Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast Asiaaristocratic captives. Katiandaho succeeded in returning the couple
Nanding and Pahawuateng back to Sangir in 1766. Pahawuateng later
earned the Sangirese epithet “I tuang su Maguindanao” or the “chief in
Maguindanao.”^103 But there was a condition levied upon the young
Pahawuateng, material indebtedness payable through trade. Sultan
Pahar ud-Din Maguindanao gave Pahawuateng unspecified kind of
goods (probably including Indian textiles as well as opium) worth five
hundred rix-dollars to be exchanged for Sangirese produce. The sultan
was said to have uttered:
[B]ring these goods to Sangir and exchange them with shark’s fins,
trepang, bird’s nest and [coconut] oil. My grandson, ask permission
from the Company so you will be able to carry those goods [i.e., trepang,
etc. to Maguindanao]. Then I would return the nine canons which the
Malurang people brought from Siau as well as some subjects of Siau and
Manganitu raided by the Malurang.^104
The Maguindanao’s capture of the Sangirese nobles was therefore
only a prelude to the making of economic and political vassals. Salawo
and Pahawuateng represent two examples of how alliances between poli-
ties could be forged. While Salawo, a Maguindanao proxy chief, repre-
sented an attempt for peaceful alliance through marriage, Pahawuateng
represented the coercive impulse of Maguindanao to establish direct
influence over a weaker neighbor. In the latter case, Maguindanao
acted as a legitimizing power and merchant-lender in a manner not dis-
similar to that of the Company. Pahawuateng’s “debt” remained unpaid,
supposedly providing the Maguindanaos a reason to return to Sangir
through their annual expeditions.^105 Pahawuateng eventually married
his former fellow captive Nanding, the Princess of Siau, and remained
an active participant in the Company-led expeditions against the roam-
ing Maguindanao raiders. By rejecting Maguindanao’s intervention,
the most powerful Sangirese chiefdoms – Tabukan and Siau – in effect
affirmed their political and military alliance with the Company. But not
all Sangirese chiefs chose this path: at least one of them openly declared
support for the Maguindanaos.
- Hayase, Non and Ulaen (comp.), Silsilas/Tarsilas (Genealogies) and Historical
Narratives: 182. - NA, VOC 8143, Meeting of the Political Council, 9 October 1780, fol. 7.
- Ibid.