亦兵亦盗:历史上廖内群岛的海人

Pirates or Navy? The Orang Laut in Ancient Riau Archipelago

海人是一支长期生活在海上的民族,主要分布在今天西马来西亚南部、新加坡和印度尼西亚的廖内群岛。由于海人的划桨技术一流,熟知马六甲海峡的地理环境,有时成为马来王国海军的中坚力量,有时则成为海盗。海人在马来群岛的历史上,先后协助了室利佛逝王国、马六甲王国和柔佛王国三个马来政权。三个马来王国在海人的辅助下,依靠海上贸易成为马来群岛的强国。1699年的弑君事件后,海人在柔佛王国的地位开始衰弱,游离在政权以外从事海盗活动。19世纪以后,随着欧洲殖民者在东南亚的扩张和打击海盗政策,以及航海技术的进步,海人再也无法在马来政治中发挥重要作用。

The Orang Laut, also known as “Sea Peoples”, are an indigenous group of people who live and travel in their boats on the sea in today ’ s Singapore, Southern Peninsular Malaysia, and the Riau Archipelago of Indonesia. Having superb boat technique and good geographical knowledge of Malacca, they had served as a maritime force of the Malay kingdom but they were pirates, too. In historical time, they had served the Malay rulers of Srivijaya, Malacca Sultanate and Johor Sultanate. With the support of the Orang Laut, these Malay regimes relied on maritime trade to establish their rule. After the assassination of Sultan Mahmud Ⅱ in 1699, the role of Orang Laut in the Johor Sultanate weakened, and so they engaged in piracy again. With the colonial expansion of European powers in Southeast Asia and their suppression of piracy as well as the development of navigation technologies in the 19 th century, the Orang Laut could no longer play a role in the Malay politics.