4 - Can We Reconstruct a “Malayo-Javanic” Law Area?

Summary

This chapter suggests the reconstruction of a hypothesized ethnolinguistic “Malayo-Javanic cultural and law area”, and pinpoints lines of evidence to delineate the boundaries of such an area. On the basis of secondary literature, and previous fieldwork on indigenous and traditional legal systems (adat, pikukuh karuhun, dresta) in Bali, Banten and Central Kalimantan, it uses historical anthropology and a triangulation of linguistic, archaeological and biological evidence (Sapir 1916) to reconstruct a “Malayo-Javanic law area”.

The chapter first outlines a polythetic approach to a Western Malayo- Polynesian (WMP) cultural complex. Second, it sketches my idea of a multi-layered model of the settlement process of Sunda and Sahul and the later Austronesian expansion, as well as a Western Malayo-Polynesian language node. It outlines the idea of a “Malayo-Javanic cultural area” and adat as a form of social control and of a “Malayo-Javanic law area”. It presents an integrated hypothesis on religion as the source of a possible scenario supporting the cultural advantage of the WMP. The model of adat is thus a contemporary trajectory of the “Western Malayo- Polynesian civilization”.

A Polythetic Approach to a Western Malayo-Polynesian Cultural Complex

The term Austronesian has supplanted an older adjective Malayo- Polynesian, to identify a language phylum spoken by handsome, brown-skinned people across a vast expanse of the Pacific, from Eastern Island to Indonesia, and westward to an outlier in Madagascar. Relatively small cultural differences are recognized by subdivision into areas called Polynesia, Micronesia, Indonesia, Melanesia and Madagascar […].

Doran Jr. (1981, pp. 8, emphasis in original)

Today, Austronesian studies is a well-established academic field. A variety of disciplines, such as archaeology, linguistics, genetics, anthropology, palaeobotany, ethnomusicology, art and zoogeography, contribute new perspectives to an enhanced understanding of the Austronesian languages speaking world. The Austronesian language phylum covers a vast geographical area halfway the globe from Madagascar in the west to the Eastern Island in the east, from Taiwan and Hawaii in the north and to New Zealand in the south. According to linguist Robert Blust (1977 in Adelaar 2005b, p. 9), nine of the ten primary subgroups of Austronesian languages are attested only on Taiwan.