The historical town of the bugispeople

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Ujung Pandang, or Makassar as it traditionally is named, is huge and confusing. The city has at least three bemoterminals situated way to far away from eachother. The bemos driving trough the city to and from the different terminals will in the holy name of profit pick you up wether it is the right bemo or not. Here you have to be on the alert all the time, or you might end up far away from the place you want to go.
I arrived at terminal Panaikan in the evening. The terminal is far away from everyting so i had to take a taxi down to the sea where the original town were founded. The taxidriver knew where my destination-Legend Hostel-were. He told me. Instead i got a long and frustrating trip trough the streets of Makassar. “Not far-not far” he constantly repeated-often followed by a discretely-“are we heading the correct way now?” I left the taxi at the old fortress knowing legend was not far away. If course the driver wanted payment for all his monkeydriving-coupla hundred thousands. The originaly 30 grand we agreed on was all he got.
Legend is worth mention a little more detailed. For a backpacker on a tight budget it is a find. It is simple, but homely and the staff speak english and are more than willing to assist you. This is the place to go to seek advice. With its backstreetadress it is silent, still it is close to everything. I didn’t get a room here-only dormitotybeds were available,but outside the dormroom there are alow table where hot tea and coffee are ready at all times, and here is a collection of tripreports written by other travellers.

I start my Makassarsightseing early in the morning at the fishmarket. It is held in a white building at the seafront. Early in the morning the small fishingvessels arrive to deliver whatever they have got during the night. Inside everything from mounds of small sardinlike fish to huge tunas litter the floor, There are rays and a few sharks. Buckets with lobsters and crabs are lined up, and trays with squids wait to be sold. Miraculously everuything avoid beeing stamped on by the active, densely packed crowd of buyers. Some private, some from one of the countless seafoodwarungs in Makassar. Critically they study the merchandise, and discuss the price with the sellers. Sometimes adrenalinelevel is rather high.

Outside my transport, a becack wait. In Makassar they are one of the true plagues never leaving you alone. You get bombarded by a flow of bad or worse offers. But try to place yourself in their situation. Many of them have a family to support, and the customers can be few and far apart. Several times i late in the aftenoon were flagged down by drivers not having got a single customer so far that day. No wounder a walking moneybag is a given target. No wounder that some try to take an extra loop trough the backstreets to get an extra thousandnote. The guy i was lucky enough to get was someting of his own. Originally i had reted him to the schoonerharbour only for 10 000 included the wait. Instead he suggested to the harbour pluss some other places. 10 000 included wait. Who can say no to sutch an offer? Of course he hoped to get a solid tipping out of it-witch he got, but still....Over the next days i actively sought for him when i needed local lift, knowing that everything would run smoothly. Not all of his collageues were too happy about just that. I understand the drivers situation, but they definitely could learn someting from his way of marketing.
My becackangel rapidly pedaled me to Pelabuhan Paotere, where the bugisschooners moores in Makassar. Here a dozen schooners were moored with their bows towards the quay. It is sunday and weekendsilence. The crews have their rest. On one boat they used the sail as a sunroof, under it they relax around a big bucket with juice and ice. The crew belong to the bugispeople, closely related to the makassarpeople witch put together is the largest ethnic group on Sulawesi with five millon members. They just arrived from Surabaya on Java and the crossing had taken them five days with an average speed of 6-7 kilometers an hour. The most heavilly trafficated routes in the bugisnetwork is between Sulawesi, Java and Kalimantan, some 800 vessels are involved with the timberfreight. Surabaya and Jakarta on Java, Kumai and Banjarmasin on Kalimantan and Makassar here on Sulawesi are their main ports, but they sometimes can be seen in virtually every harbour in the country. The original homeland of the bugispeople is this part of Sulawesi, but it is a people with a long tradition in longdistancevoyages. Earlier they were common guests in australian waters where they caught trepang-seaurchins-witch they later sold to the chineese. Bugispresence can still be traced in the aboriginal languages witch adopted words from the bugislanguage-especially words with maritime connection. Still some bugis take yearly ventures into australian waters. Some are caught by the coustguard, other fell victim to a typhoon. Not every vessel make it safely back. The bugis used to sail on the spiceisland-the Moluccas, now the Malukuprovince to where they brought iron, silk, china and islam. When the dutch took control, the bugis continued their trade on the Moluccas both with dutch blessing and behind their back-especially the latter. The unofficial trade far exeeded the official. The dutch started to issue merchantpermits, witch the bugis in their turn soon started to counterfeit in bundles despite the risk involved. Sutch things the dutch punished with death. The bugis philosophy was “we are occupied by them, but we don’t need to follow them when we can get away with it”. In the northern direction, bugis went to Malaysia, Kambodia and Vietnam. Some might even have made it all the way to the Persian gulf, an old drawing state “this is a bugis piratevessel in the Arabic gulf”.
In the years following the opening of the Suezcanal, the bugis experiences a big downfall. As the number of steamships increased in this part of the world, bugis had to settle with destinations with too litte revenuepotential to be concidered by the steamshipcompanies. But during the depression in the 1920 and 30’s they got a renaissance. In the 1950’s, the birthyears of the indonesian nation, the bugisvessels were the only boats able to sail without needing expensive spareparts from abroad. The natural consequence was a bugisboom with thousands of vessels and recordlarge cargovolumes, it lasted well into the 1970’s. For the boatbilders too this was good times, their orderingbooks were constantly filled.
Today these boats are an anacronism even in Indonesia. The majority of todays vessels are motorships more or less from our own time. The schoonerfleet has the honour of beeing refered to the last comercial fleet of sailing vessels. This is untrue and true at the same time. Today all the wessels have a motor installed, their sail now is a supplement only. The last of the big bugisvessels only using sail sunk off Java in the late 1980’s. And actually the title schooner is in itself misleading-almost everyone of todays bugisvessels only have one mast. But they usually have no compass. Bugis prefer to navigate by the stars-even in the 21st century. The steering still is done with sidemounted steeringoars of the same kind used on faraos nileboats or Thor Heyerdahls Tigris. These days the whole crew sleep inside the modernly added deckhouse in the stern, before they slept whereever the cargoload allowed them to-only the skipper had a designated room of his own. The anchor is still the good old one-16th, 17th, 18th century model reminding the vistor abut Bounty.

Todays bugissailers are mostly friendly. However, in the past they were the most feared pirates in the region. The word bogey actually was derived fom the word bugis sometime in the 19th century. In 1512, Tome Pires, a portugese missionary sitting in Melaka wrote about bugis: “They sail and plunder all of Javas islands, and they take the women with them out on the sea. They arange markets where they sell traders they have robbed as slaves”.
The bugispeople used to belong to several small independent states. Their history were a paralel to the european medeival history with scores of small states fighting eachother every second day in everchanging alliances. When the dutch stated to conquer the area, they got Bone, now a town, back then an independent state, as their allied when sieging Makassar. Bones motif was to take over the leading position Makassar-or Gowa as it was named-had. At that time, Gowa was the richest of all the bugisstates. Eventually Gowa fell, but later Bone too had to kneel for the dutch. The alliedstatus only saved them as long as the dutch needed them.

In Jalan (street) Sulawesi one get a glimpse of the chineese minority in Makassar. In a street mostly made up of colourless officebuildings, chineese temples are colourfull painted and ornated onestorey pecocks beating insence into the street. Mr Becack stop outside one of them. “Ju enter, aij whait for ju” he said. I went to the gate, paid a little donation to the doorkeeper abd entered. A female guard inside allowed a limited photoactivity. Inside the temple one meet a crossection of the chineese society in Makassar. A typicalfamilyfather, agrandma in a kimonolike dressing, a stylish young careerwoman dropping in on her way to the office.

Makassars Fort Rotterdam is one of the best preserved colonial buildings in Indonesia. It also is a rare relict from the precolonial era. The fortress is situated close to the beach, but where it once was palmtrees and a wounderfull beach, there is now a busy road lined with a promenadewalk. Its origin is Fort Ujung Pandang buildt in 1545 as one of 17 fortresses protecting the capital of the gowanese kingdom. When the dutch finally captured Gowan this was the only fortress still standing. The others were never rebuildt. After a rather forced upon peacetreaty, the dutch took over the fortress, rebuilding it into a modern fortification with thick stonewalls. Originally it was buildt in clay in the shape of a turtle with its protective shell-said to symbolise the seagoing Gowa with its protective fortresses.
In Gowanese times Makassar was one of the most important ports in the region. It was a transitpoint for all the merchandise important to Southeast Asia. Pottery, fabric, metalgoods, food and spice in particulary. There was pepper from Kalimantan, clove from Ternate, muscat from Banda. The town had a cosmopolitan character with malays, chineese, indians, bugis and other indonesian groups. Europeans were allowed to trade here as long as they accepted to work by the same rules as all the others did. The Portugeese and the brits enjoyed great success in Makassar, while the dutch acted so arrogant towards the local rulers that they flopped several times. When Melaka fell to the dutch, Makassar experienced a boom. All the portugese traders driven out of Melaka settled here instead, at the most, more than 500 had their business here. They enjoyed good protection and good facilities from the sultan witch spoke portugese fluently. The close bond between the sultan and the portugese came from their common struggle with breaking the dutch control over the Sunda islands and the Moluccas. The dutch, not surprisingly, saw Makassar as a threat, so together with their allied in Bone they launched a siege. The dutch themselves assigned 31 ships and 2600 men to the task. In 1669, after a yearlong siege, Makassar fell to the dutch. Noew things changed over night. Most of the europeans were thrown out-only the portugese managed to continue for years thanks to their support from the sultan. The remaining asians were banned from trading with comercials the dutch had economical interrests in. The local trade was put under strict restrictions.

In the gate one is registered and is asked to give a donation. It is a smart trick actually, visiting tourists often give more in donation than what is the normal ticketpricelevel in Indonesia. Behind the walls there are barracks, sorages and administrationbuildings. On the walls there still are some armed artillerypositions, for a while i stand behind the ancient blackpowderguns trying to bring life back to the dutch Makassar. I manage to block out the carnoise and the paved road. And get back the beach eparating the fortress from the ocean. Out on the sea there are larger bugisvessels and tiny fishingboats with a rectangula sail. Over in the harbour are ships on their way to and from the islands further to the east. Maybe even a ship comming all the way from Europe, unbelievable far away in those days. Sailing from Amsterdam to Makassar took at least six months. Forexample the VOC ship “Leeuwerik” used 71/2 months from Holland to Batavia-now Jakarta-one week from Makassar. It had a three week long break at “the Cape”-Capetown in South Africa as most ships had to do. Provisions had do be taken onboard. Fresh watr the same. Sick people needed treatment, some of them might even suffer from scurvy. “Pummerland” had an equal long journey in 1663. That ship actually met her faith here in Makassar. August 9 1668 she was peacefull resting in the harbour when her powdermagasine suddenly exploded. She had done her last mile. Livingcondition onboard the ships must have been miserable.Pummerland was a normalsized jakt-103 feet long, 23,5 feet wide and only 218 tons. Still her crew was??? Men. “Geit” was even smaller-87,5 feet long. The largest vessels in the VOC fleet was the socalled retourschip, some of them measuring over 1000 tons.They came in threee classes-130, 138 and 150 feet repectively and were relatively well armed. Actually they were counted as part of the regular dutch navy. The retourschip and some of the jakts had three masts and the ornated and windowequiped stern people associate with the tallshipera.

The dutch called the town Vlaardingen. The name only refered to the part of it planed by the dutch themselves, witch actually were only a few crossing streets next to the fortress. The rest of Makassar was divided into kampungs populated by different ethnic groups. They enjoyed authonomus status with their own administrative and economical institutions. The dutch had limited control in the kampungs, especially this applied to Kampung bugis. The bugis never buildt up the biggest of respect towards their dutch lords, they even had their own harbour and market. The largest ethnic group was the chineese, for a long time there was a “little China” flavour to the town. They controled a large part of the nondutch maritime trade, but the most interresting task in town fell on the leader of the malay kampung:he had to go in and save dutch who had landed in trouble in one of the kampungs-more ofte than not in kampung bugis.

17th and 18th century Makassar was important to the dutch. Still it was in the outskirt. Number of shipmovements illustrate that. In 1772 Makassar had 600, Semarang on Java had 1681. Batavia, the dutch capital in these waters must have had even more.
I many respects, VOC was given the authority and power of a separate state. The distance between the colonies and Amsterdam was astronomical, ruling it the normal way would be impossible. If the local governor in Makassar sendt a letter to the authorities in Holland, he could start waiting for an answer 12-15 months later.
Most of the dutch in Makassar were single males. Often they married local women who got a sudden advance on the social ladder ending up in the ruling class. The men often were busy with VOC business and had little time for familylife. Childraising mainly was a female task. The offspring often got an education mixing european and asian values, thus gradually over many years creating several mixed cultures in Makassar.

Inside the fortresswalls there is a pleasant park with shady trees, green lawns and benches to sit on. This is one of Makassars all too few green lungs and a poular place for young couples. In a coloumnated walkway outside the museum, indonesians gather every sundayafternoon to practice their english, and as a matter of course i was hedhunted. It is a mixed group of people, typical workers beside typical universitystudents. Loving couples. Sisters and brothers. The first i talked with, was a shy mother and a very talkative daughter. Next the student headhunting me, he spendt most of his time thanking me for joining in-few tourists ever bother he complained. Most of the time they have to practice with eachother. Again i wounder-why do tourists travel at all. I will recomend this sundayafternoonactivity to everybody. Great way to chat with locals!

The languagepracticing made me thirsty. Along the seaside promenade i find the perfect solution to my suffering-the coconutsellers. Number one demand 4000 a piece, biut increased it to 6000 as son as the nut was open. In indonsia 4 and 6 empat and enam, eachother if pronounced unclear-witch he did an tried to trick me with. He was left with the opened nut in one hand, the large knife in the other and no rupiahs at all. The next one offered his nuts for 3000-with no hidden extras. He became my official appointed coconutdealer the following days. How a coconut is enjoyed-first the seller remove the thick green outershell and then cut an opening in the innershell-the brown scale we see on the coconuts in the shops. A straw is inserted-an voila’drink the cool liquid in your own pace. After emtpying the nut, it is split open for you to enjoy the soft and moist coconutflesh stuck to the wall. Delicious!

Eveningtime is eatingtime in Malassar. Then what is commonly refered to as Indonesias longest eatingplace is opened. Along the seaside promenade, a kilometerlong row of warungs selling most of what Indonesia has on offer open. Seafood, the local speciality, is what i am after. Close to the fortress i find my little food Mecca, actually Mecca find me. I was reconnoitring the area while two twenty year old girls manning one of the warungs litterally arrested me. I had very little choice apart from sitting down and eat. They had little to do this evening, so i got all the attention i could ask for, one of the girls demanded me to call her Isteri dua-wife number two-from now on. Witch i did. Live music i got too-a coupleof musicians walked in the area looking for someone to entertain. Hopefully they took station beside my table playing country, latino and some Bob Marley. And they did it well. What else than giving them a good tipping could i do?

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