Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast AsiaAdonara and the eastern part of Flores, five maritime-oriented political
units, in fact chiefdoms although often labeled as “principalities” under
so-called sengaj – another title borrowed from Java – embraced Islam and
formed a federation. In Timor Island, the hamlets and villages often com-
bined to chiefdoms, rajaships or “principalities”. The number of them is
hard to know. They were constantly engaged in inter-village warfare, in
which headhunting practices played an important role. Above the aver-
age chiefdom, there seems to have been a level of three symbolic ritual
leaders, namely the ones of Wehali, Sonbai and Likusaen, having some
sort of a political significance. In the seventeenth century, the Europeans
frequenting Timor labeled the ruler of Sonba’i an “emperor”, an over-
lord of “kings”. The political entities in the region, even that of Solor,
were not capable of mobilizing substantial “sea power”. Nevertheless,
every adult villager was in principle a warrior. It was reported that such
warriors used to carry bows, shields and swords, while in Solor some
of them, and in Timor a few, possessed muskets. Artillery was absent
among the Timorese. Unsurprisingly, warfare was usually a matter of
small raiding bands. Yet, in the case of greater coalitions in some parts
of the island, a theoretical number of eight to ten thousand able-bodied
men were mentioned to be available for recruitment by the end of the
seventeenth century. However, in practice, an “army” counted a smaller
number of combatants, namely 700 to 800 men in the case of an attack-
ing expeditionary force and two thousand or more in case of the defence
of a place nearby home. No permanent fortifications seem to have been
in Timor. Once on campaign, the temporary defensive works were at
best stockades or constructions made up of stones, bamboo and hedges,
usually in sloping terrain.^15
ConclusionThe information provided in this chapter raises the following consid-
erations. First, let us turn to the sea. Despite this being an island world,
capability in projecting naval warfare generally was limited. In Formosa
- H. G. Schulte Nordholt, The Political System of the Atoni of Timor (The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1971): 161–62, 327–28, 345–48; J. J. Fox, Harvest of the Palm: Ecological
Change in Eastern Indonesia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1977): 82; De
Roever, De jacht op sandelhout, 75–80, 84–86, 95, 209, 260, 267; Hägerdal, Lords
of the Land, Lords of the Sea,: 22, 37, 52–55, 61–64, 68–69, 108, 113, 117, 122,
209–16.