Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast Asiamarksmen, the lances, shields and blowpipes occur in descriptions more
than two centuries after the first contact.^7 It goes without saying that
Bali was not detached from culture and politics in the Insulindian world
in the intervening centuries. On the contrary, as will soon be evident,
Balinese troops were well known outside their inaccessible island. The
conservative features of Balinese military equipment rather demonstrate
that wars were sometimes won by other means than technological excel-
lence, since Balinese troops were involved in a great deal of overseas
expansion over the centuries. Of course, this point should not be taken
too far: by the nineteenth century, the elite imported modern firearms
via European merchants and carried the day against well-armed Dutch
troops at Jagaraga in 1848 and at the first Lombok invasion in 1894.^8
Then, is there anything intrinsically “Balinese” about Balinese
warfare? In a wider Southeast Asian perspective this can be doubted.
Blowpipes, lances, leather shields and daggers are traditional standard
weapons, although blowpipes may have fallen out of use on Java by the
late 1500s.^9 Although elite detachments are sometimes mentioned, Bali
conformed to a common pattern: anyone who could carry arms was a po-
tential soldier. Naturally, this limited the tactics that could be employed.
The European as well as Balinese sources speak of violent frontal attacks
of the amuk type against the enemy, for example the successful exploits
of the ex-slave Surapati against the Dutch on Java in 1686; this offensive
onslaught was known also among Makassarese, Madurese and others.^10
But there are also descriptions of defensive positions behind fortifica-
tions, such in Sokong 1701 and Jagaraga 1848, and cunning assaults and
surprise attacks, such as Palaba 1700 and Cakranagara 1894.^11 While
these tactics were less tinged with heroic ethics, they suited the practi-
cal concerns of small-scale societies: it was more essential to minimize
losses than to display feats of heroism. Nineteenth-century data points
- Hans Hägerdal, “War and Culture: Balinese and Sasak Views on Warfare in
Traditional Historiography”, South East Asia Research 12.1 (2004): 81–118. - Van der Kraan, Bali at War, 6.
- Charney, Southeast Asian Warfare, 36–37.
- H. J. de Graff, De moord op kapitein Francois Tack, 8 Feb. 1686 (Amsterdam: Paris,
1935); Charney, Southeast Asian Warfare, 12–13. - Hägerdal, Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects, 1–3; 82–3; van der Kraan, Bali at War;
Wim van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt: De geschiedenis van Nederland overzee,
vanaf 1800 (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2011): 121.