Subject: panggau warrior
Culture: Sumatran Malay
Setting: Jambi, Palembang sultanates, eastern Sumatra/Lampong 19thc
Evolution:
Context (Event Photos, Primary Sources, Secondary Sources, Field Notes)
* Draeger 1972 p122
"The Lampong are governed in a feudal way by appointed leaders. The panggau, or 'warrior,' is a superior and has arbitrary authority over the people."
* von Duuren 1998 p84-85
"In those days, Palembang ... had developed into a self-sufficient seaport state, which owed its importance to the trade in wood products, pepper and tin. For that reason it attracted a lot of prahu shipping. Unavoidably, this seaport state ran into collison [SIC] with the Dutch, whose commercial interests were identical to theirs. After a period of uneasy relations with the VOC and, at a later date, with the colonial administration -- an endless succession of unobserved agreements, assassination, uprisings and military interventions -- Palembang too was subdued. It was added to the Dutch Indies as early as 1824."
* Tagliacozzo 2005 p110-111
"[I]n Palembang, South Sumatra, which had been officially conquered by the Dutch for fifty years by the 1860s, the headwaters of the Musi River continued to pump out piracy, chaos, and violence into the sea lanes until after the end of the century. The rebellion of Taha in the Jambi uplands saw to this, as did the proximity of the flourishing harbor of Singapore, with all the rich maritime prizes this port offered. One Dutch naval officer theorized that because the rivers of Sumatra connected in many places in the inaccessible interior, pirates could enter the Strait of Melaka at numerous points and exit, under European duress, just as quickly."
Sword
* Edgerton 1995 p97
"The Malays use a straight sword, a chopper, a modification of the 'dao,' and several kinds of knives, as well as the 'kris,' which is more suitable for use in 'running a muck' than in war."
* Fryer 1969 p86
"Golok A Malayan jungle knife of machete type. The single-edged blade was heavy, with curved cutting edge and straight back. The weapon is found in varying sizes from knife to short sword."
Stiletto Dagger
* Edgerton 1995 p97
"In Sumatra, a long thin stiletto-like blade is used, such as was taken from a chief killed by the Dutch in 1837."
Kris Daggers (Bahari, Panjang)
* Draeger 1972 p125
"[T]he kris in Sumatra is of two types, the kris pangang and the kris bahari. The former is a long, rapierlike blade, flat and narrow, often exhibiting a raised rib running the length of the blade's midline axis. Its handle is decorative and most commonly made out of horn or ivory. The kris bahari is what may loosely be described as a large variety of the Javanese kris pichit."
* von Duuren 1998 p85-86
"[T]he Sumatran kris evolved from Javanese and Buginese models. ... [C]ertain Sumatran and Buginese kris types are deceptively similar. This is true in particular of specimens from the east coast, even though the Sumatran blades are usually more slender and graceful -- more 'Javanese', one might say -- than the Sulawesi ones. Most krisses from South Sumatra have a marked Javanese dapur, the consequence of a direct and protracted influence from neighbouring Java. The old ivory or wooden hilt models from Banten (Bantam), West Java, shaped like sitting or half-kneeling demonic creatures, recur, without significant alterations, in the form of antique krisses from Sumatra. Only very minor differences, such as the shape of the hands, serve to indicate their respective origins.
"Palembang was one of the centres from which the kris was distributed throughout Java. The prototype of the Sumatran kris too originates from that region. The Palembangese smiths traditionally procured a lot of iron from the Buginese, while they traded the results in other regions of the archipelago, such as Java and Malacca. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when kris forging was already becoming a rare occupation, the smiths procured their steel from discarded Chinese cooking pots or from ship chains. This basic metal was mixed with smaller units of nickeliferous iron, imported from Sulawesi in the form of rough machetes. Unfortunately, that is about all we know: once reliable eyewitness [SIC] reports on his crafts and techniques started to be published, the heyday of the craft of the kris smith in and near Palembang was already over."
* Fryer 1969 p87
"Kris The widely used Malay dagger. Blades are finely watered and are found either straight or wavy in form. They widen at the top to a sharp point and the hilt fits straight on to the spiked tang which continues from the top of the blade. The hilts of wood, ivory, etc. are often finely carved as the Garuda bird or demon figures. The kingfisher hilt is another, rare type."
Knife
* Newbold 1839 p213
"The Malays of Sumatra generally wear the same weapons as those of the Peninsula, with the addition of the rudus and pemandap, sorts of swords, and the suvar, a sort of small dagger, used for assassination."
Costume
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