Conundrums about Panjandrums: On the Use of Titles in the Relations of Political Subordination in the Moluccas and along the Papuan Coast

Abstract

Anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with the ethnographic and historical literature on the Malay world will know of that frustratingly unhelpful term kaya. In the written form it is variously rendered orang kaja, orang kaja, orangquai, orangcaij, orangcay, orangkaij, or orang caija. A Malay word, usually translated literally as or influential person,3 it appears in the Portuguese sources and then fairly continuously in the Dutch and British archives and published literature. The problem is that throughout the historical and geographic range of its use the term is employed for figures in many apparently different fields, ranging through the nobility, rich merchants, elders, and appointed colonial officials. It is, therefore, not surprising that it has