J. A. M. Bruineman was a Dutch scholar of Chinese influence on the Indonesian archipelago who, in 1946, contributed the chapter De invloed der Chineezen (“The Influence of the Chinese”) to the volume Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk edited by Dr. Wormser. His chapter appears in the volume between Dr. Van Naerssen’s opening chapter on the oldest cultural streams and Prof. Dr. Kernkamp’s chapter on the influence of Islam.
Role in the volume
Bruineman’s chapter surveys the long history of Chinese commercial, religious and cultural influence on the archipelago — from the early Chinese ceramic finds to the late-imperial Chinese merchant communities of Batavia and the Deli tobacco belt. For the Atjeh-focused reader, the chapter’s significance is chiefly comparative: it places the Chinese influence on the archipelago alongside the Hindu and Islamic influences treated in the adjacent chapters, and supplies the wider East-Asian frame against which the Indian-Ocean-facing Islamisation of the north Sumatran coast (see Goedjarat, Cambay) is to be read.
The volume’s table of contents lists Bruineman’s chapter as occupying pages 56–, immediately preceding the section on De christelijke godsdienst. The brief listing of contributors on the volume’s title page names “J. A. M. Bruineman” as one of the fourteen medewerkers (collaborators) of the volume.
Significance
For the Atjeh-focused reader, Bruineman’s significance is indirect: his chapter’s principal contribution to the Atjeh story is the framing of the Chinese-Indonesian commercial network that, alongside the Indian-Ocean network of the Gujerati and Arab Muslim merchants, supplied the long-distance trade of the archipelago in which Atjeh participated from at least the thirteenth century onwards. The 1415 Chinese reports cited by Van Naerssen (see 1415) — confirming Islam across the whole north coast of Sumatra — are part of the same documentary tradition that Bruineman’s chapter surveys.
Dutch terms used in this article
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
- Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
- invloed der Chineezen — influence of the Chinese
- Inhoud — Table of Contents
- medewerkers — collaborators
- pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Acheh — Aceh
- Deli — Deli
- Sumatra — Sumatra
- Batavia — Batavia
- Goedjarat — Gujarat
- Cambay — Khambhat
- zen — Zen
- Prof. Dr. — Professor Doctor
- Dr. — Doctor
See Also
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- C. W. Wormser
- F. H. van Naerssen
- W. J. A. Kernkamp
- Goedjarat
- Cambay
- Acheh
- 1415
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), title page and Inhoud (chapter De invloed der Chineezen door J. A. M. Bruineman).