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The killing of Posthouder Scheerder and Jifar Folfolun (The War of the Breasts): Malukan and Dutch narratives of an incident in the VOC's waning days

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2019

A. Ross Gordon ,
Sonny A. Djonler  and
Hans Hägerdal
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Abstract

The Aru Islands in southeastern Maluku have a long history of economic exchange and colonial relations with the Dutch East India Company (VOC), and later the Dutch colonial state. Aru was fragmented in smaller autonomous settlements, of which those in the east produced valuable items for export, such as pearls and tripang (edible sea cucumber). The article focuses on a spate of anti-colonial revolts in the waning days of the VOC in the 1790s. It centred on the Batuley villages situated on a few small islands on the eastern side. The central incident leading to the resistance was the killing of a Dutch low-ranking officer, Scheerder, an event which has been preserved in local tradition till the present day. A search in the VOC archives confirms several details, but suggests a rationale for the resistance which is partly different from the traditional version, and linked in with larger movements of resistance in Aru and Maluku. The article discusses the significance of the oral traditions, and how a comparison with archival materials can enrich our understanding of Arunese–Dutch relations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 324 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2019 

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Footnotes

We sincerely thank the many Batuley people whose generosity of time, knowledge, and hospitality fill out the pages of this article. For financial support, we thank: The Aru Languages Project funded by Volkswagen Foundation DoBeS Grant no. 86 277, Research Results Media, the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) for Ross Gordon's 2015 research fellowship grant, and Linnaeus University Center for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies.

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