Mythbusting: The Bugis

**An early photographic image of a Bugis family in Singapore c.1895**
[picture credit: Rijksmuseum Collection]

…Early sunlight crept across the boards, flooding every corner below, gentle fingers of morning caressing them awake. The ship was bobbing lightly in a moderate breeze, perfect conditions for their journey. Sleepy men sat up, scratched and broke wind, dragging themselves from pallets to douse their heads in the barrel of water. Light himself was the first up the ladder, if one discounted Soliman, always one step ahead, his cat bounding behind. The horizon was empty, the sea a millpond, a glorious dawn just broken. Then a cry of distress from Soliman alerted Francis that something was amiss. He spun round landward. His heart stopped.

What they had missed in the middle of the storm was that this little offshore island had been very far from deserted. Now they could plainly see a bay swarming with boats, most of them outriggers, perahus and padewakangs, with numerous small skiffs and canoes. Taking centre stage – and now alongside the Speedwell – were two large boats with a number of smaller vessels lined up in between. Men stood in serried ranks along their decks, bearing a fearsome collection of weapons: guns, pistols, keris, swords, spears, bows and arrows, even a few cannons. It seemed that they had taken refuge in a pirate hideout.

One man pushed his way forward to the prow of the largest vessel; he was youngish, dressed in finer textile than the others, sporting an elaborate headcloth, obviously the leader of the band. His keris rested in a gilded scabbard, encrusted with jewels. If he was a pirate, he must surely be a successful one. Planting his feet akimbo, the young man placed his hands on his hips in bravado, and shouted across: ‘Orang Belanda?’

Light shook his head. ‘Inggeris.’

‘Dari mana?’

‘Madras.’

‘Why you here?’

‘Mutiara.’ Light decided to tell the truth. Should he lose his cargo of pearls, then it was a lesson learned. Better that than their lives.

‘I can take your ship. I have many men.’

‘I know. This is your victory. We do not want to fight. My men are good sailors. Do not hurt them.’

‘I no hurt men. Men worth money. But I kill Dutch men.’

Light smiled. ‘Then I am safe, for I am an Englishman. And I also kill Dutch men. So, we can be friends then? Can or not?…’

[from ‘Dragon’, Chapter 13: The Pearl Tank]

Francis Light’s encounter with the fierce young Bugis warrior by the name of Daeng Merewah Theyan is a fiction, but there is little doubt that Light traded with the Bugis, supplied them with weapons against the Dutch, and was even offered a British settlement in the Riau archipelago around 1770 on Bintan Island, the centre of Bugis commercial enterprises. Little is known about Daeng Merewah Theyan other than that he operated in the northern Straits at this period and possibly became governor of Phuket (Jangsylan) for a short time. His name, however, is a famous one, linking him to five Bugis brothers who built a formidable power base in the region in the late eighteenth century.

Myth: The Bugis were Fierce Pirates

It must be admitted that most sea faring communities of archipelagic South East Asia at some time or another resorted to raiding settlements and capturing passing ships. Not dissimilar to the Vikings of Europe, while most indigenous people were farmers, fisherman and traders (as indeed were the Scandinavian peoples), if times were hard or communities were threatened, it was common practice to raid other villages or boats. Just as Scandinavian communities would resort to ‘viking’ or ‘ going raiding’ out of necessity, so did all the orang laut (sea people) of these waters, including the Bugis. They were not alone in these practices; nor were they the most fearsome. So why is the label ‘pirate’ always quoted in particular relation to the Bugis?

The real origin of the reputation, of course, lies in the existential clash between the Bugis and the Europeans, particularly the Dutch. Bugis traders, who had ‘owned’ the waters of the archipelago for centuries were suddenly faced with brutal aggression from Europeans who would not countenance local rivals for control of the sea lanes of the East Indies or for the trade in the resources of the region. Portugal, Spain, Holland, Britain, and France aimed to eradicate the indigenous merchants, justifying their actions as keeping the peace and reducing piracy. Inevitably, the Bugis, a proud warrior culture fought back – with devastating results for their communities. It was common practice for colonial aggressors to rebrand resistance as brigandage or thuggery. Whether it is morally acceptable to accuse local people who fight to retain their traditional way of life of being buccaneers is a discussion for another time. But we can still ask ‘Who indeed were the real pirates of the East Indies?’

Myth: The Bugis and the Bogeyman

The Bogeyman

It is a received wisdom often quoted on the internet that the Bugis (as pirates) were once so feared that their very name conjured up images of brutal demons who swooped down on innocent settlements to kill and ravage. Mothers told their children to be good ‘…or the Bugis men will get you!’ And therein, it is said, lie the origins of the monstrous ‘bogeymen’, so beloved of horror stories and movies. The word was nothing more than a corruption of ‘Bugis Man’, taken back to Europe by colonialists.
[picture credit: Wiki villains]

No doubt this bogeyman reputation has added to the Bugis legend over the centuries, but the story is nonsensical, nothing but an ‘urban’ myth to use a modern term. Although the word boogieman or bogeyman is now most closely associated with America, the bogey creature goes back much earlier to Medieval Europe, where a bogey was either a demon or a beast that reputedly ate children. (from ‘bogge’ = a frightening spectre – Old German). There are many stories from all over Europe of such monsters. Sometimes a bogie is even said to be a form of goblin. The boggart (known mostly today from Harry Potter) is another related spirit.

Fact: The Bugis Homelands

**The Island of Sulawesi [**map credit: Roke-wiki]

The Bugis originate from the south west of Sulawesi, a curiously orchid-shaped island located east of Borneo. They inhabited the region of Bone-Makassar, particularly the kingdoms of Luwu, Bone, Wajo and Gowa. Although the Bugis were renowned as warriors, their coastal communities had also been successful traders since earliest times. Famous for their boats and navigational skills, it is well documented that the Bugis traded across a vast area of ocean from Papua, Australia and Oceania in the east via the Indo-Malay archipelago to India and Africa in the west. Not only did they move trade goods, but they also played a significant role in the transmission around the region of many of the iconic elements of South East Asia culture, such as textiles, weapons, and even the Malay language itself, which was not their language but the most convenient lingua franca for all the far flung communities in the cosmopolitan trading world of the Indies.

Fact: The Bugis and the Dutch

**The Bugis-Makassar War 1666-69** *Romeyn de Hooge 1669 Dutch National Archives*
*[Arund Palakka, prince of Soppeng, who supported the VOC, is depicted in the right hand corner]*

It was inevitable that the traders of Bugis-Makassar would clash with the Dutch whose desire for a complete monopoly of the nutmeg and clove trade in the Banda Islands is well documented. Yet the Dutch VOC found it difficult to prevent the Bugis from operating in such a vast archipelago. In 1666, exploiting local rivalries by allying with a disaffected local prince of Soppeng, Arund Palakka, the Dutch launched an expedition to wipe out their Bugis-Makassar rivals. By 1669, the writing was on the wall; many Bugis and Makarese were forced to flee from their homeland to settle in Borneo, Sumatra, Java and the Malay Straits, areas with which they were familiar from their trading voyages.

**The Bugis Diaspora 17th-18th centuries**
[picture credit: Cribb 2000]

Fact: The Bugis Diaspora

The Bugis migrants found differing fortunes in the west for they were not welcomed everywhere. The most successful groups were those that settled in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. These areas were relatively sparsely populated but their settlements were growing in importance through trade. Local kingdoms needed more people – and who better than the Muslim Bugis, expert traders, mariners and warriors, already familiar with the language and culture of the region? Many of these early settlers found new homes in the Riau archipelago and the kingdom of Johor.

The Five Bugis Brothers

The most notable of these new arrivers were the Five Brothers whose personal story reads more like epic legend – and has inevitably acquired a certain amount of heroic embellishment over the years. Nevertheless, this family certainly rose to prominence in the southern Straits of Malacca due mostly to the influence they acquired over the sultanate of Johor and their commercial trading base on Bintan island, both of which threatened the Dutch stranglehold on the entrance to the Straits in the south. In a sense, they held a similar position to Singapore at a later period.

The Golden Age of Riau

**Nur al-Marege, a modern replica of an old Bugis *padewakang* that sailed to Australia in 2019**
[picture credit: Muhammad Ridden Alimudin]

One of the brothers, Daeng Merewah (possibly the grandfather of Daeng Merewah Theyan in the novel) became Yamtuan Muda of Johor, a title usually held by the crown prince, but for the next four generations always given to the Bugis leader of Riau. In effect, the sultans of Johor were under the control of their Bugis neighbours. In 1745 the formidable Daeng Kemboja, nephew of Daeng Merewah became Yamtuan, presiding over a Bugis heyday often referred to as ‘The Golden Age of Riau’. Even European merchants preferred to trade in Bugis ports rather than with the Dutch, who themselves avoided conflict with the Bugis whenever they could. Daeng Kemboja was interested in alliance with the British, aware of their rivalry with Holland, offering them a base on Bintan Island negotiated by Francis Light c.1769. But the East India Company was loathe to work with the Bugis whom they regarded as pirates, and the offer was rejected.

Raja Lumu and Selangor

**Bugis Keris, Muzium Negara Kuala Lumpur**

Another nephew of Daeng Merewah, Raja Lumu, ventured further north along the Malay Peninsula, eventually establishing himself in a relatively unoccupied area around the Selangor river. In 1765, he became the first sultan of Selangor, taking the name of Sultan Salehuddin. Raja Lumu’s brother, Raja Haji Fisibillilah, a later Yamtuan of Johor, attempted to oust the Dutch from Malacca by forming a formidable coalition from the other nearby kingdoms. It may well have succeeded if not for his untimely death during the siege of Melaka (Malacca) in 1784.

From then on, these Bugis settlers were no longer seen in quite the same light by the rulers of the Malay Straits. They were now serious contenders for control of the entire peninsula. The subsequent internal power struggle, which saw the Bugis increase their influence further north in Perak and Kedah, was to play into the hands of the Europeans who were more than ready to exploit one group against another, just as the Dutch had already done in Sulawesi. Ultimately the leasing of Penang to the British was part of the strategy of the Sultan of Kedah to protect his state from Bugis and Siamese threats.

**Bugis Zirah Body Armour**
**Muzium Negara, Kuala Lumpur**
[picture credit: The Bangsawan]

Fact: The Literate Bugis

**Lontar palm manuscripts known as '*sureq*’**

Another myth-busting, little known fact about Bugis culture is that the Bugis were in fact a literate people. Although their day-to-day skills and knowledge were still most probably transferred by oral means, Bugis scholars created a massive body of literature that ranged from humble chronicles of every day events up to great works of poetry and epic. One of their most fascinating texts is ‘I La Galigo’, a creation myth that ran to about 6,000 pages, which is half again as much as the great Indian epic ‘The Mahabharata’! In fact, I La Galigo is the longest single narrative ever produced in human history. Quite an achievement for a bunch of ‘pirates’!

**I La Galigo manuscript in early book form**

The poem was probably first created in the ninth century CE, although it was not written down until much later, around the 14th century. Initially it was transcribed in Bahasi Ugi (the Bugis language) written in an Indic-based script, on long strips of lontar palm, wound on reels rather like cine film, but later versions were beautifully illustrated parchment manuscripts, like the above image. Only about half of the story has survived the ravages of time and the tropical climate, but some lost sections are known through the oral tradition. I La Galigo tells the story of how several gods were sent down to earth and became the ancestors of the Bugis. I La Galigo himself, a later descendant of these divine heroes, travelled around the seas from east to west, his story curiously mirroring the later real life adventures of the Bugis Diaspora.

Myth: The Phinisi is a Bugis creation

Another well known fact about the Bugis that proves to be inaccurate is that the Bugis built and sailed on phinisi (pinisi) ships from the earliest times. Firstly, the phinisi is not in fact a type of ship at all, but the name of the sailing rigging that was used on padewakang or later palari hulls from the 19th century onwards by Sulawesi ship builders in imitation of European schooners. Thus, tales that the Bugis sailed their phinisis to Venice in the 16th century do not hold much water (to pardon the pun). Furthermore, although the phinisi was built in South Sulawesi, it was not a creation of the Bugis but of related dwellers of the coastal south, the Konjo ethnic group that include the Bira, Ara, Leno-Leno and Tana Beru indigenous peoples.

Today the phinisi is still a working ship, used both as a cargo vessel but also more luxuriously for five star holiday cruises around the islands of the eastern archipelago.

The Bugis Today

**Modern Bugis-style Malay wedding**
[picture credit: Roedy Rustam, Wikipedia]

Although once seen as a threat by the sultans of the Peninsula, the Bugis quickly assimilated seamlessly into Malay culture and tradition. For many Bugis, Sulawesi ceased to be regarded as their homeland. Yet there is still a distinct sense of pride amongst those Malaysians, Indonesians and Singaporeans who can claim Bugis heritage, as can be seen from the wedding couple above. No longer the outsiders, they are now an integral part of the rich blended culture of the Straits. The two modern cities of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur both have great links to the Bugis past: Kuala Lumpur as originally part of the Bugis state of Selangor and Singapore as the trading centre of the region.

Bugis Street, Singapore

**Original Bugis settlement at Kampong Bugis**
[picture credit: Lambert and Co, National Museum of Singapore]

Many Bugis settled in Singapore after its establishment by Raffles and Farquhar in 1819, attracted by the mercantile benefits of British free trade and Singapore’s proximity to the Riau archipelago. The original Kampong Bugis, situated along the banks of the Rochor and Kallang rivers in the eastern part of Singapore, was founded circa 1820. It was probably little changed when this late 19th image was taken.

**American sailors on Bugis Street c. 1962**
[picture credit: National Gallery of Singapore]

In the 20th century Bugis Street - by then relocated to central Singapore – became an archetype of the sleazy, exotic and lawless ports of Asia, famed for bars, cheap hotels, gambling dens, colourful transvestites and prostitution, yet another distorted aspect of the Bugis legend.

Today in safe, immaculately clean, law-abiding Singapore, Bugis Street now presents a much more ‘sanitised’ image but still lies at the heart of the tourist scene, with its chic bistros, eclectic cafés, quirky clothing stores – and the benefit of air conditioned cool .