This ISG will explore how South Sulawesi offers alternative perspective on Indonesian history through the development of Bugis and Makassar states and its literary traditions.
Event details
Time: 9:30-11:00am WIB // 12:30-2:00pm AEST
Join in-person: McDonald Room, Menzies Library, ANU
Join online: bit.ly/ISG_indonesiaproject
Abstract
South Sulawesi gets little attention in most general histories of Indonesia. The main thread is usually Java-centric, whether ‘Indianisation’, the VOC or even the Independence movement. But there are other stories and periodisations. South Sulawesi doesn’t quite fit the usual narrative and, until recently, this story wasn’t much known. Yet we can now see that South Sulawesi offers three significant contributions to the overall picture of the Indonesian past. None derive from Java. This talk is a brief exploration of these contributions.
The first is the development of Bugis and Makasar society from the fourteenth century, or even a little before, into the historic states which lasted into the early twentieth century. No other Austronesian-speaking society can match the span and systematic detail of this evolution. Secondly, there is the cultural phenomenon known as La Galigo. This is a cycle of linked stories, originally performed orally, but from at least the eighteenth century written down. These stories vividly portray an archetypal cultural world with literary power. Thirdly, there is the development, indeed the invention, of two scripts, especially the Bugis lontara’ script which can claim to be the world’s most efficient writing system.
Closed captioning will be available for all online Zoom presentations. If you are attending in person and require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP), please contact the ANU Indonesia Project at Indonesia.Project@anu.edu.au
Event Speakers
Campbell Macknight
Campbell Macknight is an honorary professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, and professor emeritus of the University of Tasmania. He has been interested in the past of South Sulawesi in Indonesia for more than 50 years and has published extensively on Bugis philology and the early history of the area.