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Indonesia Acehnese
Situated in the Special Region of Aceh the northernmost
provincial-level unit of Sumatra, the more than 3.4
million
Acehnese are most famous throughout the archipelago for
their
devotion to Islam and their militant resistance to
colonial and
republican rule. Renowned throughout the nineteenth
century for
their pepper plantations, most Acehnese were rice growers
in the
coastal regions in the early 1990s.
Acehnese do not have large descent groups; the nuclear
family
consisting of mother, father, and children is the central
social
unit. Unlike the Javanese or Balinese family, the Acehnese
family
system shows marked separation of men's and women's
spheres of
activity. Traditionally, males are directed outwardly
towards the
world of trade. In the practice of merantau--going
abroad or
away from one's birthplace--young adult males leave their
homelands
for a time to seek their fortune, experience, and
reputation
through commerce. This may involve travel to another
village,
province, or island. This maturation process among males
is viewed
as growing out of the domestic female-dominated world of
sensory
indulgence and into the male world of reasoned
rationality, whose
practice is expressed through trade. One model of Acehnese
family
life is that a woman sends a man out of the house to trade
and
welcomes him back when he brings home money. When he has
exhausted
his money, she sends him out again. Meanwhile, women and
their kin
are responsible for working the fields and keeping the
gardens and
rice fields productive.
This oscillating pattern of migration encountered some
difficulties in the 1980s as increasing numbers of men
failed to
return to the Acehnese homeland, but instead remained and
married
in remote locations, such as Jakarta and Kalimantan. In
addition,
northern Sumatra experienced important changes because of
the
influx of temporary workers seeking employment in the oil
and
timber industries
(see Industry
, ch. 3).
Data as of November 1992
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