Padangsche Bovenlanden — the “Padang Highlands” or “Uplands of Padang” — was, in the Dutch colonial administrative geography of Sumatra, the highland residency immediately east of the coastal residency of Padang on the west coast of Sumatra, and the heartland of the Menangkabau people. The region appears in Prof. T. J. Bezemer’s 1933 plate-atlas *Indonesische Kunstnijverheid* as the principal Sumatran centre of filigree work and of brass-casting, contrasted with Atjeh as a regional Sumatran metalwork centre, and documented across a long run of plates in the atlas’s brasswork (§ F) and gold-and-silverwork (§ H) chapters. The region is, in this sense, the principal Sumatran metalwork foil against which the Atjeh *soeasa* wrapping technique is defined in the late colonial Dutch scholarship.
Geography and people
The Padangsche Bovenlanden occupy the volcanic highlands of west-central Sumatra, east of the coastal residency of Padang and south of the Tapanoeli residency. The principal towns of the region — Fort de Kock (modern Bukittinggi), Padang Panjang, Payakumbuh, and Solok — lie along the line of volcanoes that forms the backbone of the Sumatran highlands. The region is the heartland of the Menangkabau people, the major Sumatran ethnic group, whose matrilineal social organisation and Islamic religious practice distinguished them from both the Batak peoples to the north and the Atjehnese to the north-west. The Minangkabau were, in the late colonial period, the most commercially and intellectually active of the Sumatran peoples; the Padangsche Bovenlanden were accordingly one of the most economically developed and intellectually dynamic regions of Sumatra.
Padangsche Bovenlanden in the Bezemer atlas
The Padangsche Bovenlanden are, in the Bezemer atlas, the most heavily documented Sumatran centre of metalwork — far more heavily documented than Atjeh. The region’s metalwork is illustrated across at least fifteen plates of the atlas, including:
- Brasswork (§ F): brass bowls (kommen) of plate 151 (p. 114); decorated brass bowls of plate 152 (p. 115); ornaments on bowls of plate 153 (p. 116); brass bowl of plate 154 and bronze bowl of plate 155 (p. 116); brass water-pitchers (gēndi’s) of plates 156/157 (p. 117); bronze bowl of plate 158 and brass kettle of plate 159 (p. 117); brass boxes for sirih of plate 160 (p. 118); lid of a brass betel-box of plate 161 (p. 119); brass model of a house of plate 162 (p. 119); brass model of a Minangkabau house of plate 163 (p. 120); brass bowl on foot of plate 164 and bronze bowl of plate 166 (p. 121); brass chalk-box of plate 167 (p. 121).
- Gold- and silverwork (§ H): lids of silver boxes of plate 182a; silver boxes for tobacco and chalk of plates 182b, 182c-e, 182f (pp. 129–131); silver belt-buckle of plate 183 (p. 131).
The run of Padangsche Bovenlanden metalwork plates in the Bezemer atlas is the longest of any Sumatran centre in the atlas — far longer than the run of Atjeh plates, which consists only of the loom of plate 62, the silk ikat of plate 65, the silk ikat of plate 66, the sirih-bowl and tray of plate 172, and the standing brass lamps of plate 174 (which are regional rather than specifically Atjeh). The disparity reflects the relative prominence of the Padangsche Bovenlanden as a Sumatran metalwork centre in the late colonial Dutch collections: the Koloniaal Instituut and the Rijks Ethnographisch Museum held far more Padang metalwork than Atjeh metalwork, and the Bezemer atlas’s coverage reflects that imbalance.
The filigree centre
The Padangsche Bovenlanden are, in the Bezemer atlas’s § H (p. 13), the principal Sumatran centre of filigree work — “Een geliefkoosd procédé voor zilverwerk is het filigraanwerk, waarvoor in het bijzonder de Padangsche Bovenlanden bekend zijn” — “A favourite process for silverwork is the filigree work, for which the Padangsche Bovenlanden are particularly known.” The Padang filigree tradition is the Sumatran alternative to the Atjeh *soeasa* wrapping technique: where the Atjeh smiths hammered soeasa sheet around a copper core, the Padang smiths drew fine silver wire and bent it into figured patterns. The juxtaposition of the two techniques in the same section of the Bezemer atlas’s Inleiding is, in this sense, a comparative juxtaposition of two regional Sumatran metalwork traditions, within which the Atjeh technique is defined as the regional variant.
The Padang filigree is documented in the Bezemer atlas principally by the silver boxes for tobacco and chalk of plates 182a–f and the silver belt-buckle of plate 183 — objects that are the characteristic products of the Padang silversmiths. The same objects are also documented in the later Wagner 1949 manual, which likewise treats the Padangsche Bovenlanden as the principal Sumatran centre of filigree.
Colonial administrative position
In the Dutch colonial administrative geography of 1933, the Padangsche Bovenlanden were a Residentie (Residency) of the Gouvernement van Sumatra’s Westkust (Government of Sumatra’s West Coast), alongside the residencies of Padang, Tapanoeli, Bengkulen, and the Lampongse Districten. The Residency was administered from Fort de Kock, and was one of the principal Dutch colonial administrative regions of Sumatra. The Padangsche Bovenlanden were therefore both an administrative region and a cultural-economic region — a fact that is reflected in the Bezemer atlas’s use of the residency name as the regional designation for the metalwork documented in its plates.
The Padangsche Bovenlanden were, in the late colonial period, closely connected to the Atjehnese region by trade and by pilgrimage: the west-Sumatran trade route ran from the Padangsche Bovenlanden northward through Tapanoeli to the east coast, and from there by sea to Atjeh. The metalwork techniques of the two regions — Padang filigree and Atjeh soeasa wrapping — are, in this sense, the craft expressions of two neighbouring Sumatran regions, each with its own regional variant of the broader Indonesian precious-metalwork tradition.
Significance for Atjeh
For Atjeh’s history, the Padangsche Bovenlanden are significant principally as the Sumatran metalwork centre against which Atjeh metalwork is defined in the late colonial Dutch scholarship. The Padang filigree tradition is the technical foil against which the Atjeh soeasa wrapping technique is defined; the long run of Padang metalwork plates in the Bezemer atlas is the comparative context within which the four Atjeh plates (62, 65, 66, 172) are placed; and the Padangsche Bovenlanden’s prominence as a Sumatran metalwork centre is the regional context within which Atjeh’s more modest metalwork documentation must be understood. The region is, in this sense, the principal Sumatran craft-geographical reference point for the Atjeh metalwork tradition.
See Also
- Filigraanwerk (Padangsche Bovenlanden)
- Atjeh goldsmithing (soeasa technique)
- Spinsbek
- Cire perdue
- Granuleeren
- Indonesische Kunstnijverheid (Bezemer 1933)
- T. J. Bezemer
- Padang
- Tapanoeli
- Sumatra
- Minangkabau
- Acheh
Source
Indonesische Kunstnijverheid. Platen-Atlas met Inleiding van Prof. T. J. Bezemer (‘s-Gravenhage: N.V. tot Exploitatie van het Maandblad “Nederl-Indië, Oud en Nieuw”; ten Hagen’s Drukkerij en Uitgeversmaatschappij N.V., 15 October 1933), p. 13 (on the Padangsche Bovenlanden filigree) and plates 151–167, 182a–183 (documenting the Padangsche Bovenlanden metalwork). Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, LS 5411.