Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast AsiaIn the Babad Lombok (late eighteenth century?) the Balinese warriors
are portrayed as frightening and formidable.^34
Some of the Balinese opportunities for expansion during the Gelgel
period can no doubt be attributed to the lack of strong major states in
the neighbourhood during long periods. The brief heyday of Demak on
Java came to an end in about 1546 and the traditional kingdoms in East
Java, Lombok and Sumbawa were small and hardly expansive. The situ-
ation changed some years into the seventeenth century. The agrarian-
based Mataram with its great population resources came to constitute
a real threat, as did the trade-oriented Makassar realm Gowa-Talloq.
Both had an Islamic profile and, in the case of Makassar, a proselytizing
agenda.^35 Bali lost temporary control of Lombok to Makassar after 1618,
although details about the military clashes are missing. A drawn-out war
with Mataram for the possession of Balambangan was fought between
1639 and 1647 and even included a few Javanese invasion attempts. The
Balinese were partly saved by the imperial overstretch of its enemies.
Javanese peasant conscripts were unsuited for extended campaigns and
the invasion force of 1646–47 simply melted away despite a few claimed
victories.^36 The kings of Gowa and Talloq had to attend a wide-stretching
system of dependencies from East Kalimantan to the northeastern coast
of Timor and may have had limited opportunity to seriously threaten
Bali.^37 The generally friendly relationship between Bali and the VOC
was probably of less consequence here. The vital role of the VOC came
somewhat later, when the Dutch and their allies inflicted several defeats
on their rivals in the archipelago, thereby easing the pressure on Bali.
- Lalu Gde Suparman (tr.), Babad Lombok ( Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan
Kebudayaan, 1994): 396–401. - Leupe, “Schriftelijck rapport gedaen door den predicant Justus Heurnius”, 438–39;
Wessels, “Een Portugeesche Missie-poging op Bali in 1635”, 438–39. - Hägerdal, “From Batuparang to Ayudhya; Bali and the Outside World, 1636–
1656”, 65–75; W. Ph. Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal
en Raden aan Heren XVII det Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, Vol. II:1639–1655
(The Hague: Nijhoff, 1964): 309–10. - For the extent of the Makassarese realm, see Andaya, The Heritage of Arung Palakka.
The expeditions and the imposition of loose suzerainty over certain places on
Timor are discussed in Hans Hägerdal, Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea: Conflict
and Adaptation in Early Colonial Timor, 1600–1800 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2012):
83–86, 165–66.