SUMUTRA = voormalig Nederlands Indie / Indonesie

FLAPTEKST :

TO LIVE AS BROTHERS traces the fortunes of two interrated kingdoms in southeast Sumatra during a poiltical and economic transformation ; the historically close realtions between Jambi an Palembang had long been characterized by a cycle of recurring hostility an reconciliation ; this was to change in 1615 with the arrival of the Dutch an English , whose demands for greater access to pepper and tin were to have far-reaching effects on the Jambi-Palembang association ; drawing on previously untapped sources , both European and local , Barbara Andya demonstrates why Jambi became a commercial backwater , while its ´ brother ´Palembang , emerged as one of the richest and most prestigious states in the archipelago ; fundamental to Andya´s interpretation is the view that significant memories and values were transmitted less through writing than through the spoken word ; indigenous attitudes , the author showes , were often at variance with those of Europeans , whose patterns of thought were increasingly being shaped by greater exposure to literacy ; each held differing perceptions on basic matters such as genealogies , debt collection , written contracts , the measurement of time , and the recording of data , and these differences decome a structure for examining European and Sumatran interactions ; within this structure , three dominant themes , culled from legends and folklore recorded over the past 200 years , are explored : the relationship between between ruler and subject , the importance of kinship in all human dealings , and the ambiguous association between upstream and downstream ; in combining new material with an original approach , TO LIVE AS BROTHERS makes an important contribution to our understanding of premodern Indonesia ; it will appeal to historians , anthopologists , and other Southeast Asianists