Expansion and Internalization of Modes of Warfare in Pre-colonial Baliof state formation. Kingdoms were built up and sometimes destroyed
in short time, demanding an active and movable leader. This type of
kingship found an outlet for external aggression outside Bali for more
than a century after 1651; indeed it seems likely that it was fuelled by
the possibilities of expansion beyond the shores of Bali. However, these
possibilities ceased or were increasingly complicated after the 1760s
without replacing the ideology underpinning belligerent kingship. It
therefore seems that the multi-state system in the late pre-colonial era
was not able to stabilize and find a balance on its own accord.
Moreover, economic factors may have increased the competitive
tendencies. The elite themselves readily acknowledged the predatory
aspects of war: it was a matter of attacking the weakest neighbours and
acquire as many prisoners as possible to be sold as slaves.^72 For a long
time, the slave trade was a major source of income for the various rajas,
but the Dutch authorities prohibited it in 1818, although in the event
the prohibition was grossly violated in the Indies for many years. This
may eventually have removed a rationale for raiding, and furthermore
coincided with agricultural expansion and new opportunities for trade.
However, according to Henk Schulte Nordholt,^73 this is precisely what
underpinned renewed attempts by the rajas to gain control over irriga-
tion works that in turn ushered in warfare.^74 To this should be added
the possibilities that offered themselves when firearms were acquired.
The rise of Singapore after 1819 had repercussions on Bali and Lombok
where in particular Bandung and Ampenan became entrepots that
received foreign goods, arms included. Later in the same century the
increasingly sophisticated weaponry was pointed out by the Dutch
medical doctor Julius Jacobs, who visited Bali and Lombok in 1881;
he asserted that the Balinese raja of Lombok had a large standing army,
uniformly clad and armed with Snider and Minié rifles, and that 1,000
Babad Buleleng) and Babad Mengwi (I Wajan Simpen, Babad Mengwi [Denpasar:
Balimas, 1958]). All three babad emphasize the supernatural qualities of the rajas.- Schulte Nordholt, The Spell of Power, 41.
- Ibid., 99.
- This is exceedingly difficult to prove since we simply do not know much of the
mindset of the regional elites, but the 1820s saw the temporary end of Mengwi,
and violent power struggles among the related elite in Buleleng and Karangasem.
Vickers, “The Desiring Prince”, 335–39; Schulte Nordholt, The Spell of Power, 108.