Micsic From Tombstone To Islamic Minangkabau

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From megaliths to tombstones: the

transition from prehistory to the early
islamic period in highland west sumatra
John Miksic Visiting Fellow
a
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore,
Singapore
Published online: 22 Jan 2007.
To cite this article: John Miksic Visiting Fellow (2004): From megaliths to tombstones: the
transition from prehistory to the early islamic period in highland west sumatra, Indonesia and the
Malay World, 32:93, 191-210
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Indonesia and the Malay World, Vol. 32, No. 93, July 2004
FROM MEGALITHS TO TOMBSTONES: THE

TRANSITION FROM PREHISTORY TO THE EARLY
ISLAMIC PERIOD IN HIGHLAND WEST SUMATRA
JOHN MIKSIC
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The highland –lowland nexus has been one of the staples of historical and anthropological
analysis of mainland Southeast Asian studies. At the risk of greatly oversimplifying
the situation, it is possible to characterise the lowland river valleys as heartlands of
urban civilisations supported by wet rice cultivation and dominated by a few ethnic
groups in which monuments and external contacts have been important, and the highlands
as zones inhabited by many small groups with traditions of political independence, often
involved in struggles against the attempts of lowland polities to incorporate them.
Lowlanders have been perfectly placed to mediate between highlanders and outsiders,
an economically advantageous position.
In Sumatra the situation is quite different. While commentators have tended to assume
that the same set of dynamics applied to both mainland and island Southeast Asia, the
reality, increasingly attested by archaeological data, is that the early centres of cultural
development in insular Southeast Asia (population, monument building, wet rice culti-
vation) were located in the hinterlands: the areas around the highland plateaus, valleys,
and lakes of Toba, Maninjau, Tes (Rejang Lebong) and Pasemah. While the trading
ports famed for their links with the Asian ‘pearl route’ from China to the Mediterranean
were necessarily located on the coasts, the majority of the Sumatran population until the
20th century was located in the highlands. Other than in Aceh, few areas suitable for
extensive rice cultivation lie in coastal areas. Most of Sumatra’s lowlands are marked
by an overabundance of salt: in the water, in the soil. Ancient ports along the east coast
associated with kingdoms such as Srivijaya and Malayu were not located at river
mouths, but 90 km upstream, where the first terra firma high enough to be safe from
most floods is found. The highlands by contrast are well suited for human habitation,
with plentiful fresh water, fertile soil, cooler climate, and valuable items such as gold
and ivory.
The ancestors of the modern Austronesian languages of Sumatra do not seem to have
been introduced to the island much earlier than 2,500 years ago. It is not known
whether more than one language was introduced, or whether all Sumatran languages
derive from a single parent. The homeland of Malay language itself is still disputed:
some argue strongly for an origin in southwest Borneo, while others favour southeast
Sumatra as the point of dispersal.
Of the principal highland languages (Toba, Karo, Rejang, Gayo, Serawai), Minangkabau
is judged by linguists to have the closest relationship to Malay. When the two languages
split from a common ancestor is also not certain. The historical relationship between
Malay and Minangkabau culture cannot be defined with precision. The problem really
consists of two separable topics: the evolution of Minangkabau identity itself; and the
ISSN 1363-9811 print=ISSN 1469-8382 online=04=930191-20 # 2004 Editors, Indonesia and the Malay World
DOI: 10.1080=1363981042000320134
192 John Miksic
relationship of Minangkabau ethnicity to various relatives, Malay being only one among
several. Definitions of ‘Minangness’ like those of ‘Malayness’ are multi-dimensional
and ever evolving; which Minangness, which Malayness, would have to be specified.
This article focuses on pre-European evidence for the evolution of ethnicity in the
Minang area, to attempt to introduce archaeological data from the Minang region, and
to put it into the context of historical evidence which has been available for some time
(though it still needs much processing). Narrowing the topic further, this article discusses
some aspects of the early tombstones of the Minang. Islam is one of the main components
of modern Minang ethnicity, and in the tombstone the transition from pre-Islamic to
Islamic period is most clearly visible.
Batu tagak of West Sumatra: archaeological description

Tombstones were not part of the cultural inventory of prehistoric Indonesia. Thus when
Islam was adopted, the carving of grave markers provided a new medium for artistic
and cultural expression. The tombstone was a major new type of artifact, an important
symbol of the new religion, and much attention was devoted to it. It was a useful
advertisement for the new faith. Early Minang tombstone designers had several choices
of inspiration. A few imported monuments are known from Aceh as well as east Java,
but the option of copying motifs from these sources seems to have been rarely selected
by local tombstone carvers. A second option was to invent a new form. Batu Aceh
(‘Acehnese stones’), as they are usually termed, were the example par excellence of
this choice. This term first appeared in the 1920s (Othman bin Mohd. Yatim 1998: xxv,
5), for a recent discussion of the typology of these funerary monuments see Perret and
Kamarudin Ab. Razak (1999). A few of these are found in West Sumatra, but they are
not common. A third possibility was to adapt pre-existing styles of stone carvings for
the new artifacts. This was the alternative chosen in West Sumatra, and provides an inter-
esting set of data with which to construct a theory of the relationship between pre-Islamic
and Islamic Minangkabau culture, and the hinterland – coastal relationship, emphasising
the continuity as well as the changes wrought by this conversion.
Monuments associated with ancestral figures did exist in many parts of pre-Islamic
Indonesia; in fact they probably were already present in the prehistoric period, but
they were not as far as we know intended to mark the graves of specific ancestors.
The reason for this situation is to be sought in the social system of Indonesia. Lineage
organisations were only weakly developed in Indonesia compared with China or India,
and therefore grave sites were of no use in verifying claims by descendants of specific
ancestors to social status, the ability to invoke the protection or provoke the malevolence
of souls of the powerful dead, etc. While Indonesians also believed that the ancestors
did have these powers, they were not associated with descendants of particular
individuals. The ancestors’ personalities were not considered as surviving after their
bodies passed away. Rather the souls of individuals were perceived as detached portions
of a larger entity, with which the individual souls were reunited after the body was no
longer alive.
Little is known of prehistoric Sumatran burial customs. The slab graves of the Pasemah
plateau in highland south Sumatra are the most highly-developed remains of prehistoric
burials yet reported. It seems likely that they were built to contain the remains of
individuals who had above-average status in life, but there is no evidence that they
formed part of any particular cult of ancestor worship. The only artifacts known to have
been associated with these sites were found inside the graves, and were thus not part of
From megaliths to tombstones 193
any continuous cult of post-mortem worship. Other prehistoric funerary monuments are
scarce in the island and the dates of those that exist are uncertain but unlikely to be
very ancient. These include stone sarcophagi on the island of Samosir and surrounding
areas of Lake Toba, as well as modern ossuaries in the same region. Jar burials of a
more ancient type, possibly similar to Iron Age deposits in Java, Sumbawa, the
Philippines, and south Vietnam (the Sa Huynh cultural complex) have recently been
discovered, but no detailed reports have yet appeared.
A possible exception to this generalisation occurs in a small area of the Minangkabau
region of West Sumatra (Propinsi Sumatera Barat/Sumbar; see Maps 1 and 2). In
the northern stretches of the L (‘Limapuluh’/50) Kota/Payakumbuh luak, one of the
three valleys which form the heartland of Minangkabau identity, a pre-Islamic culture
once flourished in which large numbers of stone monuments were erected (see Plates 1
and 2). These seem to have been used for a wide range of functions; among them,
archaeological research has proven that some were markers for individual graves. In the
period before 1970, scholars usually classified such remains as representatives of
‘megalithic culture’, a term which in turn implied acceptance of now outmoded concepts
such as successive waves of cultural diffusion or influxes of migrants from the Asian
mainland. It is now accepted that the use of stones for monuments occurred at various
times and places in prehistoric Southeast Asia, and that no overall pattern of influence
Map 1. Principal geographical features and sites of the Minangkabau region, West
Sumatra. (Drawn by Ms Goh Geok Yian.)
194 John Miksic
Map 2. Main archaeological sites in the Limapuluh Kota area. (Drawn by Ms Goh
Geok Yian.)
or communication is discernible, although common ancestry and communication may well

have played some part in influencing the artistic expression of local concepts. The con-
clusion however is that one must seek to explain local practices by reference to local
sequences of development rather than relying on grand models developed on the basis
of regional sequences or assumptions of migration or diffusion (for representatives of
Plate 1. View of a traditional council area with stone seats or backrests, village of Kacuali,
West Sumatra. (Photograph by John Miksic.)
both views, see Christie 1973; Glover et al. 1973). Thus it is necessary to investigate the
local context of stone monuments rather than to assume that they can all be classified as
contemporary and part of a process which originated elsewhere in response to different
religious and geographical factors.
Plate 2. View of kris-hilt shaped stones at Bawah Parit, Mahat valley. (Photograph by
John Miksic.)
196 John Miksic
The Minangkabau region has never been subjected to detailed archaeological survey.
There is no archaeology department in West Sumatra; the nearest thing to it is a branch
of the monuments preservation department, the SPSP (Suaka Peninggalan Sejarah dan
Purbakala), in Batusangkar, which has jurisdiction over West Sumatra and Riau. Including
the islands stretching as far east as Natuna, northwest of Borneo, this gives the office a
very wide area to cover. Most of the office’s scanty resources have been devoted to
preserving more imposing and potentially more economically productive sites such as
the brick temples of the 13th and 14th centuries CE in the southeastern part of Sumbar
(Padang Roco), Muara Takus in Riau, and Islamic sites such as the early timber
mosque in Air Tiris. The office publishes an occasional newsletter, Amoghapasha,
which gives a good idea of the scope of their activities. Alone among colonial-period
scholars, Th. van der Hoop and F.M. Schnitger devoted attention to the vestiges of pre-
historic monuments in Sumatra. Van der Hoop’s efforts were concentrated in the Lampung
and Pasemah areas, while Schnitger worked in West Sumatra (Miksic 1988). Van der
Hoop identified several important sites, and most probably was responsible for removing
some of the most decorative carved stones to Jakarta. These stones then seem to have
languished unrecognised in the Museum Nasional for decades, without provenance,
until they were eventually identified (Miksic 1986). Van der Hoop’s work was interrupted
by World War II, during which Schnitger disappeared, and only taken up again 50 years
later by Indonesian scholars. Particularly active have been Haris Sukendar (now head of
the National Centre for Archaeology, PAN), Yuwono Sudibyo, and the late Drs Boestami,
formerly head of the Museum Adityawarman, the provincial museum in Padang. Schnitger
identified the important site of Aur Duri and described some of the individual carved
stones found there, but did not give any indication of the quantity of such remains in
the vicinity. This is perhaps because the majority of the stones are plain; or perhaps
he did not conduct a thorough survey of the area.
At any rate, the scale of prehistoric monolith raising was not generally known before
PAN began research in the valley of Mahat, of which Aur Duri forms part. Several
thousand monoliths are found in the Mahat valley; other complexes are found just
outside the valley, mainly in the direction of Payakumbuh, such as at Guguk, Balubus,
and Suliki, in the valley of the Sinamar river, which Schnitger also identified (see Map 1).
Mr Yuwono Sudibyo, an official of the Directorate for the Preservation and Protection
of the National Heritage (Ditlitbinjarah) conducted surveys in northern Payakumbuh
between 1981 and 1983, during which he located 69 groups of stone monuments in the
Guguk district alone, with about 1,000 individual monuments. In 1984 PAN sent a
team to conduct further surveys in the L Kota area (Map 2). During the same period,
i.e. the early 1980s, the West Sumatra Regional Office of Education and Culture, Division
for Museums, History, and Antiquities (PSK/Depdikbud) undertook a project at the site of
Balubus in the north L Kota. A small park was established which involved stabilising
stones which were in danger of falling over, and re-erecting those already fallen.
Plates 3 and 4 show some of the stones from the site. Liberal use was made of concrete,
and some holes were dug (Uka Tjandrasasmita et al. 1985). During this preservation
activity, various artifacts were accidentally revealed in association with the monoliths,
including polished stone adzes which may be 2,000 years or more in age. Since the
finds were not recovered in a systematic excavation, no stratigraphic information was
recorded, so that the chronological relationship between the stone tools and the monoliths
cannot be established. The finders report that the adzes were found beside, not under, the
stones, apparently in conjunction with ceramics of recent date. In West Sumatra, as in
other areas of Indonesia, ancient artifacts found by accident are sometimes thought to
Plate 3. Stone with birds-head or kris-hilt motif from the site of Balubus, Limapuluh Kota.
(Photograph by John Miksic.)
Plate 4. Plainer carved stone from the site of Balubus, Limapuluh Kota. (Photograph by
John Miksic.)
198 John Miksic
contain dangerous power which may be dangerous to the finder who does not know how to
treat them properly; thus they are ‘re-deposited’ near ancient monuments.
The L Kota regency contains two major rivers, the Sinamar and the Mahat, which are
eastward-flowing tributaries of the Inderagiri and Kampar rivers, respectively, two rivers
which lead to the Minangkabau heartland. The two river valleys are separated by a high
ridge of mountains. Important prehistoric monuments are found in both these valleys.
The Inderagiri and Kampar were brought into the Melakan mandala by Muzaffar Shah,
who died in 1459 CE (Andaya and Andaya 1982: 50). The Sinamar along with the
Umbilin and Selo rivers was an important source of gold in antiquity. The gold mines
seem to have been important as early as the 14th century, and probably helped to deter-
mine the location of early courts in the Tanahdatar valley (Dobbin 1983: 24). These
areas had been almost completely worked out by the early 19th century when the first
Europeans arrived, although the Sinamar still produced some metal. Suliki, the largest
village in the northwest L Kota, also had plentiful wet rice land irrigated by water from
the Sinamar (Dobbin 1983: 38).1 The Buo region remained important politically into
the 19th century. The Raja di Buo, ‘the representative of that branch of the Minangkabau
royal family which had been left behind in the Sinamar valley when the remainder had
migrated into the main Tanahdatar plain in the 17th century’, became the most senior
noble in the Minang highlands when Sultan Alam was deported by the Dutch in the
early 19th century (Dobbin 1983: 202). When he died in 1880, he was ‘the last widely-
accepted symbol of the Minangkabau royal house’ (Dobbin 1983: 204).
In contrast to the Sinamar, the Mahat is hardly mentioned in history. It was not on a
main trade route, although it provided a link to the Kampar river, itself an important
alternative route to the Inderagiri river and eventually the Straits of Melaka. Yet Mahat
contains some of the most abundant remains of prehistoric activity in West Sumatra.
The reasons for this are obscure. The people of L Kota refer to upright stones erected
by their ancestors with three terms: mejen (‘tombstone’), batu saesuak (‘ancient stone’),
and batu tagak (‘upright stone’). One stone in Taeh is called batu nobat (Yuwono
Sudibyo 1984: 4, 15). At Kotatangah, the ritual conducted on the occasion of the installa-
tion of a penghulu involves a circumambulation of four batu tagak. In Simalunggang
(L Kota), a prospective penghulu takes an oath while sitting with his back resting
against a batu tagak. According to tradition in both Saroaso (Tanahdatar) and Candung
(Agam), stones called mejen taken from special locations were dressed up in a penghulu’s
ritual garb, which participants in the ceremony then circumambulated (Yuwono Sudibyo
1992; Plate 1).
Fifteen important sites with batu tagak are recorded in the Sinamar valley, which
is easily accessible by road. Mahat is accessible by two routes, both requiring some
arduous travel. The main route, sometimes passable by four-wheel-drive vehicles,
crosses the mountain chain from Limbanang and Suliki; a second route, a footpath,
follows the Mahat river to the Kampar, near the important 11th-century Buddhist site at
Muara Takus. Horses rather than boats are an important means of transport by which
goods are imported and exported from the valley. The Mahat valley is a spectacularly
beautiful bowl-shaped depression approximately five km in diameter completely enclosed
within steep mountain walls, with only a narrow outlet through which the Mahat river
1
Dobbin’s book, though a mine of useful information, is mistaken in stating consistently that the Sinamar flows
through the Tanahdatar valley; as her map on p. 256 clearly shows, it flows from its source in L Kota into the next
valley, called Lintau Buo, which is not considered one of the luak nan tigo.
finds its way east. A natural arch along the mountain rim, Bukit Pasuak, was supposedly
created when two hunters disputed the distribution of meat from a deer. One threw the
thighbone of the deer to the other, but it went astray and pierced a hole through the
mountain.
Yuwono Sudibyo located 15 sites with approximately 800 stones in Mahat. A team
from PAN directed by Drs Haris Sukendar carried out excavations in 1985 and 1986
at Bawah Parit, which takes its name from a trench of uncertain age and function (Tim
Peneliti Tradisi Megalitik Sumatera Barat 1984, 1985). Bawah Parit alone contains
approximately 380 monoliths in an area measuring 125 by 85 metres (Plate 2). Most of
the stones are of a single form, which in Sumatra is often associated with the hilt of the
kris, though some are unshaped. The points of the hilts all seem to point in the same
direction, southeast, in the direction of Mount Sago, which is not visible over the valley
wall. Mount Sago is said to provide a source of supernatural power. The tallest stone at
Bawah Parit, 405 cm high, is located at the approximate centre of the field. Many of the
stones have fallen so that it is difficult to determine their original positions, but they
seem to have been arranged in parallel rows. Many are carved with patterns such as
spirals and geometric designs (Plates 5 and 6). Excavations at Bawah Parit uncovered
human skeletons beneath several batu tagak but no artifacts. The skeletons’ condition
was too fragile to permit them to be removed from the soil. It is therefore impossible to
fix the age of the Mahat monuments or in fact any of the L Kota sites.
The Mahat monoliths are more numerous than in the Sinamar valley, but those in
Sinamar are larger and more elaborately decorated. Bawah Parit is the largest and most
regular of the monolith fields. Its exceptional size and regularity of layout suggest
that it may not be representative of the other sites. In particular it cannot be assumed
that all the monoliths in L Kota served as grave markers, as they obviously did at
Bawah Parit.
Plate 5. Stone with incised designs, Bawah Parit, Mahat valley. (Photograph by John
Miksic.)
200 John Miksic
Plate 6. Stone with fine carvings, Bawah Parit, Mahat valley. (Photograph by John Miksic.)
The kris-hilt form seems to have had a particular significance, about which we can only
speculate. Whatever its original meaning, this shape is commonly used for tombstones
today; not in L Kota, but in the southeastern luak, Tanahdatar. Surface survey succeeded
in collecting very few ceramics in the Mahat valley. The oldest date to the 16th or 17th
century. These sherds were found in a newly dug garden on the top of a ridge at Dusun
Tuo, Aur Duri. This may have been an earlier village site; if so, there must have been a
significant change in the Mahat settlement pattern since the 18th century, because all
villages are now set on the valley floor. This transition may reflect more unsettled
conditions in the past, when Mahat residents may have built settlements on more easily
defensible elevated sites. The ceramics cannot be used to date the batu tagak, but they
do establish the fact that Mahat has probably been inhabited for at least 400 years.
Dusun Tuo is located on a narrow promontory approximately 150 metres long and only
one metre wide, with very steep sides 30 to 40 metres high which juts out into the
Mahat valley. At the tip of the promontory a number of batu tagak are scattered about
the ground. One tiny stone about 15 cm high was used until recently for village ceremonies
at rice planting and harvest.
Other traditions assign different functions to various ceremonial stones in highland
West Sumatra. Some batu tagak are said to have been markers for courses used in
traditional horse-racing. At Sungaipatai, Sungayang, Tanahdatar, a stone is carved as a
horse with one man above it, another below it. Yuwono (1984: 19) suggests that places
called gelanggang may have been sites of traditional horse races. In Kubang, it is said
that some batu tagak marked boundaries between nagari. Another story concerns four
ancestors who first entered the northern L Kota area from the lower Kampar valley.
The story reinforces the idea that Mahat had some historical connection with Muara
Takus.
One of the ancestors, Datuk Majoindo, was supposed to ascend an elephant in order to
participate in a process by stepping on a stone mortar (lesung gadang) and to descend via
another (lesung cakik). Stone mortars (lumpang batu) for pounding rice and other food are
commonly found in villages, some of which are said to have had ritual functions. At
Balubus stone mortars were used in harvest ceremonies within living memory, but later
immigrants were forbidden to possess them. At another location, the house of a
penghulu possessed four lesung, suggesting that they also functioned as status symbols.
At Desa Manganti, Guguk, on the bank of the Sinamar, blood from a sacrified goat was
caught in a lesung after communal cleaning of irrigation channels. The blood was to
show respect for the ancestors. At Bukit Afar, near Kota Panjang, beside the road to
Suliki, is a lesung said to have functioned as boundary marker between suku (Plate 7).
Sites with batu tagak are clearly distinct from sites with lumpang batu (stone mortars).
One explanation for this spatial differentiation is that these objects were used in different
contexts. It is also possible that the lumpang were made at a different period than the
batu tagak. The lumpang may have been moved when households or villages moved,
while batu tagak may not have been. Batu tagak are often found on the fringes of
modern villages, while lumpang are often found near their centres. The lumpang batu
of L Kota are generally of simple form. At least one example, from Sungai Talang, has
however a more sophisticated shape, with symmetrical proportions, and two lines in
raised relief encircling the body of the stone. Other decorated lumpang are known from
Taeh Baru and Simalanggang (Yuwono 1984: 8). Lumpang are also found in Tanahdatar.
One now kept in an enclosure at Pagarruyung beside a number of stone stelae bearing
inscriptions from the reign of Adityawarman (c. 1347 – 1375 CE) displays a number of flat-
tened planes on its upper surface; one face bears a line of Adityawarman-style writing.
Other lumpang-like stone objects are found at such locations as Kuburajo (Plate 8).
Batu tagak and lumpang batu were used ceremonially until very recent times. No prima
facie evidence forces us to admit a very early date for any of the objects; old assumptions
Plate 7. Stones at Bukit Afar, near Kota Panjang (in Limapuluh Kota), situated near the
side of the road to Suliki and said to have functioned as a boundary marker between
suku. (Photograph by John Miksic.)
202 John Miksic
Plate 8. Lumpang or mortar-shaped stone from Kuburajo, West Sumatra. (Photograph by

John Miksic.)
about stylistic dating have been rejected but no other sources of information about the date
of erection for any West Sumatran batu tagak have been proposed.
Circumstantial evidence can be cited to support the conclusion that one phase of batu
tagak erection in West Sumatra coincided with the period of Adityawarman’s rule in
the 14th century. Such evidence includes the shape of one stone at Guguk, Suliki. This
monument is not in situ, having been relocated probably by Schnitger to its present site
at the local balai adat. It consists of three sections: a base with quadrangular section
about two metres tall; a square frame which rests atop this pillar; and a third stage
carved with two rows of large triangles and one row of smaller triangles. The top
section has a square cross-section for three-fifths of its length, then changes to round.
The topmost portion of the third stage has been broken off and lost, and is now surmounted
by a pyramid made of cement. It is impossible to ascertain whether this is faithful to
the original form. The design suggests that it was made in an artistic tradition which
emphasised symmetry, a trait suggestive of a classical tradition possibly associated with
Adityawarman, rather than the asymmetry characteristic of pre-classic or non-classical
art forms. The Adityawarman inscriptions and the batu tagak tradition may have over-
lapped in time, but proximity alone does not prove such an assumption. Further research
at sites such as Kuburajo and Pariangan may help to settle this question.
The tradition of erecting batu tagak may have increased in the 14th century, as a
by-product of social change when Minangkabau became the centre of a late classical
Indonesian kingdom with contacts reaching Java, China and India. Unfortunately we
know nothing about pre-14th century West Sumatra. It seems probable however that
wet rice cultivation evolved here long before it appeared in other parts of Sumatra. We
have no data with which to estimate when this happened, but the integration of wet rice
growing into all aspects of Minang society and the lack of any noticeable external
influences on the terminology and symbolism associated with it suggest that it was a
local development, and thus predates intensive foreign contact. Data from West Malaysia
can also help resolve the question of dating the West Sumatran sites. Decorated stones are
found at Pengkalan Kempas, Negeri Sembilan, while at Alor Gajah (Melaka) and Kuala
Pilah (Negeri Sembilan) are undecorated monoliths. The Keramat Sungai Udang bears
memorial inscriptions for Ahmat Majanu dated 1463– 64 and 1467– 68, but the Kawi
script used here resembles that of late 14th century West Sumatra and is even closer to
that used in an Acehnese stone dated 1380 (de Casparis 1980). Keramat Sungai Udang
and Kuburajo may have had analogous functions (Miksic 1985). Kuburajo here almost
certainly does not mean ‘Grave of the King’. It may simply mean ‘place of the king’,
but the term was also a specific reference to a ‘no-man’s land’ separating one laras or fed-
eration of nagari from another, where parang [perang] adat or parang batu were fought
using swords and shields or slings (Westenenk 1915: 89 –193). A number of sites in
L Kota are said to have been gelanggang in the past. These sites may have been scenes
of ritual combat between local champions in the past, perhaps as part of local celebrations
for new penghulu. Inscriptions at Kuburajo shows that some activity was conducted at the
site during that period. Associated inscriptions also point to late 14th to mid-15th century
dates for Pengkalan Kempas and Kuburajo.
Excavation at Kampong Ipoh, Negeri Sembilan, discovered no artifacts or other remains
near one site of monoliths (Adi Haji Taha and Abdul Jalil Osman 1982: 78– 81). An exca-
vation at Gunung Bungsu, Batipuh, in Tanahdatar, however yielded useful data. Excava-
tions here in 1993 discovered more burials in association with approximately 273 batu
tagak. In this case the stones seem to be unmodified. Burials here were of two types
with different orientations. One group is oriented towards Mount Merapi, which
legends identify as the origin of the Minangkabau people; the other seems to be orientated
in relation to Mecca and the qiblah (i.e. west-northwest). The excavators believe that the
site was used in the pre-Islamic period and, when Islam entered the area, it continued to be
used, but with the stones oriented in a direction consistent with the new faith. The site is
undated (Marsis Sutopo and Bagyo Prasetyo 1994). These results seem to confirm the
idea that menhirs did function in prehistoric Indonesian society as grave markers (Haris
Sukendar 1985 and 1989).
Socio-cultural milieu of the West Sumatran batu tagak

In 1275 CE Sumatra’s main lowland kingdom, Malayu in Jambi, was forcibly made a
vassal of Singasari, east Java. Commerce probably was not adversely affected by these
political events. At the end of the 13th century Singasari evolved into Majapahit, a
kingdom which maintained and extended Javanese political superiority over the Straits
principalities. Memories of these events form key parts of modern Minang ethnicity.
Folklore attributes the name ‘Minang’ to the victory of a Minang buffalo over a Javanese
buffalo, whereby the Minang retained their independence. Battles between two legendary
figures known as Datuk Pepatih nan Sebatang and Datuk Ketumanggungan probably
represent conflict between the indigenous egalitarian social system and a hierarchical
model which may have been imported from Java in the mid-14th century. A man
named Adityawarman was sent to Sumatra from east Java around 1345 CE. His ethnic
identity may have been part Sumatran, part Javanese. He had a large number of inscrip-
tions written in a form of Sanskrit with many Malay expressions and strong Malay gram-
matical influence. Whether or not he personally considered himself Malay, his inscriptions
project a Malay rather than Javanese identity. The first evidence of Adityawarman’s
existence is found in an inscription at Candi Jago, east Java. We next hear of him when
he was in the upper Batanghari valley of Sumatra, at Sungai Langsat and Rambahan,
but he appears not to have remained there for long. Instead he made a bold new step by
204 John Miksic
moving to the Tanahdatar valley, establishing the only known classical style Indonesian
kingdom ever in the Sumatran highlands. His motives for discarding tradition are
unknown, but he was probably trying to escape Javanese control and to control the gold
trade. The Minang highlands were the most logical place for someone familiar with a
kingdom based on wet rice to attempt to establish a new centre.
In addition to inscriptions, a few other artifacts related to Adityawarman’s reign have
been found. They include a repaired statue, headless, standing on a lotus cushion; and
a headless torso of a woman, supporting her breasts with her hands. Her breasts are
hollow, with openings which penetrate completely through to the back of the stone, indi-
cating that the statue was meant to function as a spout in a bathing place, like the famous
statue at Belahan, east Java. These objects were found at Bukit Gombak, a hill near
modern Pagarruyung, along with a number of inscriptions. This hill is situated just
across the Batang Selo from Bandar Bapahat, where inscriptions in Tamil and Sanskrit
once existed but have now disappeared. It is perhaps not coincidental that Bukit Gombak
is used as a site for traditional horse racing once a year. A survey of Bukit Gombak in
1982 yielded no discoveries, except for a spring that may have formed the original site
of the fountain statue which now stands in Batusangkar. Nevertheless it seems probable
that Bukit Gombak was the site of Adityawarman’s palace. Another nearby site yielded
fragments of a foundation made from bricks with the ‘wafer’-like dimensions character-
istic of classical Indonesian architecture. This site is one of at least five in the Minang
heartland with the same name: Biaro, derived from the Sanskrit vihara. The others are
near Bukittinggi, Sawahlunto, Payakumbuh, and Pariaman. The site in question is a low
hill about 200 metres in diameter, about 100 metres east of Pagarruyung village
(Miksic 1987). If this hypothetical depiction of the situation in West Sumatra in the late
14th century is valid, then the area with the largest number of batu tagak in L Kota lay
on the north fringe of Adityawarman’s royal centre. Relations between Tanahdatar and
L Kota would have resembled the links that bound other Sumatran centres of Buddhism
to their outlying neighbours.
The Minang heartland, like the rest of the Sumatran highlands before the 14th century,
remained on the fringe of the network of Asian trade. Its people were no doubt aware that
such a network existed, but seem to have maintained only indirect links to it. On the
other hand the estuarine dwellers who created the famous trading emporia of ancient
times must have had some knowledge of conditions in the hinterland. It has sometimes
been assumed that relations between lowland and upland people were uneasy, but there
is no evidence that barriers of hostility obstructed intercourse between the two groups.
When Adityawarman moved into the highlands, the people of Tanahdatar must have
cooperated at least passively with his attempt to establish a capital suitable for a
monarch who had been raised at the sophisticated court of Majapahit. Adityawarman
seems to have been energetic, erecting an enormous statue of himself at Padang Roco
in the upper Batanghari basin, and after his move to Bukit Gombak, he sponsored a
burst of literary activity evidenced by many inscriptions. The Bukit Gombak remains indi-
cate that he attempted to surround himself with objects such as stone statuary which were
necessary for a classical Javanese ruler. Adityawarman’s attempt was however ultimately
unsuccessful. After his death sometime after 1374 CE no more inscriptions or statues were
set up there. We do not know what became of his court, or how it was dispersed. Although
Adityawarman failed to create a kingdom which survived after him, the fact that he was
able to accomplish so much towards his goal of replicating a lowland centre there implies
that there existed no active cultural barriers to such an attempt. Nevertheless,
Adityawarman’s endeavour to expand the range of lowland culture reached a dead end.
Malay identity evolved into an ethnic designation during the 19th century. The Malay
identity had several dimensions. One was an adaptation to a specific environmental niche:
estuarine shorelines of the Southeast Asian equatorial belt. The famous naturalist
A.F.C. Wallace alluded to this dimension in the mid-19th century when he wrote that
true Malays only built their houses over water (Wallace 1869: 94). Another dimension
was political. According to V. Matheson, in the Sejarah Melayu the term ‘Malay’ is not
a general ethnic term, but a mark of distinction reserved for the descendants of Sri Tri
Buana. This helps to explain the importance of the genealogical aspect of the Sejarah
Melayu: the number of Malays would originally have been quite small, since only those
in the line of descent from Palembang royalty would have belonged to that group.
Commoners are referred to in the Sejarah Melayu not as orang Melayu but hamba
Melayu. Malays who no longer kept up the old Melakan lifestyle were said to lose their
Melayu-ness as well, e.g. Melakans who did not remain with the refugee court after the
fall of Melaka, but fled into the jungle, were characterised as Jakun. In the Hikayat
Hang Tuah, a Melakan queen who escaped the Portuguese became a Batek (Matheson
1979; Andaya and Andaya 1982: 49). During the 10th to 15th centuries, it would be
more accurate to think of ethnic identity in Sumatra as analogous to ‘a kaleidoscope of
patterns, emerging and fading’ (Sutherland 1985: 133). Individuals in all periods are
involved simultaneously in several different communication networks with different
geographical distributions, rather than just one network which could be identified as a
cohesive ethnic group. According to Wolters, ‘Indonesian maritime history is the story
of the efforts of local groups, endowed with more or less comparable resources, to
protect their separate identities. Outward-lookingness was subordinated to local needs’
(Wolters 1974: 201Q). In this context we do discover a parallel to the highland –lowland
divisions found on the Southeast Asian mainland.
Another dimension of ethnic identity is that of material culture. This is basically the raw
material with which archaeologists have to work. Sometimes archaeologists speak of
‘archaeological cultures’, by which they mean clusters of items commonly found in the
same area and share enough traits in technique of manufacture and decoration that they
seem to form a natural unit. One cannot, however, demonstrate objectively that the
people who made these objects spoke the same language or shared similar religious
beliefs; it is only an assumption that similarity of material culture signifies similarity in
non-material culture among the inhabitants of a number of sites. The construction of
kris-hilt-shaped batu tagak was originally limited to a rather restricted area in the
Sinamar and Mahat valleys. When it spread to the Tanahdatar area is not known. It is
however possible that the adoption of the kris-hilt shape for Muslim tombstones in
Tanahdatar is quite recent. In fact many of the tombstones seem to date from the period
since Indonesian independence. In the Gudam area for example, near Batu Basurat, is a
small graveyard with several anomalous stones which appear to be of some antiquity.
One with a kris-hilt shape may or may not have originally been a grave marker
(Plate 9). Another of interesting form seems to echo a lingga shape, but with a type of
sabuk or Malay belt around its middle, and a kind of headcloth on top, giving it an
anthropomorphic cast.
In another nearby burial ground are a large number of graves in which the stones,
both head and foot, are of the kris-hilt design. One of these belongs to the son of the
Tuan Gadis, a traditional official, who was killed in the 1950s by a mortar shell fired
from Fort van der Capellen (Batusangkar). The area was then on the front lines of the
conflict between the armed forces of the central government and the PRRI or Permesta
rebels who sought to create an independent West Sumatran state. In the house were
206 John Miksic
Plate 9. Kris-hilt shaped stone, perhaps originally a grave marker, near Batu Basurat,
Gudam area, Tanahdatar. (Photograph by John Miksic.)
kept the pusaka of Pagarruyung which were described in detail by a Dutch archaeologist
(Bosch 1930). Among these were such items as a short sword which bears on one side an
incised figure of a Bhairawa, on the reverse a Bhairawi, which were at one time gilded.
The swords and some other items survived, but some pusaka such as ‘a large
egg-shaped object named Talur burung Burak’ and ‘the cloth Sangsuta of heavy yellow
silk three metres long and embroidered’ were destroyed in the explosion and fire which
followed, destroying the house and killing the Tuan Gadis’ son. It seems highly probable
that the sword derives from the Adityawarman period. The kris-hilt shaped stones in the
Gudam graveyard date from a period of inter-ethnic strife involving the Minangkabau.
It is possible that the form was revived at this time, possibly as a means of expressing
a distinct local ethnic identity. More fieldwork would be needed to identity sites with
such tombstones, but this hypothesis at the moment seems at least a workable one.
When William Marsden in the late 18th century wanted to find a prototypical Malay
for a model, he made what we would consider a rather odd choice: a Rejang from the
Bengkulu hinterland. Few ethnologists would use the term Malay in such a fashion
today. Glover (1986) has espoused the value of an attempt to use archaeology to study
the formation of ethnic identities in Indonesia, but formidable problems of methodology
stand between us and this goal. The way in which ethnicity is perceived in modern
conditions of government and personality formation is probably not similar to that of
the past (Anderson 1983). We are therefore condemned to speak about archaeological
cultures for the foreseeable future, without being able to connect them with living
groups of people whom we can recognise today.
The batu tagak of West Sumatra and Negeri Sembilan probably date from the period
when Islam was becoming a significant force among the people of the Straits of
Melaka. It is necessary to keep in mind that conversion to Islam was a gradual process
rather than a brief event. Those groups on the fringes of Islamic areas would have localised
the physical displays made by Muslims without necessarily becoming Muslim at the
same time. After Islam was adopted, conversely, old symbols continued to be used,
though the boundaries of their meanings might be extended or shifted. Thus in coastal
West Sumatra when Islam was embraced in the late 16th or early 17th century, some
graves were made in Acehnese style, for example those at Dusun Jirat, Desa Balai Air,
Kecamatan (District) Dua Kali Sebelas Enam Lingkungan (in the hinterland of Ulakan).
One has a gada (club)-shaped stone, with an orientation 12 degrees northeast from
foot to headstone. The port of Ulakan was an important entry point for Islam. Here the
Surau Syech Burhanuddin has become an important shrine for pilgrims. The courtyard
of the main tomb complex is encircled by tombstones of a very simple character,
among which monuments of batu Aceh style are conspicuously absent (Plate 10).
A useful piece of comparative evidence is found far from Sumatra: at Fort Rotterdam,
Ujungpandang, south Sulawesi. Hill-dwellers, such as the famous Toraja people, are now
largely Christian, but still perform elaborate death rituals involving the use of tall mono-
liths where buffalo are tied before being slaughtered. These monoliths, like the batu
tagak of West Sumatra, are usually found just outside modern villages. Ujungpandang
has a resident Malay population which descends partly from refugees who fled
the fall of Melaka in 1511. According to one tradition, however, Islam was brought
to Sulawesi not by the Melakans but by four ulama from West Sumatra, in the early
17th century. Fort Amsterdam, a complex built by the Dutch East India Company in
the late 17th century, has become the office of the regional education office. Among
the collections of a museum in the fort is a tombstone of an unidentified Muslim
carved in the kris-hilt form characteristic of highland West Sumatra (Plate 11). This
evidence of the influence of Minang Islamic art on eastern Indonesia testifies to the
accuracy of the Sulawesi tradition.
The lightness of the impact created by the batu Aceh in highland West Sumatra, and
the creation of the batu tagak-related model for early Muslim tombstones, indicates that
Plate 10. Tombstones in the courtyard of the shrine of Syech Burhanuddin at Ulakan on the
coast of West Sumatra. The stones are very simple in character and monuments of batu
Aceh style are conspicuously absent. (Photograph by John Miksic.)
208 John Miksic
Plate 11. Tombstone of an unidentified Muslim carved in the kris-hilt form characteristic
of highland West Sumatra, Fort Amsterdam Museum, Ujungpandang, Sulawesi.
(Photograph by John Miksic.)
the Minang already conceived of themselves as distinct from the lowland Malays before
the arrival of Islam. The batu tagak found at Dusun Jirat in West Sumatra constitute one
of the rare examples of this form of tombstone in the hinterland of any of the Indonesian
islands. The style is almost completely confined to the lowlands of Sumatra, Peninsular
Malaysia, Riau, and west Java (Banten Lama). The fact that the batu tagak form spread
as far as south Sulawesi in the early 17th century indicates that the lowland people of
Sumatra were not solely responsible for the diffusion of Islam to eastern Indonesia.
This datum underlines the necessity of looking for evidence of multiple agents in the
dissemination of the new religion east of Java.
Visiting Fellow, Asia Research Institute

National University of Singapore
Singapore
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Micsic From Tombstone To Islamic Minangkabau

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FROM MEGALITHS TO TOMBSTONES: THE

Batu tagak of West Sumatra: archaeological description

or communication is discernible, although common ancestry and communication may well

Plate 8. Lumpang or mortar-shaped stone from Kuburajo, West Sumatra. (Photograph by

Socio-cultural milieu of the West Sumatran batu tagak

Visiting Fellow, Asia Research Institute

Bosch, F.D.K. 1930. De Rijkssieradan van Pagar Roejang. Oudheidkundige Verslag,

Pertemuan Ilmiah Arkeologi III. Jakarta: Puslit Arkenas, pp. 7– 17.

Wallace, A.F.C. 1869. The Malay archipelago. London: Macmillan.

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