Bengal | Southeast Asia | Moluccas
This text was originally written by the coordinator of the respective volume for the print edition as an introduction to the geographic area in question; the possibility of updating it was left to each author’s discretion. It should be interpreted together with the general introductory text from the respective volume.
As I announced in the opening text of this book, this subdivision is the one that has the least geographic cohesion or a specific content. It has, however, a reasonable processual and historical cohesion, which I will succinctly try to explain and discuss. The lesser content is not only due to the subjects being dispersed and having a lesser physical expression, but also due to the specific circumstances of its historical process. In short, one’s understanding depends on history. Which, at first sight, leaves us with a fortunately apparent paradox of a historical process that has gone its own way and has not been affected by various contingencies, namely those determined by its geographic situation, in which, in the eyes of westerners, contains some of the most exotic places on the planet.
But an exoticism that has not been sufficient to annul the negative effect that the dispersal of places and constructions and their lack of attractiveness have generated in experts in the history of architecture and urbanism. But there is another factor: the absence of a formal Portuguese domination almost everywhere, with the obvious exceptions of Malacca and Timor, leads us to a point where we must establish what is and what is not of Portuguese origin or influence. We must take into account that the Portuguese occupation of Malacca lasted only 130 years and Timor only encountered the western process of development after the Second World War, or more precisely, the war in the Pacific (1941-1945). In fact, we cannot even consider certain places marks of sovereignty where, particularly in the Malay Peninsula, the crown ordered the erection of fortresses to protect the seaborne trade, some of which have disappeared, mostly due to their poor construction rather than the ravages of time or man. This, once more, leads us to invoke the action of the Portuguese Padroado in the Orient and its existence well beyond the geographic and chronological limits of the presence of the crown. These are questions that have been dealt with in previous overviews, especially the opening one, so I will go ahead without further ado.
The role of adventurers, often escaped convicts or renegades, for whom the suggestive coeval name of “lançados” I am using, is much more relevant and fascinating. The immensity of the region of Bengal and the Far East was their favorite stage, which has been identified in numerous narratives of the time of which Fernão Mendes Pinto’s Peregrinação (Pilgrimage) is only the best know – but also research works of which I invoke here as an exemplary, those of Sanjay Subrahmanyan, referenced in the bibliography.
The prevarication was total: were they convinced converts or was it because of the convenience of local beliefs, the adoption of local customs, trade with the merchants of nations that were enemies or competitors, etc. Dispersion was their ally. And we cannot ignore the fact that there was also an informal frontier and smuggling to and from Spanish possessions. The resolution of the conflict concerning the sovereignty of the Moluccas with the Treaty of Saragossa in 1529 led to the Spanish occupation of the Philippines, which intensified from the 1560s onwards. This opened up the possibility of using a forbidden route, the Pacific crossing to America. As Subrahmanyam points out: “the famous trading triangle of Manila – Macau – Nagasaki competed in importance with the traditional trade route between Southern China and Malacca. Macau and Nagasaki were the only Portuguese ports on the Pacific seaboard and are dealt with in the following subdivision of this book.
The “lançados” travelled far beyond all imaginable frontiers, sailing dozens of kilometers up rivers, at times dragging the Padroado missions and the crown in their wake. The latter had little success, as this was not convenient for the adventurers, even attracting abuses and atrocities by governors, particularly those of Malacca. It was a phenomenon that began in the early days and had its moments. But it acquired a certain expression with the governorship of Lopo Soares de Albergaria (gov. 1515-1518), which was soon dubbed as the period of “great release”, which is evident in the order he gave to grant “freedom to anyone who wanted to sail and trade wherever they wished”. This gave private interests a way to determinate the policies of the state. The later, and greater, centralization merely led to an even greater autonomy for these people who, however, never ceased to be agents of the Portuguese presence in Asia from a cultural point of view. The fact that the arms of Portugal are to be found alongside a Portuguese inscription with the date – 1906 – of the last remodeling on the frontispiece of a peculiar church in the village of Panjora, fifty kilometers from Dhaka, in Bangladesh, cannot be considered to be contradictory.
Shortly after arriving in the Indian Ocean the Portuguese set out to explore the sea to the east of Cape Comorin. The main aim of the exploration was to reach the trading destinations of China and Japan and the spices of the Moluccas, which quickly led to the decision to conquer Malacca, the port that controlled the strait of the same name, which was achieved in 1511. Although not obligatory, this is still the most convenient route, due to the winds and distance, to sail between the seas of the Far East and the Bay of Bengal, which, in turn, must be crossed to sail between the west and the east. Other destinations were considered, of course, and it is certain that the number of places visited or inhabited by the Portuguese or the agents of the Padroado is far greater than those that have deserved an entry in this book. It must be noted that Tomé Pires compiled his Suma Oriental, a mine of information on the area between the Red Sea and China, around 1515, the same year that the first Portuguese ship reached Timor.
Touching once more on the problem of limits, we must make it clear that if there is a subdivision in this book where the uncertainty about the cases considered and the eventual existence of others is assumed as evident, it is this one. But the criteria adopted are also more demanding than for the other subdivisions, which, among other reasons, is justified by the desire to see the range of the Portuguese presence in Asia fully represented.
Malacca and Timor are the places that gave rise to more entries, especially the latter. They are, however, very diverse in content and in the knowledge available. There are some specialized works on Malacca, namely those of the author of the respective entries of this book. The same cannot be said regarding Timor, not only because of the lesser importance and antiquity of what has survived because of the enormous difficulties created by the upheavals following its declaration of independence in 1975. It is a territory (and a heritage) that has been torn apart by extreme violence during the course of two invasions: first by Japan during the Pacific War and the second by Indonesia following its independence. Timor was first sought by private merchants in search of its precious sandalwood, not for any particularly colonizing mission, which explains the absence of relevant material vestiges from that time, besides the archaeological evidence of Lifau, the first locality of Portuguese governance, which was transferred to Dili in 1769.
In the face of all this, it was extremely difficult to find someone who was keen enough to try and overcome the lack of studies, data, sources and archives relative to Timor’s heritage. But we succeeded and we can now count on a series of texts that will probably encourage someone to find more and bring them up to date. This was also one of the initial aims of this work. The survey Reconhecimento Preliminar do Património Historico–Cultural Subsistente em Timor Leste (Preliminary Survey of the Historico- Cultural Heritage Subsistent in East Timor) carried out by Luís Filipe Thomaz was fundamental in all this, as was his active support, which we recognize here. But not enough information was obtained to justify making an entry for the following buildings: the Venilale and Ossu markets, the Liquiçá administrative buildings and hospital (probably constructed in the 1930s) and the Oscar Ruas College in Ossu. The military buildings scattered over the territory – “tranqueiras” (stockades) – about which little more than a reference and a few illustrations appear here, deserve a special mention. We lay down a challenge for research on the subject.
As far as other places of this vast area are concerned – as we have seen, none of them coming under the protection of the crown – it was not always possible to find someone that at the same time had visited the places and also had any specialized knowledge of the subject in question. I decided, however, to include entries on these items that, besides falling within the ambit of the different concepts discussed here regarding heritage of Portuguese origin or influence, had been recently mentioned regarding the existence of at least some vestiges. In some cases this obliged us to seek out someone who had a research or study paper on the subject available and was possibly able to provide us with a synthesis. This situation was particularly frequent in Bengal, especially in places that are today part of Bangladesh or fall under the influence of the great metropolis of Kolkata [Calcutta].
We probably have a deeper knowledge of the cases of the Moluccas (Indonesia), mainly due to the researcher that wrote the respective entries. Material vestiges are very tenuous and the work necessary to confirm and reconstitute the material still has to be done on some of the items. We must point out, however, the extraordinary amount of immaterial heritage of Portuguese origin that can still be found in Indonesia, including in the capital Jakarta. The same thing can be found in Burma (today Myanmar, formerly Pegu, Arracan and a part of Siam), a region where Portuguese adventurers may have reached their highest point. They not only erected a fortress in Sirian, but their leader, Filipe de Brito de Nicote, obtained the friendship and favor of the Burmese king to the point where he became a local sovereign and sometimes named as king in Burmese chronicles.
Material vestiges of the Portuguese presence in Siam, today known as Thailand, have also been the object of specialized studies. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has funded the studies and improvements of the archaeological site containing the vestiges of the former Portuguese quarter and trading post, Bang Portuguet, at Ayutthaya (the capital until its destruction in 1767) and at Fort Pomphet, the Portuguese origin of which is uncertain. Besides this, there are signs that may lead to the identification of the former Jesuit church and, in Bangkok, the Church of the Holy Cross, commissioned by a Portuguese priest but designed by an Italian architect. Also in the capital, the Portuguese embassy is housed in the building that was constructed as a trading post in successive stages from 1820, including a project for its complete remodeling in 1886, everything done by local labor supervised by Portuguese personnel from Macau, which is evident in the architecture of the building.
A note on the bibliography. Like the geographic space, publications on this region are extremely specialized and dispersed, as can be seen in the rich specific bibliography of some of the entries. Because of this, I decided to mention only the works that more directly helped me to write this text, to which we must add those listed in the bibliography of the initial text, especially those of Pedro Dias, História dos Potugueses no Extremo Oriente (History of the Portuguese in the Far East) and Décadas da Ásia (Volumes on Asia) by João de Barros, Diogo do Couto and António Bocarro. And it is this last-mentioned, with its copious report that was produced with illustrations by Pedro Barreto Resende in 1635 that I close this text with an excerpt taken from between the descriptions of Mylapore and Malacca.
“… leave and pass by the great bay of Bengal and the River Ganges that flows into the sea through many wide mouths and which has been the theatre of the great power that the Portuguese had there, some of humble birth coming to possess enormous tracts of land that could equal great kingdoms. There were populous cities with sumptuous churches, but everything came to a bad end due to the poor government of the Portuguese who, with their vices and other bad habits, aroused the ire and envy of the Gentile and Moorish kings, who tried to eliminate them, which they did as they had no armed fortresses nor the power of His Majesty who could govern, help and defend them. The Dutch are everywhere along the coast, particularly in the kingdom of Arrakan and in Pegu. They are welcome and favored because they show humility (in contrast to the insolent manner of the Portuguese everywhere) and by their mastery of the sea, controlled by their ships, which they could never do against ours”.
Walter Rossa
Architecture in Timor
East Timor lies in a region of ancestral maritime routes. Hindu culture has made deep inroads in the area, especially in the rice-based economic system. Islamism, Buddhism and, finally, Catholicism have all spread over the islands. The formation of states probably started in the 15th century due to seaborne trade. Timor, as we know it today, is a diffuse reality in the face of its old multicultural origins that were rooted in small autonomous kingdoms.
Timor was a distant land for the Portuguese in the 16th century and the type of relations they established reflected this. The territory was mainly an extension of Solor, which lay in the bishopric of Malacca's sphere of influence. The Portuguese set up their first settlement with houses, church and seminary, on Ilha Maior, Solor's largest island. They then made for the island of Timor, attracted by the abundance of sandalwood. Nothing remains of their precarious constructions.
Significant changes took place in trade and, consequently, the strongholds, on the arrival of the Dutch, British and Spanish. The Portuguese immediately lost their monopoly and influence. The fortress of Solor was alternately taken and lost by the Portuguese and the Dutch. The Portuguese were also driven from their first settlement at Capan, a bay in the extreme west of the island, by the Dutch. They then regrouped at Oecussi in the east, a small kingdom that had resisted Dutch Calvinism. The island was now divided into two confederations, the Belos in the east protected by the Portuguese and Baykeno, who supported the Dutch and isolated the former. Under these circumstances, the Portuguese decided to abandon Lifau, the nucleus they had founded in Oecussi and settled in Dili.
The older Portuguese architectural structures are rare and widely scattered across the territory. Some of them will only be able to be confirmed with archaeological work, while others, due to abandonment and/or transformation, need to be closely studied and backed up by architectural and documentary surveys. We refer, above all, to structures prior to the 19th century, the materials, technologies and projects of which are closely linked to traditional Portuguese engineering and architecture.
It was a land of kingdoms and local aristocracies, always recognised by the Portuguese, which remained practically intact until the independence of the territory in 1975. As a result, its architecture was always associated to large cultural units, emphasis being laid on the different languages, the foremost being Tetum, which had always been the language of peoples known as Belos. The social strata of the small kingdoms subdivided into sucos (communities) constituted the organisation of the villages, which were founded according to autochthonous religious rituals that were extremely influential in the construction and features of the traditional houses.
This past of great anthropological wealth has come down to us today, although it is showing signs of weakening due to the cracks gradually appearing in the long chain of rituals and practices associated to materiality and dependent on continuing artesanal craftsmanship. The central house of the village is the sacred link to the communities' identity and structure, conferred on it by its tapering roof, seen as a link to the heavens in a natural axis mundi symbology. The traditional houses are replete with symbolism, through both the engravings in the wood and the selection and layout of objects considered sacred, the heirlooms of ancestors or other favourites that together seek to welcome a beneficient soul into the house. These are the sacred houses known as luliks.
The traditional villages of today find themselves in a time of profound socio-cultural changes, despite the fact that their houses seemingly remain stable. The time of ancestral culture is coming under pressure from the change of a civilising paradigm with the emergence of a new but still diffuse and unstable reality that also affects the heritage of Portuguese origin, which in most cases is perfectly integrated in the territory.
As we have already mentioned, there are no remains of large Portuguese structures. We have, however, recorded what does remain. Special emphasis must be placed on the provincial governors' residences, which were probably built on the sites of lookouts on the coast and in the mountains in the interior, overlooking the large rivers and places of indisputably strategic importance dominating the country and villages. Mention must be made of the Lautem house- tower, built on a walled complex divided into two parts that have natural elevations through the construction of walls and small columns in the fashion of medieval Europe. A road that is protected by walls for some dozens of metres outside runs through the middle. The square house-tower is still a solid structure, although roofless, with a late medieval tower that was probably (re)constructed in the 19th century.
Only the immense platform with a wall and a central staircase remains of the House of the Administrator of Vermasse, built on a spur overlooking the immense estuary of the river of the same name. The place dominated a vast region and the local crossing point of the river. The House of the Governor of Matisse, today a small, provisional state inn is also a dominant building of this typology. The present-day constructions are from the middle of the 20th century and were probably erected on the foundations of former lookouts. Although they should be taken into account in the overall appreciation, we have no need to refer to some buildings in Dili as there are notes on them at the end of specific entries. The influence of Macau, together with the colonial administrative relationship, cemented strong trading ties with Timor, but it was never felt in the architecture. But it is curious to see some influence of Goan architecture, such that in the single-storey manorial house on Avenida Nicolau Lobato, The oldest Christian temples are those of the 19th century, some of them probably imitating former constructions. Most of them, however, underwent modernising work that destroyed their typological identity and architectonic expression, but the churches of Manatuto, Laleia, Vermasse and the impressive church of Bairro do Farol in Dili have maintained their originality. In general buildings of a public character, that are pivotal, have their own identity or follow the Portuguese style have a very discreet presence, probably because they were built later. They express a certain hybridism reminiscent of colonial bungalows, like the former Governmental Palace in Dili and the houses with a front porch and bereft of formalism and decoration. These buildings are rather scattered and this influences the formation of privileged public spaces such as squares or even the establishment of a declared urban hierarchy with a central point. As a direct result of this we have generic agglomerations made up of areas of unbalanced growth that are rarely interconnected by road axes.
It was only from the middle of the 20th century that any significant effort was made to endow Timor with new infrastructure that covered areas such as health, schools and administrative and military organisation. It was then that several large and medium size buildings sprang up, outstanding being the Dr Francisco Machado High School in Dili, markets, social housing estates and churches, which finally formed an overall architectonic identity and uniformity. Most of the buildings are dilapidated and in need of renewal work and adaptation in the face of present-day needs. Some will always contribute to strengthening to the identity of certain places, as is the case of the market, the swimming pools, the former post office, the Salesiana Catholic school and the state inn of Baucau; the market, the abattoir, the lighthouse, the high school and the Administrative Offices in Dili; plus the Farol, Quintal Bot and Mandarim housing estates (the last-named being the former quarter of Portuguese officials), all in Dili. The hospital of Liquiçá, the Reino de Venilale school, the houses of Ermera and the Aileu administrative building are other small and medium-size buildings that are part of the socio-cultural memory of these places.