used to wear, made frorn a piece of cloth
which each wornan wove herself. Wemale women, who did not know how
to weave, wore a piece of beaten tree bark instead. The other name for the
Alune, Makahala, rneans 'rice eater', thus pointing to the fact that these
people knew how to grow rice, whereas the Wernale supposedly did not. The
Wemale were organized according to rnatrilineal principles, while the Alune
followed patrilineal rules. Marriages between Wemale and Alune were not
allowed. Wemale femaies were supposed to isolate themselves in special
huts outside their villages during rnenstruation, while Alune fernaies could
stay in their own house (De Vries 1927:9,281; Jensen 1948:19-21).
The division of the population of West Serarn into Alune and Wemale
did not have any substantial political significance. Neither group possessed
any central institutions that rnight have given them some sort of unity.
Instead the villages, which were loosely organized conglomerations of clans,
provided the focal point for political loyaities. These villages can, however,
be grouped into a nurnber of categories according to location, socio-
WEST SERAM
254 Gerrif J. Knaap

economic development and socio-religious orientation.

First, there was the distinction between coastal and mountain villages.
The coastal villages were inhabited by people who originally came from the
mountainous inland and had migrated U> the coast before the coming of the
Europeans (De Vries 1927:ll-14; Jensen 1948:23-26). In their new coastal
environment they had partly abandoned the traditional Alifuru economic
pursuits of hunting-gathering and swidden agriculture to become more
oriented towards fishing and trade. They intermarried with migrants from far-
away places like Sulawesi and the North Moluccas. In the seventeenth
century they also came int0 closer contact with the European colonizers,
with West Seram's south coast coming under more or less effective Dutch
mle around 1650. Until the nineteenth century, when the north coast was
also incorporated into the colonial state in a more substantial way, villages
in this area only nominally acknowledged Dutch rule. As contacts with the
non-Seramese world increased, the coastal population embraced world
religions such as Islam and Christianity. Islamization and Christianization
were, however, slow and gradual processes, laving considerable room for al1
kinds of syncretism between the old and the new religions (Manuhutu
1985268-269: Knaap 1987a:79,90-91).
Another distinction that gave some sort of political identity to West
Seram society was the division into 'Patalima' and 'Patasiwa' or the 'Group
of Five' and the 'Group of Nine'. A distinction of this kind can be found in
island societies almost everywhere in the eastern part of Indonesia.
According to Wemale oral tradition, the origin of this division in Seram lay
in mythological times and was associated with the creation of the present
world order (Jenscn 193959-68; Van Fraassen 1987 II:460-512). In more
recent times the division into Patalima and Patasiwa served as a paradigm
for traditional thinking about social and political relations. In its most
simple form, this idea imagined the world as bcing organized into two
opposed polcs. This led each group in turn to view itself as the other's arch-
enemy. Almost the entire population of West Seram belonged to the
Patasiwa group, which considered itsclf to be in a constant state of war with
the Patalima in Central Seram. Nonetheless, the idea of belonging to the
Patasiwa did not provide West Seramese society with any deeply rooted
sense of solidarity. It may be true that villages in the areas located closea to
Patalima territory regularly coopcrated among themselves to fight the
enemy, but as is clear from the sources, most of those West Seramese
Patasiwa who died in hostile engagements were killed by the sword of
fellow-Patasiwa.
With the village functioning as the most important political unit, the
political situation in West Seram displayed a great deal of particularism.
Conflicts over territory and/or pcrsonal animosities bctween village leaders
or other prominent persons might easily result in small-scale warfare. The
village chief, usually the leader of the seniormost clan in the settlement,
whose role in the village council was only one of 'primus inter pares', was
 The Saniri Tiga Air (Serum)

regularly confronted with opposition from within. Sometimes entire clans

would leave a village after an intemai dispute. Smd-scale warfare was even
more deeply entrenched in Alifuru society as a result of head-hunting.
Whenever a new ceremonial hall was erected or religious rituals were
performed for which offerings of human heads were deemed necessary, men
were sent to collect fresh heads. Nevertheless, it aiso came about that
individual villages formed associations with one another. Even federations of
villages were formed, acknowledging the overlordship of a specific powerful
village chief and his family. In the seventeenth century, for instance, such
local centres of power were found in Sahulau and Sumit in the south and
Siseulu in the north. The 'overlords' were only able to exercise 'power'
insofar as the individual villages within their 'realm' were willing to
cooperate. If their policy was not the Same as that of a particular individual
village, that village's loyalty was soon lost. It goes without saying that an
'overlord' could greatly strengthen his position by gaining prestige in war,
or displaying skills in diplomacy (Manuhutu 1985:272; Knaap 1987a:
61, 73).
Aside from some general shared characteristics, the largely animistic and
polytheistic religion of the Alifuru displayed many local variations. The
most important 'deity' in West Seramese religion was Tuwale, the
personified sun. After him came the moon, the heavens and the earth, as
wel1 as several stars. These deities did not, however, play a significant role
in everyday religious life. Much more important were the goddess of death,
Mulua Satene, and a man-eating snake, Nitu Elake. Besides these, there was
a large group of local 'spirits', both evil ones, who brought diseases and
other disasters, and good ones, very often the deceased ancestors, who
protected living souls, at least insofar as those souls observed traditional
customs in a proper way (Jensen 1948:192-193,232-240).
The snake Nitu Elake figured as the central personality in the above-
mentioned Kakéan, the rituals of which were performed, with a certain
degree of secrecy, exclusively by the male part of the population - hence the
association in the literature with 'secret brotherhoods'. Those men who had
been initiated into the community of Kakéanists were marked with a special
kind of tattoo in the shape of a black cross on their chests. Because of this
tattoo, the Kakhnists were often rcferred to as 'Patasiwa Hitam', or 'black
Patasiwa', as opposed to the 'Patasiwa Putih', or 'white Patasiwa', who did
not have such a mark. The majority of the West Seramese male population
were Patasiwa Hitam bclonging to the Kakéan. A consequence of this state
of affairs was that, at regular intervals, a certain degree of unity was brought
into the heavily divided political scene. For whenever the leaders of the
Kakéan deemed this necessary, they summoned Kakéan members from
throughout West Seram to meet at a certain place to discuss current affairs.
This institution, named Saniri Tiga Air, was supposed to bring together the
Kakéan members from the area of the rivers Tala, Sapalewa and Eti, and this
assembly usually discussed matters concerning the entire membership. As
256 Gerrit J . Knaap

such, it also functioned as a peace-making institution arnong warring

members.
The initiation of Kakéan members Look place at intervals of several
years, whenever there was a sizeable group of young boys reaching
adolescente. A high-ranking shaman-like 'priest', the mauwen besar, decided
exactly when the ritual would take place. For the purposes of the ceremony
the adult males of a certain group of villages would then consuuct a
dwelling, the rumah rutué, in the bush outside the village. When al1 was
ready, the boys would enter the rumah turué. amid a temble noise made to
frighten everyone. During their term in the rumah tutué the boys were under
a strict prohibition against disclosing anything about the rituals to
outsiders. Meanwhile the mauwen or 'priests' would tel1 the women that the
boys had been slain by Nitu Elake, showing them bloody bush knives and
spears as proof. Some days later, the mauwen besar would explain to the
women that he had succeeded in persuading Nitu Elake to restore the boys to
life again. After a few more days, the boys themselves would return to their
villages. They now sported the tattoo which was the sign of Kakéan
membership. After their return, however, they would behave rather
abnormaily, pretending not to know how to eat, how to speak, and so on. In
this way they showed that they had just been through a terrible ordeal and
had been 'reborn' int0 a another 'life' and another community, that of the
adult males. The boys would then be taken outside their villages for several
months, during which period the older members of the community would
give them special training in hunting and other matters deemed appropriate
for an adult maie (Duyvendak 1926:95-104;Jensen 1948:87-103).
Al1 who had been initiated into the Kakéan had the nght to attend the
meetings of the Saniri Tiga Air, which were held at intervals of several
years. They always took place at or near the mouth of one of the three
nvers, the Sapaiewa, Taia and Eti. The supreme leaders of the three districts
were called inama, which word was derived from ina, i.e. 'mother', and ama,
i.e. 'father'. In Malay they were referred to as the k p a l a saniri, or chiefs of
the Sanin. They lived in certain coastal villages. Below the kepala saniri
there were the kapitan saniri, men who assisted with the convocation of
meetings. These functionaries were usually inhabitants of mountain
villages. Furthermore, each district provided an ujong bendera and a pohon
bendera, meaning 'one who sits near the top of the flagpole' and 'one who
sits at the base of the flagpole' respectively. The 'flagpoles' were the two
big uees placed on the ground in an east-west direction at the place of the
meeting; anyone who wanted to discuss a conuoversiai matter had to stand
between these uees while presenting his case for the others to hear
(Duyvendak 1926:83-90;Jensen 1948:81-86).
 The Saniri Tiga Air (Seram)

Contacts between the Dutch and West Seram prior to 1678

In 1605 the Dutch East India Company (VOC) took over the Ponuguese
fortress on the island of Ambon. From this fortress, narned Victoria, the
Company gradually conquered the western coastal areas of the island group
of Seram and Buni. nowadays called Central Moluccas. ï ñ e Dutch occupied
this area in order to control the production of cloves, at that time a highly
profitable trade item. This conml was strongly resisted by small indigenous
states, usually Muslirn ones. Between roughly 1625 and 1655, however, the
Company broke the Muslim opposition with the assistance of the Christian
Ambonese population from the formerly Portuguese part of the islands
(Knaap 1987a: 17-27).
For the first 73 years of Dutch presence in the area the YOC sources do
not say a word about either Kakéan or Saniri. The first information about
contacts between the Dutch and West Seramese Alifuru as such, in
Rumphius' chronicle, however, dates from 1621, when a few Alifuni village
chiefs, including those of Sahulau and Sumit, visited Fort Victoria to meet
Governor-General Jan Pietersz Coen. On this occasion they pledged
allegiance to the States General of the Dutch Republic and to the VOC.
Hereby they becarne participants in the Dutch-Christian Ambonese alliance
against the Muslim Ambonese. Most West Scram Alifuru tended to see a
Patalima, that is, an arch-enemy, in every Muslim. In the 1630s, the Dutch
occasionally made use of Alifuru groups of several hundred warriors in their
military operations against the Muslims. While the Dutch and their
Christian Ambonese allies blockaded Muslirn settlements from the sea, or at
most occupied the sea-shore, bands of Alifuru head-hunters would roam
about the woods behind the settlements, inspiring so much fear that the
Muslims did not dare to frequent their f m l a n d s and were effectively
besieged. The mobilization of Alifuru warriors usually took place through
the agency of the three chiefs of Sahulau, Sumit and Siseulu, called 'raja' or
'kings' by the Dutch (Rumphius 1910:46, 86.98-99, 121, 137-138).
Nevertheless, there was a good deal of discussion in Company circles
about the use and reliability of the Alifuru for VOC operations. Although
the chiefs of Siseulu, Sumit and Sahulau had promised u> send thousands of
followers, in practice they were orily able to supply a few hundred warriors
every now and then. Sometimes, they even failed to send anyone at all.
Commissioner Anthonie van den Heuvel, who visited Ambon in 1633, did
not attach very much value to such allies. He spoke with raja Sumit and raja
Siseulu, who, he found, 'were much more like beggars than noblemen, not
to mention kings'. The Alifuru were 'undisciplined, wild and barbaric
people; cannibals whose dwclling-places were never seen by anyone of our
people'. Van den Heuvel believed that the leaders did not even know the
number of their followers. As warriors, the Alifuru were only useful for
fighting in small groups in the bush, in order to lay ambushes against the
enemy. They were not capable of fighting full-scale battles, or attacking
258 Gerrit J. Knaap

fortresses, or fighting at sea. Whenever they heard a shot from a fuearm,

they would run away. like 'witiess' people. Two years later, on the other
hand, a conuary opinion was offered by Commissioner Artus Gijsels,
arguing that the failure of the Alifuru leaders to deliver the promised number
of fighting men was due largely to coordination problems in the
transportation of men across the sea, as weil as to mutual enmity amongst
the Alifuru themselves. Gijsels had wimessed several examples of great
courage amongst the Alifuru. and suggested that the best policy for the
VOC to pursue would be to maintain friendly relations with the Alifuru,
because, 'although they were not rendcring us any service', the VOC should
beware lest 'they do the Company any disservice' (Knaap 1987b:97-100.
135-137).
In the 1640s and 1650s the VOC successfully concluded its wars against
the Ambonese Muslims. The Alifuru played no significant role in the large-
scale military operations. Contacts between the colonial authorities and the
West Seram Alifuru were maintained nonetheless, mainly because the VOC
viewed the coastal villages of Seram as Company territory which needed to
be protected against head-hunting activities. Whenever there were cases of
head-hunting, the VOC tried to conclude peace agreements using inter-
mediaries, often the leaders of Siseulu, Sumit and Sahulau. These.attempts
never had very much effect, as these leaders had insufficient actual power to
enforce agreements concluded with the help of the VOC. If an Alifuru
village refused to submit, the VOC would eventually try to solve matters
through military intervention. Towards that end, it sometimes launched
attacks in the interior with the assistance of groups of armed Ambonese.
However, due to the fact that the Ambonese often did not know heir way
around in mountainous Seram, as wel1 as because their groups were too
large for operations in the bush, these actions were usually unsuccessful
(Knaap 1987a:20-27,61-64).
Owing to the presence of documents from a fairly low colonial
administrative level in the VOC archive in the Algemeen Rijksarchief in
The Hague, we have special opportunities of studying relations between the
Alifum in West Seram for the period from 1666 to 1680. These documents
offer an abundante of information about al1 kinds of small-scale warfare, so
much so that it is sometimes very difficult to be sure who is fighting whom
and for what reason. To give some idea of this confusion, I wil1 now
examine the 'dynastie' problems in the most powerful of the West Seram
raja families, that of Sahulau. It wil1 be clear from this that the colonial
government encountered al1 sorts of difficulties when interfering in the
Alifuru situation, as local pretenders tried to use the VOC to strengthen
their position vis-h-vis their competitors.
In 1666 the new raja Sahulau, Sauelette, grandson of the legendary
Tomale who had initiated the friendly relations with the VOC at the
beginning of the century, visited Victoria Castle to introduce himself to the
Company (VOC 1260:12-7-1666). His position was not very secure,
 The Saniri Tiga Air (Serum) 259

however, for in 1673 his nephew, Ketowaru. also visited Victoria and told
the governor that he, and not Sauelette. was the real raja Sahulau. Sauelette
was a kind of 'crown prince' who already ruled a part of the country. When
half a year later the governor visited the coast of Serarn, however, he was
told that Ketowaru had been guilty of inttigue and that Sauelette was the real
raja (VOC 1293:280v-282v; 1300: 66r). Two years iater, the same Sauelette
explained to the Dutch that, although nominally he had a great many
followers, this did not mean that he was able to control hem. Sometimes.
he conceded, other persons styled themselves 'raja Sahulau' in order to exact
tribute or commit acts of aggression. Sauelette admitted that he was in no
way able to prevent head-hunting or any other acts of violence (VOC
1317:206r-213r).
Another two years later, when Sauelette died, the confusion about
Sahulau rose to new heights. A delegation from Sahulau tumed up at
Victoria, led by the son of the, by then, late Ketowaru, who told the
governor that Sauelette's brother, Tomole Pauta, was the most legitimate
successor and asked the VOC to authorize his accession. Naturally, the VOC
officials were a little puzzled by the matter - it was the first time in history
that they had been requested to confim an Alifuru raja. What could be the
motives behind this move? It was decided to postpone any action until more
information should be available. In the meantime, a certain Lelissa turned
up requesting his confirmation as raja Sahulau. He claimed that his
ancestors had also been raja Sahulau, but had not dared to come to the VOC
and instead had sent 'ambassadors', who had taken the opportunity to present
themselves as 'raja Sahulau' to the Dutch, and thus were usurpers. Later that
year, when the governor visited the coast of Seram again, he formally
confirmed Tomole Pauta as raja at the request of the most prominent leaders
of Sahulau. Lelissa, who was also present on that occasion, withdrew his
former claim (VOC 132586-87 res, 286,329-330; 1334:119r-v).
Alas, just one year later Tomole Pauta died, and the whole procedure
started al1 over again. First, a certain Aloko presented himself in Victoria,
saying that he had been chosen as raja Sahulau. Shortly after that, however,
the Company learnt that a certain Laye Siaé, grandson of Ketowaru, was the
rightful successor. To the astonishment of the Company officials, the first
pretender, Aloko, returned to the castle to present Laye Siaé as the heir with
the most legitimate claim. Al~houghthere were some mmours that a certain
Laye Sorié had a greater right to the title than Laye Siaé but had refused to
become raja, Laye Siaé was sworn in and given a VOC coat and hat as
tokens of his official confirmation. In the end it tumed out that the Dutch
had been tricked by Aloko. When Laye Siaé retumed to the village of
Sahulau, he handed over the emblems of office from the VOC to Laye
Sorié, who apparently had not refused the position of raja Sahulau at al1
(VOC 1334:62v res, 289v, 298r, 3 13v; 1344:30-33).
260 Gerrit J. Knaap

The First Accounts of the Saniri Tiga Air

On 20 February 1678, Abraham Ririj. the Christian village chief of

Kaibobo, Akiasan, the Muslim chief of Nuniaii. and Ianuru. the 'Heathen'
chief of Tanunu. came to Victoria Castle to ask the govemor and council for
permission to convene a 'Saniri' or meeting of more than 40 West Seram
villages at the mouth of the River Eti to discuss the confused state of affairs
in the area Counciilor Georg Everhard Rumphius and council secretary W c
van Thije were instructed to investigate the matter, and four days later
presented heir report. According to the three village chiefs, who were
staying in Ambon awaiting the council's decision, the Saniri was 'a con-
federacy of several villages, which was under a pledge, since time imme-
morial, to promote peace and order on the coast of Seram'. It was divided
into three disuicts, or patan, near the rivers Tala, Sapalewa and Eti, of
which they, Abraham Ririj, Akiasan and Ianuru respectively, were the heads.
Below each there was a kapitan saniri, who was responsible for the
convocation of meetings when these were due to take place. The kapitan
saniri for the patan of t!e Tala, Sapalewa and Eti respectively were
Makuresi, living in Lisiali, Manumeten, living in Hatuale, and Tupesau,
living in Sole. Members of the Saniri had a special tattoo on their chests,
and were initiated in 'certain heathen ceremonies'. The inhabitants of a
number of villages, such as Kaibobo, were not to be obliged to take part in
these ceremonies, because they were Christian. Nothing is said about
Muslim villages taking part or not taking part in these 'heathen'
ceremonies. Of the three most powerful 'princedoms' of West Seram, only
Sumit was a member, as part of the patan of the Taia. Siseulu and Sahulau
were not part of the Saniri organization. The reason for asking permission
from the VOC was that, during the last attempt to hold a meeting, the
VOC, not knowing the reason for such a big gathering on the coast of
Seram, had sent a force of Ambonese there, thus compelling the assembly
of Saniri members to break up before the meeting could even start (VOC
1334:236v, 239r-24 lv).
The village chiefs of Kaibobo, Nuniali and Tanunu stated that the main
purpose of h e next meeting was to establish peace between two villages,
one of which was a coastal settlement in VOC territory, which had just
fallen victim to large-scale aggression on the part of head-hunters. More-
over, they requested the VOC to send delegates to witness the proceedings.
Al1 this sounded very promising in the ears of the governor and council,
recently confronted as they had been with the failure of military expeditions
to inland Seram. Permission was therefore granted. In May of that year, the
Same village chiefs asked the governor and council for a document
confirming their leadership of the respective patan of the Saniri. The
govemor, however, decided to make slow haste. He fust wanted to find out
what the opinion of other Alifuru leaders was. There was always the
possibility that he was dealing with some pretenders who only wanted to
 The Saniri Tiga Air (Serum) 26 1
take advantage of heir good relations with the VOC (VOC 1334:39v res,
242r, 305v). The relevant opinions were never sought, however.
Probably about a year later, Rumphius recorded his interpretation of West
Seramese intemal relations in his geographical work on Ambon, the
Ambonsche Landbeschrijving (Manusarna 1983:iv). Here he gives an
account of the political geography of the areas under the three most powerful
raja of his days: Siseulu, which he refers to as the 'oldest' of the Patasiwa
Alifuru; Sahulau, whose ruler bore the Tematan title for a icing. kolano; and
finaily Sumit. Sahulau owed his Tematan title to rhe circumstance tha his
ancestors were supposed to have been immigrants from the North Moluccas
(Manusama 1983:174-178). Rumphius also gives information about the
Saniri Tiga Air, but his description suggests that, even in his day, its
organization deviated from what it had originally been. His story leaves
room for suspicion that he received part of his information from kapitan
saniri Makuresi, as he tends to be rather favourably disposed towards
Makuresi's claim to historica1 pre-eminence. According to Rumphius, West
Seram had a religion called 'Patan', and its adherents sponed a certain t a m .
In the three nver districts, special temples, cailed 'marel', were built for the
initiation ceremonies, which were led by mauwen. Sometimes, on the
occasion of a head-hunting expedition or in connection with any other
'important' matter. the three kapi~ansaniri, Makuresi, Manumeten and
Tupesau, would summon al1 the members to a meeting, called Sanin.
Anyone who abandoned the Patan religion had to pay a high fine or face
persecution (Manusama 1983: 164, 171-172).
Rumphius also tells US that there was a kind of duai leadership in each of
the districts. In the district of the Tala, Makuresi was ruler of the
mountainous region, while the village chief of Kaibobo was head of the
coastal villages. In the district of Sapalewa, Manumeten and the village
chief of Nuniali were in command, and likewise that of Eti was headed by
Tupesau and the chief of Tanunu. In earlier times, raja Sumit had been just
an ordinary village chief in the district of Makuresi. Siseulu was outside the
organization becausc it had 'not joined it from the beginning'. Nevertheless,
almost al1 the villages Sisculu laid claim to were members of the Patan of
Sapalewa and Eti. The.newcomer, Sahulau, was not a member of the
organization, either. Unlike the villages 'subject' 10 Siseulu and Sumit,
none of Sahulau's followers were members of the Saniri. Rumphius further
writes that in approximately 1630 raja Sahulau and raja Sumit had come
into contact with the VOC, thus greatly enhancing their prestige amongst
the other Alifuru villages. They had induced the Dutch to believe that the
other villages were heir subjects. Conversely, they had threatened the other
villages that, if these resisted either raja, they would complain about them
to their 'friend', the govemor of Ambon. In this way, Makuresi in particular
was said to have lost a great deai of his former power (Manusarna 1983:171-
174, 176-178).
About half a century later again. Valentijn copied most of Rumphius'
262 Gerrit J. Knaap

description of the Saniri, with a few differences, however. Valentijn, in his

description of the religion of Seram, uses the word ruiué as a substitute for
'marel', i.e. the Kakéan ceremonial hall, which is more in line with later
reports. The leader of the initiation ceremonies was now styled 'great'
mauwen, i.e. mauwen besar. Furthermore, Valentijn is very outspoken in
his view that the three raja were usurpers, who had taken advantage of heir
relations with the VOC to usurp power from the kapitan saniri. He even
claimed that the three raja themselves went as far as ushg the kapitan saniri
to convoke Saniri gatherings (Valentijn 1724:Beschr. 78-79; 1726:3-4).

Saniri Gathesings in the Period of VOC Rule

The initiative to convene al1 the rnernbers of the Saniri at the River Eti, for
which the chiefs of Kaibobo, Nuniali and Tanunu had asked the VOC's
pcrmission in 1678, ended in failure. Five hundred persons assembled at the
mouth of the river, but from most of the villages in the Tala district no one
showed up. Moreover, smallpox and malaria soon began to take a tol1 on
those assembled. In the end the leaders of the Saniri decided to disperse. In
particular raja Siseulu, who, though not a member of the Saniri, was
nevertheless attending the gathering, showed himself very disappointed,
because he would have liked to have discussed an inter-village conflict which
was also important to him (VOC 1334:369v-372r, 375r). In 1680. however,
Abraham Ririj of Kaibobo, together with a few other Saniri leaders,
established peace between two villages. The two conflicting parties were
condernned to pay 50 gongs to the Saniri - a rather large number for a poor
Alifuru village. On this occasion Van Thije jotted down the comment that
'this was an Alifuru way of sentencing, for after those under sentence had
given one or two gongs, the remainder could be substituted by pieces of
cloth, knives, Chinese dishes, and so on'; in other words, the fine was to
be seen as a symbolic one (VOC 1356:498-500BI).
The first written report of a Saniri gathering is of that at the Tala in
1687. It was drawn up by Abraham Ririj, village chief of Kaibobo, and
Alexander Patimura, second-in-command in that village. Present at this
meeting were representatives of the disuicts of the Tala and the Eti, but
none from the entire district of the Sapalewa. A few days after the meeting
broke up, however, the village chief of Nuniali arrived by boat to represent
his district. Raja Sahulau had sent a delegate, moreover, because a few
issues were to be discussed in which he was supposed to have an interest.
What is more surprising is that a few pro-Patalima village chiefs from the
north coast were present, as wel1 as an important Alifuru Patalima leader,
raja Latea. Abraham Ririj played a dominant role in the discussions, and it
is obvious that he was regarded more or less as the representative of the
VOC. The Saniri established peace between a few villages, or at least tried
to do so, and besides discussed a few points of general interest. The Alifuni
 The Saniri Tiga Air (Seram)
and the coastai people were advised to stay in their own territories to prevent
any quarrelling between hem. Moreover, a ban was placed on over-zealous
anti-Islamic activities such as the burning down of village mosques (VOC
1437:28v-33v).
The next report of a Saniri meeting. that which took place in the vicinity
of Kaibobo in the district of the Tala in 1717. was wriuen by a captain and
a junior merchant of the VOC. On this occkion again the Sapalewa district
was absent, except for a few coastai villages. One of the reasons for this
absence was that it was allegedly Sapalewa's turn to organize the meeting. It
is clear from the report that there was a 'meeting in the bush', which in later
periods was referred to as 'bicara di darat', without any Company delegates.
The Company officials only witnessed the 'meeting on the beach', later
described as 'bicara di laut', which took place in front of their tent. The
'official' Saniri - that at which the Company officials were present - was
opened with a statement that, according to the laws of the Saniri, anyone
who committed robbery or murder during the gathering was liable to be
attacked by the entire Saniri. In the days following the opening ceremony,
many conflicts were brought forward for discussion. There was a striking
differente with the report of the previous Saniri, of 1687, however. Most of
the conflicts discussed were quarrels among coastal people, and were dealt
with in the style of the councils of justice for indigenous cases which the
VOC had instituted on the islands of Ambon, Haruku, and others off the
coast of Seram; this involved, among other things, a presentation of cases
supported with written claims. The 'official' Saniri meeting was closed after
eight days. Instead of doing so with matakau, the swearing of the traditional
Alifuru oath, the delegates concluded with a move to have the dccisions of
the Saniri endorscd with the signatures of the principal district heads - the
village chiefs of Kaibobo, Tanunu and Nuniali (VOC 1894:64-106; Knaap
1987a:39-42).
The Saniri of 1717, the first at which colonial officials were present,
therefore showed several signs of adaptation to changed circumstances. In
point of fact, the Saniri had not tumed out to be of very much use to the
colonial authorities, as there was no clear evidence that the situation in West
Seram was becoming more peaceful. Consequently, the Supreme
Govemment in Batavia instructed the authorities in Ambon to give no
further authorizations for convoking Saniri meetings. For most of the
eighteenth century, therefore, the gatherings were held without the
Company's knowledge. In the 1760s, however, the colonial authorities'
interest in the Saniri was revived as traders from elsewhere, bent on
'smuggling' cloves, began visiting the island of Seram regularly,
undermining the Company's monopoly in that precious article. West Seram
villages sometimes also planted clove wees themselves. So the VOC started
using the Saniri again in order to prevent this and to remain informed about
what was going on (Knaap 1987b:463).
Once more the results of its efforts were meagre, however. So Govemor
264 Gernt J. Knaap

Abraham van der Voort wrote in 1772, for instance, that the Saniri was of
no use to the Company, because 'these uncivilized, wild and barbarous
people' were prepared tg make aii kinds of promises under oath simply 'm
earn themselves some presents from the Company, without ever bothering
for even a moment about fulfilling these promises'. Van der Voort's
successor, Bernardus van Pleuren, confronted as he was with an armed
conflict between the VOC and Tidorese invaders in the eastern part of
Seram, thought otherwise. He believed that these gathenngs had a positive
influence on the Company's prestige. Moreover, the Alifuru of West Serarn
had remained loyal to the Dutch when they had been invited to join the anti-
Dutch coalition in East Seram. And in addition, they had recently guided
Company employees to large plantation's of clove trees in the West Seram
mountains. These trees had been immediately cut down. Consequently. Van
Pleuren advised the Company to continue its involvement with the Saniri
(Knaap 1987b:466,481-484).
When one looks at the report of the Saniri of 1771, at which Governor
Van der Voort himself was present, it is clear why he was very disappointed
with the results. Most of the people of the Sapalewa district were absent, as
were dl those from the Taia mountain area. The governor, seated in his tent,
uied to impose a generd ueaty of peace between these mountain people and
those living on the coast. Moreover, he made the Alifuru promise to cut
down al1 clove trees found in their territory. No discussion took place about
the actual state of affairs in the area. The meeting lasted for only one day and
was closed with matakau drinking. For this a pot was filled with palm wine,
to which were added al1 kinds of objects, including a bush knife, an arrow.
the figure of a crocodile, and an effigy of a human smallpox patient. Anyone
who drank from this choice brew and subsequently broke the oath was
supposed to be punished with a violent death, disease, and the like, al1 of
which were symbolically represented in the pot. Finaily, a few chiefs were
given presents, including the three-pointed hals with silver ornaments that
were still regarded as emblems of honour in the lauer part of the nineteenth
century (VOC 3355 (3): from 3-1 1-1771 onward).
Van Pleuren's optimistic views would lead one KIexpect his report of the
Saniri of 1776 to have quite a different tone. It was almost the same, how-
ever, the only differcnce being that at this meeting the district of Sapalewa
was much better represented. Generally speaking, there was a clear over-
representation of the coastal population. The proceedings in front of the
governor's tent m k up just one morning (VOC 3491 (3): from 11-11-1776
onward). Nor did the Saniri of 1786, in the presence of Governor Adriaan de
Bock, differ from the two previous ones. After drinking matakau and
receiving a few presents, the Alifuru leaders were served al1 kinds of
alcoholic drinks, 'which made them so cheerful and contented that they
returned to heir camps singing and jumping'. In the evening, the Alifuru
again joined the governor to perform war dances for him. In the meantime
'the governor threw handfuls of smdl silver and copper coins among them,
 The Saniri Tiga Air (Serum) 265
which they scrambled to pick up' (VOC 3755 (4): from 6-11-1786 onward).
The reason for the haste which characterized the colonial government's
involvement at the end of the eighteenth century was that a Saniri was
always called during the hongi, or annual patrol with indigenous Ambonese
warships around the Central Moluccan islands. As this fleet had usually
been on patrol for severd weeks by the time the meeting took place, so that
everybody was longing to go home, the govemor did not want to devote too
much time to the Saniri.

Information from the Nineteenth Century

From a report from the beginning of the twentieth century, we know that
the Dutch organized a Saniri meeiing in April 1805, among other reasons in
order to counterbalance the current Tidorese involvement in Seram's affairs
(KITLV H 1051, 108a:37-38). Whether this was successful or not we do not
know. The first pnnted account of the Kakéan and Saniri since Valentijn
was published by W.J.M. van Schmid. Although Van Schmid provides
many new data on the Kakéan (he was the first to actually use the word
explicitiy), he does not give any new information about the Saniri, which
he defines as an organization designed to bring about peace between the
coastal and mountain people. Van Schmid further writes that, according to
the oral tradition, the Kakéan came into being in reaction to the Dutch
destruction of Hoamoal, the westernmost peninsula of Seram - an event
which can.be placed in the middle of the seventeenth century (Van Schmid
1843:26).

leadership, c. 1904. Photo collection K I ~ Vnurnber

, 3890.
266 Gerril J. Knaap

It is likely that, after the Sanin of 1805, no European witnessed such a

gathering again for a long time. H. von Gaffron, who has given a beautiful
description of the Saniri of 1842. which was recently published, tells US that
he was the first European to be present at such a meeting for 50 or 60 years
(Leirissa et al. 1982:45-54). He gives a vivid account of the 'wildly singing'
Alifuru, who. under the leadership of the kepala saniri, came one day to the
temporary beach dwelling of the village chiefs of the nearby islands,
nominated as delegates on behalf of the colonial govemment The Alifuru
carne from their encampment in the bush. half a kilometre from the beach,
some of them wearing diny old European uniforms dating from half a
century before. The absenteeism at this one-day gathering was once more
considerable. The rnain event of this bicara di l a u was the matakau dnnking
which concluded the meeting. Von Gaffron gives US a deeper insight into
the composition of the Saniri leadership, however. The most important
leaders were the three kepala saniri, who were dressed mainly in red and wore
three-pointed hats. Unfortunately nothing is said about heir identity. It is
possible that they were not the same persons as the village chiefs of
Kaibobo, Nuniali and Tanunu. In this respect it is interesting to note that
the leaders next in rank below them were styled 'tangan kiri' or 'tolongan',
meaning 'left hand' or 'help'. According to Von Gaffron, these were
invariably chiefs from a coastal village. After them came the pohon bendera
and the ujong bendera, the kapitan saniri from the mountains, a portero,
who functioned as a messenger bctween the colonial government and the
nver districts, and finally several mauwen.
Van der Crab, who visited the Cenual Moluccas in 1860, came up with
several new data. He relates among other things that Sahulau, whose power
had vanished by then, had originally belongeù to the Patalima and had later
joined the Patasiwa. Sahulau had remained independent of the Sanin,
however, and had never been incorporated into the KakCan (Van der Crab
1862:214). On the basis of information supplieù by the captured Alifuru war
leader Marcus Kakiay, Van Rees, later copied by Ludeking, informs US that
the Kakéan was originally a phenomenon from Hoamoal, the almost
depopulated westemmost peninsula of Seram, where it had been formed to
fight the Patalima, or any other enemy. At the time of the Dutch desmction
of the Hoamoal social order in the middle of the seventeenth century, raja
Sahulau had migrated thence to the intcrior of West Seram, where he had
disclosed Kakean secrets to the kepala saniri, who had quickly introduced it
in their area, while raja Sahulau hirnsclf for one reason or another would not
tolerate the existence of the Kakéan in his own territory. The kepala saniri
were supposed to have promoted the Kakéan to strengthen their control over
the area (Van Rees 1863:67-68; Ludeking 1868:68-69). Here we have a
picture of the existence of a Saniri Tiga Air already prior to the introduction
of the Kakéan. At about the same time the Protestant missionary Van Ekris
confirmed the idea that the phenomena under discussion were intended to
ward off al1 foreign intewention. However, the first threat of intewention
 The Saniri Tiga Air (Serum)

had come from Temate. Consequentiy. Van Ekris placed the origin of both
Kakéan and Saniri wel1 before the coming of the Europeans (Van Ekris
1867:297).
At the close of the nineteenth century Van Hoëvell, in line with the
information supplied by Van Rees and Ludeking, put forward the idea that
the Kakéan owed its genesis to a reaction of traditional Patasiwa society and
religion to foreign intervention, in particular Dutch intervention in the
middle of the seventeenth century, when the entire society of Hoamoal had
been annihilated. He goes on t relate that the Dutch had given different-
coloured uniforms to the leaders of each patan of the Saniri: yellow for
Sapalewa, red for Eti, and blue for Tala. Van Hoëvell was very pessimistic
about the Saniri's ability to establish peace among the Alifuru. The meeting
of 1888, which was witnessed by delegates of the colonial administration for
the first time in rnany years, had been a failure because of the Saniri
leadership's lack of authority. Instead of new conflicts being solved, many
old ones had erupted again. The most shocking incident, however, had been
the murder of a Saniri dignitary from the Tala district by warriors from
Honitetu during the meeting itself. The last Saniri ever held, that of 1903,
is said to have ended in such turrnoil that the Dutch witnesses were forced t
hastily withdraw (Van Hoëvell 1896:511, 513-51 5; Sachse 1922:138).
Apparentiy the nineteenth-century experiences with the Saniri were no beuer
than those of the eighteenth. Whereas the Saniri was still regarded to a
certain extent as somcthing that rnight have a positive effect on Dutch-
Serarnese relations, the Kakéan came gradually to be seen as a threat to
Dutch expansion. Frorn 1903 onwards the Dutch chose m settle affairs in a
military fashion and to incorporate the island into their 'pacified' colonial
state (Manuhutu 1985278-281,286).

Twentieth-Century Observations about the Saniri

Smn after the last Saniri meeting was held, a sueam of 'volumes of paper'
of an interpretative kind started flowing. Sachse, in his early writings, put
forward the idea that both Kakéan and Saniri were relatively recent
phenomena, because previous authors like Valentijn, writing in the
eighteenth century, did not mention thern. He suggested that the English
might have been responsible for the creation of these institutions during
their brief rule around 1800 (Sachse 1907:61,80; KITLV H 1051, 108b:5).
Other authors did not follow Sachse in this respect, sirnply because they had
read Valentijn much bctter than he and consequently had found interesting
rnaterial on the subject there. After Sachse, Tauern pointed out the
similarity between the Kakéan and certain Melanesian secret societies. On
the basis of some superficial observations about the physical features of the
Seramese people, he even drew the conclusion that the Wemale were
migrants from Melanesia and that, consequently, the genesis of the Kakéan
268 Gerrir J. Knaap

should be sought in Melanesia (Tauern 1918:29, 152). Tauern's colleague in

the Freiburg Expedition, Stresemann, was of a different opinion. however.
On the basis of his linguistic research. he suggested thai Seram as a whole
should be considered as an area where Indonesian and Papuan-Melanesian
ethnic groups had met by various means, including migration. For West
Seram, however. there was only very sparse evidence of Melanesian
influence. On the origin of the Kakéan, Stresemann more or less foiiowed in
Van Ekris' footsteps, postulating that it had come int being in an auempt
to shield the old Alifuru way of life against the rising tide of the expansion
of the sultanate of Ternate and against the Islamization which went hand in
hand with this some time in the fifteenth century (Stresemann 1918:xiii;
1923:388).
Although Stresemann had clearly refuted Tauern's Melanesian migration
theory, Dcacon still defended this hypothesis in the mid-19'20s. Duyvendak
rejected the idea of a Mclanesian migration, however (Deacon 1925:336,
357; Duyvendak 1926:112-120). Instead, he saw the solution in a division
of the Seramese population into two, probably exogamous, moieties,
Patalima and Patasiwa, in pre-historic times. This concept of bipartite
division, according to Duyvendak, had repeated itself on a smaller scale in
West Seram, in the Saniri Tiga Air, where a division had taken place
between the people living near the Sapalewa and those living near the Tala.
For the sake of his theory, Duyvendak classified the people of the third
district, near the smaller River Eti, as a kind of aberration from the 'nomal'
order. As in Melanesia, the Kakéan secret brotherhood was thus t be seen
as a rituai organization within a tribe that had 'once' been split into two
parts. Duyvendak himself acknowledged, however, that it was not clear
exactly what that 'tribe' might have been at the time of its division
(Duyvendak 1926:122, 134-138, 173-178).
In the 1930s Van Wouden wrote about the social stnicture of East
Indonesia. As his main focus was on the relationship between marriage and
social classification, he was not particularly interested in the Kakéan and
Saniri. The few rernarks which Van Wouden makes on the subject
nevertheless point to a different viewpoint. Van Wouden tended to classify
the Patalima-Patasiwa opposition not in terms of a division of one tribe but
of the formation of coalitions bctween several tribes. His concept of 'tribe'
was onented to quite srnall units, roughly identicai to what we have so far
called 'villages' (Van Wouden 1968:147, 151). Consequently, Van Wouden
would have labelled the Saniri Tiga Air as a 'supra-uibal' organization.
Jensen als0 showed hirnself rather unhappy with Duyvendak's theory of a
division of some prehistoric 'tribe'. He suggested that both the Melanesian
secret societies and the West Seramese Kakéan belonged to an older layer of
civilization that was 'once' to be found throughout the entire area from
Melanesia to the eastem part of Indonesia. The Kakéan, in his view, should
thus be s e n as the westernmost remnant of this layer, which in other
surrounding areas had been replaced by more recent cultural elements. The
 The Saniri Tiga Air (Seram) 269

concept of 'layers' of civilization could aiso be found in Vroklage's work

(Vroklage 1936:470,478-479,484; Jensen 1948: 123-125).
Severai authors state that there were two kinds of meeting at the supra-
village level, namely the saniri for an individual disuict and the gathering
for ali three disuicts combined, called saniri hutu (Tauem 1918:153; Sachse
1922:138). The most complete information about Saniri Tiga Air
dignitaries is found in an unpublished report by the Dutch military officer
W.K.H. Feuilleteau de Bruyn from 1916. A condensed and slightly corrected
version of this is given by his senior colleague. the above-mentioned
Sachse, in one of his later writings (KITLV H 1051, 108a: 10-14; 108b:5;
Sachse 1922:137-138). Both list kepala saniri living in Kaibobo, Eti-
Tanunu and Nuniali; kapitan saniri in Kairatu, Sole and Hatuale; pohon
bendera and ujong bendera; and two new types of dignitary, the first called
'sarimeten', i.e. 'black sword', and the second 'patih tanah'. The patih tanah
were the Muslim village chiefs from Latu, Luhu and Lisabata, who were not
obliged to attend the gatherings, but should always be informed about the
conclusions reached there. It becomes clear from what Feuilleteau and
Sachse tel1 US that al1 these functions were hereditary within certain lineages
or clans. With the exception of the patih tanah, the personal identity of the
Saniri dignitaries was by no means the same as that of the village chiefs.
Sachse further relates that in the past there had also been three raja, who had
now migrated to different areas in the Cenual Moluccas. Suesemann's
description of Saniri Ieadership was less complete. However, he mentions
several 'heralds', for whom he uses the label portero, amongst other titles
(Suesemann 1923:390-391).

Final Remarks

The discussion about the origin of the Saniri Tiga Air and Kakéan might be
labelled a 'dead-end sueet'. The ideas that it was an invention of the English
and that it was a reaction against Dutch intrusion in the middle of the
seventeenth century are clearly false. The first accounts of West Seram from
the seventeenth century indicate that we are dealing with something that
already existed bcfore the Europcans moved in. The story that somewhere in
the seventeenth century raja Sahulau supposedly was instrumental in the
inuoduction of the Kakéan from Hoamoal into the area of the three nvers,
except to his own followers, is als0 unfounded in the light of the above-
mentioned accounts. The explanation that the origin should be sought in the
resistance to Ternate's Islamization policy is the only remaining option
among the 'historical' explanations. Temate's expansion to the Cenual
Moluccas must be located in the sixteenth rather than the fifteenth century.
In line with this explanation, there was a clear tendcncy among seventeenth-
century Alifuru leaders to join the Dutch anti-Muslim front. Arguing
against it. however, is the fact that the initiative for joining the Dutch was
270 Gerrit J. Knaap

not taken by the Saniri leadership but by the aileged pretenders to the
leadership from Sahulau, Sumit and Siseulu. Another argument against the
anti-Ternate explanation is that there is no mention of this motive at al1 in
the early accounts of the Saniri, in spie of the fact that the leaders involved
must have been aware how much credit they could have gained with the
Dutch by saying anything negative about Temate and Islam.
Tauern's theory about Melanesian migration was refuted within a few
years of its being launched. Nevertheless, several authors have persisted in
the idea that the institutions of Kakéan and Saniri constituted part of a
'layer' of culture which had once spread throughout the entire area of East
Indonesia and Melanesia. Duyvendak's division theory, on the other hand, is
unable to explain the fact that there were three instead of two sub-divisions
in what supposedly 'once' was one 'tribe'. Much more interesting is a
further elaboration of the suggestion put forward by Van Wouden, namely
that we should think in terms of 'coalition' rather than 'division'.
Consequently, the Saniri should be seen as an association of several uibes.
The motive for such an association remains unclear. The idea that it was
designed to protcct the traditional Alifuru life-style right from its beginning
seems rather unlikely. Most plausible is the simple explanation from 1678,
namely that the Saniri was a confederacy aimed at bringing some sort of
peace to an area suffering from endemic petty warfare. What started as an
institution rneant to scttle internal problems, however, gradually developed
into something which also aimed at resisting inuusions into its cultural
legacy. This aspcct of its activities bccame more and more important as
Islam and Christianity starled jostling on Seram's doorstep.
Not al1 Patasiwa in West Seram belonged to the Kakéan or Saniri. As
was already pointed out above, Siseulu and the whole of Sahulau's
following were non-membcrs of the Saniri. The Wemale from the Uwin
valley should also be mentioned in this connection. According to some
authors. the villages from the Uwin valley had once been affiliated to a river
district called Ulibatai, which was also connected with some sort of Kakéan-
like organization called Wapulane. Some of Jensen's informants claimed
that UlibataiIWapulane was an original Wemale institution, while Saniri
Waele Telu / Kakéan was originally an Alune one (KITLV H 1051,
108a:14-15; Jensen 1948:109-111). Although Jenscn was loath to draw
conclusions from this information, there might be some uuth in it. If one
looks at the leadership of the Saniri, i.e. the kepala saniri. kapitan saniri,
pohon bendera, ujong bendera, porter0 and sarimeten, it is clear that the
majority of hem, at least thirteen out of eighteen. were Alune. Of the
remaining five, I was not able to determine whether they were Alune or
Wemale. Furthermore, it is hard to believe that the Saniri leadership
originally included such dignitaries as raja and palih tanah. Twentieth-
century authors speak of the raja as dignitaries hom a distant past, while the
paiih tanah have always bcen pictured as relative outsiders to the Saniri. The
outsiders may have been inlroduced by the colonial authorities in order to
 The Saniri Tiga Air (Serum)

keep an eye on things. The patih tanah may have been identical with the
tangan kiri mentioned in Von Gaffron's repon.
What is clear from the evidence so far is that the Sanin organization
underwent a great deal of change. This is not surprising, as the period under
discussion is fairly long. Moreover, Alifuru society was always in a state of
flux and showed a great deal of instability. Apparently, many of those
involved in the Saniri themselves did not take certain structures for granted.
Frequently, pretenders trying to use this ancient institution for heir own
personal advantage appeared on the scene. These were not always members
of Alifuru society itself, like Sumit or Sahulau, but might aiso be outsiders
like the patih tanah. The village chiefs of Kaibobo, Tanunu and Nuniali,
who were the fist to inform the Dutch about the Saniri, might be classified
as pretenders as well, as later reports often assert that village chiefs and
Saniri chiefs were not identical. It is clear that many pretenders tried to
exploit heir good relations with the colonial authorities as much as they
could in order to gain power. The traditional Saniri leadership very likely
suffered a loss of authority whenever such pretenders entered the scene.
However, it is not only in the Saniri leadership that changes were
noticeable, but the membership was not fixed, either. This becomes clear
when one compares the relevant lists from the seventcenth century wilh
those of the early twentieth (VOC 1334:240r, KITLV H 1051,108a:ll-13).
The most striking thing here is that even Sahulau gradually came to be
considered as a membcr, at Icast from about the last quarter of the nineteenth
century (Sachse 1922:281).The location of the Saniri leadership als0 tended
to change with time. In the seventeenth century only the kepala saniri were
resident in villages near the coast. By the twentieth century, most of the
olher leaders had als0 moved to the coast. This drift towards the coast was a
continuing process, which was also stimulated by the Dutch. For a long
time the colonial authorities considered concentration on the coast as the
only means of effective control of the population.
For the fust two hundred years after its 'discovery', the Saniri remained
fairly unimportant to the Dutch, because Seram was not an attractive
proposition to them, eithcr economicaily or strategically. The VOC and the
Netherlands Indies govemment actcd the part of a distant authority that was
not reaily interested in what happencd. The Dutch did not even bolher about
the division of Saniri gatherings int0 a bicara di laut and a bicara di darat. In
the nineteenth century, however, the colonial ideology began to change. The
fact that the Saniri was unable to solve Seram's problem of endemic warfare
put the Dutch in a serious predicament, as colonial policy-makers aimed to
gradually establish pcace and order in dl societies in the Indies, even in areas
which had little economic value such as Seram. The wave of 'modem
imperialism', which had its roots in the ideology of the 'white men's
burden' or the Europcan's 'mission civilisatrice', thus finally became the
Saniri Tiga Air's nemcsis.
272 Gerrit J . Knaap

I would like to thank Chris van Fraassen for his critical comments on an
earlier version of this article md Rosernary Robson for her correction of the
English.

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Unpublished

KITLV H: Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-. Land- en Volkenkunde. Leiden.

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'Resolutieboek' (= register of resolutions), and 'BI' for 'Inkomende Brieven'
(= incoming letters). namely from the outposts in the VOC's Amboina
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