Abstract
This paper distinguishes two types of association between strangeness and power, both of which were salient in Sumatra and the western Archipelago more generally. In the port-states, power and trade were thoroughly integrated. Foreign traders who played a role in their politics might be called ‘stranger-orang kaya’, the orang kaya being the class of merchant-aristocrats who dominated the port-states of the region in the 16th to 18th centuries. In the stateless highlands, the power associated with distant kings was essentially religio-magical, in common with the role of symbolic kingship in these highlands. The outsiders who benefited from this effect might be called ‘magical mediators’. The highlanders frequently wanted to utilise the cosmic powers of such figures, but never to be effectively ruled by them. Europeans were frequently among those who became stranger-orang kaya, and in the 19th century also sometimes magical mediators. The paper examines several Sumatran cases of both, noting that the options for Europeans to play such roles narrowed as the colonial system hardened.
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