The Waqwaq Enigma: Tracing an Ancient Arab Legend to Batak Land?

A compelling yet controversial theory has emerged, suggesting a connection between the Pakpak people of Batak land and the enigmatic tale of the Waqwaq tribe, chronicled in the legends of ancient Arab seafarers. This legend speaks of a wondrous tree, described as so precious it surpassed any notion of a "money tree," even hyperbolically recounted as bearing human fruit.

Intriguingly, the narrative of humans sharing a profound bond with trees doesn't seem entirely foreign to the Pakpak community. Their traditions and beliefs might hold echoes of such ancient narratives. Furthermore, the Pakpak lands are renowned for their rich resources of frankincense and camphor trees, highly valuable commodities in bygone eras, adding an economic dimension to this potential link.

Linguistically, the word 'pakpak' in the Pakpak language itself carries the meaning of 'high' or 'tall'. This interpretation points towards the possibility that the naming of the tribe is deeply rooted in the geographical landscape they inhabit – the highlands or mountainous regions. Thus, the designation 'Pakpak people' could simply refer to the inhabitants of these elevated territories.

However, the exploration of the etymology of 'pakpak' doesn't end with geographical interpretations. A fascinating linguistic theory posits a connection between 'pakpak' and 'wakwak,' a term purportedly used by the inhabitants of the land of Abunawas (modern-day Iraq) in ancient times to refer to the region now known as Batak land.

Curiously, the trace of the name 'Pakpak' isn't confined to North Sumatra. We also find the name 'Fakfak' in Papua, a toponym exhibiting a striking phonetic similarity. Moreover, in the Philippines, history records a warrior named Datu Amai Pakpak or Datu Ama ni Pakpak who fiercely resisted Spanish colonization in the late 19th century.

In the annals of maritime history, particularly within Ibn Khurradadhbih's Kitab al-Masalik wa 'l-Mamalik (The Book of Roads and Kingdoms), a description of the vastness of the Indian Ocean is provided. He estimated the sea's expanse from Qulzum (the head of the Red Sea) to Waqwaq to be 4500 farsakhs.

Furthermore, he noted the distance from Qulzum to the port of Farama in the Mediterranean as 25 farsakhs. Based on meridian degree calculations, the 4500-farsakh distance to Waqwaq equated to 180 degrees, placing Waqwaq at the world's halfway point when measured from Qulzum.

Despite its fantastical descriptions and the far eastern location that casts doubt on its geographical reality, Ibn Khurradadhbih insisted that Waqwaq was a real place. He even mentioned it multiple times in his writings, describing "East China as the lands of Waqwaq, which are very rich in gold that the inhabitants use to make necklaces and chains for their dogs and monkeys. They also make woven robes of gold, and excellent ebony wood is found there in abundance." He further added that "gold and ebony are all exported from Waqwaq."

Scholars have attempted to identify the mysterious location of Waqwaq. De Goeje initially theorized that Waqwaq was Japan, although no historical evidence of a Japanese naval attack on East Africa in the 10th century was found. French scholar Gabriel Ferrand later proposed that Waqwaq might refer to Madagascar, or even Sumatra. These speculations were based on historical accounts of potential raids from the Indonesian archipelago on Madagascar and the South African coast, or the Austronesian linguistic acculturation in Madagascar.

Al-Biruni, in his 10th-century CE work Kitab al-Hind (Book on India), largely based on Sanskrit sources, mentioned a land inhabited by people born from trees and hanging from branches by their navels. From this description arises the possibility that the legend of the Waqwaq tree has roots in Sanskrit sources, and the Arab tales of Waqwaq are blurred interpretations from a time when the Indonesian archipelago was still under Hindu-Buddhist cultural influence.

The tale of the Waqwaq Tree subsequently spread westward, alongside the influx of Eastern narratives. The story appeared in one of Friar Odoric's 14th-century travel manuscripts and in a medieval French romance about Alexander the Great. The last recorded trace of the Waqwaq Tree narrative dates back to 1685, as the mysteries of the Indian Ocean began to unravel in European accounts. This mention is found in the Safinat Sulayman (The Ship of Solomon), a Persian account of a voyage to Siam (Thailand) written by an author accompanying the mission. He recounted hearing this peculiar story from a Dutch captain.

The Dutch captain narrated his voyage to China, during which they anchored in a bay of an island to escape a severe storm. On this island, they encountered inhabitants with a strange appearance, barely resembling living beings. Their legs were short, their bodies naked, and their hair exceptionally long. At night, both men and women would climb to the tops of the trees in the forest, carrying their children in their arms. Upon reaching a tree, they would tie their long hair to a branch and hang there throughout the night.

Despite the numerous manuscripts recording the existence of Waqwaq, none could definitively pinpoint its geographical location. The phonetic similarity to 'Fakfak' sparked speculation that Waqwaq might refer to the Fakfak region in West Papua. However, regardless of its true form and location, it is evident that the concept of Waqwaq has deep roots in Sanskrit Hindu texts, mentioned in the eighth century, recounted by an Arab sailor to a Chinese envoy, passed on to a French friar, and ultimately retold by a Dutch sea captain to a Persian envoy for the King of Siam. This story continues to resonate, leaving behind a mysterious trail that may extend far to the land of the Pakpak in North Sumatra.

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Ancestors of Indonesia's 'Hobbits' May Have been Pioneers of First 'Human' Migration out of Africa

TSCFWA -- The ConversationI was in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2008 and lucky enough to examine the bones of one of the most controversial Hominin species that has ever been discovered. The skeletal remains belonged to an ancient people with tiny brains, and so short that they have been nicknamed “hobbits”. The Conversation

These important fossils, like so many others, were essentially found by mistake. In 1997, a team of Australian archaeologists, led by the late Mike Morwood, was on the prowl for evidence of the first modern humans to arrive on the continent. They had turned their attention to the chain of Indonesian islands that formed stepping stones from mainland Southeast Asia to Australia itself.

Digging in a cave called Liang Bua on the island of Flores, they discovered something intriguing: extremely ancient stone tools. They were too old to have been made by our own species – Homo sapiens, or “modern humans”.

In 2001, they found not just stones, but bones. The first to turn up was a strangely curved radius, a forearm bone. Four years later, the archaeologists unearthed what they initially thought were the skeletal remains of a child, including its skull. But the teeth in the skull weren’t milk teeth: they were well-worn, permanent teeth. The skeleton had clearly belonged to an extremely tiny adult, as Peter Brown, the first anthropologist to examine the bones, quickly recognised.

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Historically, Disputed South China Sea Belongs to Indonesia's Sriwijaya and Majapahit Kingdom

TSCFWA -- Sriwijaya control was thus complete over the two main gateways to maritime trade lanes into Nusantara, which are Malacca Straits in the north and Sunda Straits in the south. Never being complacent, from Kedah Sriwijayan ground forces pushed eastward to conquer Patani on the eastern coast of Malay Peninsula, opening access to maritime traffics in the Gulf of Siam and South China Sea.

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Read: Majapahit Control over South China Sea

The Majapahit Empire was founded in 1293 in the South China Sea, over a large area that now forms Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, East Timor and the Philippines. 

Just before its emergence, a kingdom known as Singhasari was the strongest in the area. In 1290, Kublai Khan, successor of Ghengis Khan, sent an envoy to the leader of Singhasari, asking that they put themselves under his protection and pay them tribute. Instead of complying with their request, the ruler refused, branded the Khans messenger like a thief, cut his ears and sent him back to Kublai Khan.

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According to the Kota Kapur inscription discovered on Bangka Island, the empire conquered most of southern Sumatra and the neighbouring island of Bangka, as far as Lampung. Also, according to the inscriptions, Dapunta Hyang Sri Jayanasa launched a military campaign against Java in the late 7th century, a period which coincided with the decline of Tarumanagara in West Java and the Kalingga Kingdom in Central Java.

The Sriwijaya empire thus grew to control the trade on the Strait of Malacca, the Sunda Strait, the South China Sea, the Java Sea, and the Karimata Strait.

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Freedom From Domineering Power

A Glimpse Of Freedom

By John Pilger

May 25, 2006

The long, wide, bleak streets of cobblestones and tufts of petrified grass reach for the sacred mountain Illimani, whose pyramid of snow is like a watchtower. There was almost no life here when I first came to Bolivia as a young reporter – only the freezing airport and its inviting oxygen tent; now almost a million people live in El Alto, the highest city in the world, the creation of modern capitalism.

El Alto is as symbolic of Latin America today as Cerro Rico is of the past. A hill almost solid with silver, Cerro Rico was mined by slave labour and served to bankroll the Spanish empire for three centuries. Both places are in the poorest country on a continent of 225 million inhabitants, half of whom are poor. Debt bondage, even slavery, still exists secretly in Bolivia, whose hill of silver now takes second place to other natural treasures of gas and water. I arrived in El Alto in the early hours of the morning. Through skeins of fog, the moonlit streets were deserted save for silhouettes of hunched men swaying in the cold, framed in doorways, waiting, hoping, for the morning’s first auctioned work.

Bolivia was second only to Chile as a laboratory of “neoliberalism”, the jargon for capitalism in its pure, Hobbesian form. The Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs designed the “shock therapy” that the IMF and World Bank administered in Bolivia, adding another dimension of poverty and suffering. With the privatisation of the mines, tin finally collapsed, and the miners and their families headed for La Paz, settling on the bitter plain at El Alto, a thousand feet above the capital, without water and power and with little food. Farmers forced off their land by IMF diktats followed them, and their mass migration was typical of that of millions driven out of secure work by the foreign managers of the “Washington consensus”, a fanaticism conceived at Bretton Woods in 1944 as a tool of empire. (Sachs sees himself as a liberal and is mentor to the gormless Bono, of Live Aid et cetera fame.)

Until now, Bolivia’s modern presidents have all been rich, white men who ran the country on behalf of a tiny wealthy minority. Owners of vast tracts of land control the lowlands around Santa Cruz, reminiscent of their equivalent in South Africa. The pre-Inca indigenous majority were the “blacks” who were politically invisible, except as occasionally troublesome workers, especially the miners. People chewed coca leaves to relieve hunger; many died in their early middle years and their children were stunted. “My mother was worked to death on a big estate near Santa Cruz,” a campesino told me. “If she was found learning to read, she was severely punished.”

The last president but one, Sánchez de Lozada, a multimillionaire mine-owner now exiled in Maryland, had grown up in the United States and spoke better English than Spanish. He was known as “El Gringo”. In colluding with the IMF and selling off the country’s gas and water at knock-down prices to Brazilian, American and European multinationals, he fulfilled his role, like so many Latin American presidents, as Washington’s viceroy. Indeed, Richard Nixon’s contemptuous remark about Latin America – “People don’t give a shit about the place” – was quite wrong; America’s imperial design was inscribed on the lives of the people in its “backyard”.

Last year, I interviewed Pablo Solón, son of the great Bolivian muralist Walter Solón, in an extraordinary room covered by his father’s epic brush strokes. More visceral than Diego Rivera’s images of the Mexican revolution, the pictures of injustice rage at you; the barbaric manipulation of people’s lives shall not pass, they say. Pablo Solón, now an adviser to the government of Evo Morales, said: “The story of Bolivia is not unlike so many resource-rich countries where the majority are very poor. It is the story of the government behind the government and what the American embassy allows, for in that building is the true source of power in this country. The US doesn’t have major investments here; what they fear is another Chávez; they don’t want the ‘bad example’ to spread to Ecuador and beyond – even to Nigeria, which might be inspired to tax the oil companies as never before. For the US, any genuine solution to poverty spells trouble.”

“How much would it cost to solve the poverty of Bolivia?” I asked.

“A billion dollars; it’s nothing. It’s the example that matters, because that’s the threat.”

I drove out of El Alto with Juan Delfín, an indigenous church deacon, taxi driver and artist, who spoke about the conquistadores if they were within his memory. This is a society where a half-millennium of history is a presence and its subjugation and impoverishment are understood with anger. With Illimani looming ahead of us, a cemetery consumed the horizon. On the other side of the road was a small hill not of silver, but rubbish: a stinking, smoking, acrid hell of dust and dead dogs and wild pigs and women in traditional bowler hats digging with pickaxes for something, anything. “Here you have the symbol of everything we live and reject,” said Delfín.

He took me to a plaque with the names of 24 people shot to death by the army in October 2003 when de Lozada tried to stop the people of El Alto marching down to La Paz in protest against his selling-off of gas. Juan Delfín linked their deaths to the lines of ordinary graves, many of them children, “who also died violently, from poverty”. A shepherd boy emerged from a pile of stones where he lived, looking too small for his age.

After de Lozada was driven from Bolivia, his successor Carlos Mesa capitulated to the demands of the social movements, such as El Alto’s Federation of Neighbourhood Committees. These are a new phenomenon of Latin America; the Landless People’s Movement in Brazil is the best known, but the most effective, politically, have been in Bolivia. For more than five years, the movements included almost the entire population of the city of Cochabamba as they fought the “water wars” against a foreign consortium led by a subsidiary of the American multinational Bechtel, which de Lozada had handed the city’s public water supply, causing water bills to consume a third of meagre incomes. Even the right to collect rainwater belonged to Bechtel. With an annual revenue of more than $17bn, the company’s power is such that it expected and got (without the inconvenience of bidding) the contract to rebuild the US fortress in occupied Iraq. Yet, not only was Bechtel driven out of Bolivia in 2000, shortly followed by its mentor de Lozada, but the company has now dropped its compensation action against the government. It is a victory of huge significance, because it warns other multinationals in Bolivia (such as British Gas) that even if the government is prepared to compromise the wrath of the people, the movements are not.

It is also a warning to Evo Morales, whose electoral victory in December remains largely symbolic here. An indigenous man now leads Bolivia for the first time; the chequered pre-Inca flags are proudly on high everywhere. “The elections aren’t something we asked for, ever,” said Oscar Olivera, the Cochabamba union leader who led the anti-Bechtel revolt. “What the social movements need to do now is to continue accumulating popular forces, to build up our ability to pressure whatever government that comes. A Morales government would be less difficult to love, but it will still be difficult.”

Unlike his absurd caricature abroad – a previous American ambassador to Bolivia likened Morales to Osama Bin Laden and his party (MAS) to an Andean Taliban – “Evo”, as he known here, is not a “radical”, not yet. His theatrical announcement of “nationalisation” on 1 May did not mean expropriation, and he made it clear the multinationals would not lose any rights. What they will lose is their grotesque share of profits and benefits; they will now have to pay true market prices for Bolivia’s gas, along with a proper rate of tax. His vice-president, Álvaro García Linera, has said “capitalism will last for 50 years in Bolivia”. Before the election he told me: “In a small country like Bolivia, you can’t be heroes.”

But many have been heroes, in the blockade of Cochabamba, in the surge of people from El Alto down into La Paz, facing bullets and expelling their gringo president. Out of the new spirit abroad in Latin America, perhaps the Bolivians and Venezuelans have brought true revolutionary change closest. The contrast is with the “left-wing” Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, who agreed to IMF terms even before he took office and who has distributed less land than his right-wing predecessor.

The likeable Evo is on notice above all with his own people, but also with the Americans, the “government behind the government”. Unless Washington can “lobotomise him” (as it did with Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti), it is likely to encourage a secessionist movement in the landowners’ heartland of Santa Cruz, where the gas is and where the government has promised to redistribute unused land. Bolivia, like Venezuela, has glimpsed its freedom and demands our support.

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Stop Bush & Blair's terror

Stop Bush & Blair's terror

THE RESULT of George Bush spreading his version of 'freedom and democracy' is evident worldwide: three Guantanamo Bay prisoners have hanged themselves, while death and destruction continues in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bob Severn
Following the three Guantanamo deaths, the US administration callously dismissed the suicides as "a good PR [public relations] move" co-ordinated by the prisoners.

Guantanamo's base commander, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, was equally unconcerned about the deaths. "They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own," he said.

The prison camp, where only ten of the 460 prisoners have ever been charged for a crime, has led even Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen - a firm backer of the US/UK invasion and occupation of Iraq - to call for facilities at Guantanamo to be closed down. Of course, he's saying this to limit embarrassing PR!

Bad PR for 21st century imperialism does not stop there though. Leading politicians and officials in Afghanistan, supposed to be an example of US-exported democracy, have been exposed in a 220-page report by the UN high commissioner for human rights.

The UN report (uncovered by the guardian after being shelved for 18 months), accuses the former warlords, now in positions of power, of war crimes including massacres, torture and mass rape.

Last week a British solder was killed, the first since 3,300 UK troops were sent to the Afghan province of Helmand, as battles increase between coalition troops and resurgent Taliban forces. Two more soldiers were seriously injured. Two US soldiers were killed the Tuesday before, with dozens of Taliban and Afghan soldiers killed in the past month.

Meanwhile, Bush and Blair have tried to divert attention away from the mess they have made by trumpeting the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqarwi, al-Qa'ida leader in Iraq. The US President said: "It is a victory for the war on terror".

Unfortunately for Bush, Zarqarwi's death will not quell the insurgency. This is not only because al-Qa'ida have said they will avenge his death but also because the 'insurgency' is not just al-Qa'ida.

Much of the violence in Iraq comes from militias allied to different ethnic groups, Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish, not just fighting the occupation but fighting each other for political control.

Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq have not happened because George Bush wants to establish worldwide peace but because the US government and their corporate friends want to control more oil resources, as well as secure the US as economic and military ruler of the world.

The Socialist Party has opposed these imperialist wars of occupation and calls for the immediate withdrawal of troops.

However, to cut across religious and ethnic sectarianism requires the building of socialist forces in these countries and the coming to power of governments made up of and representing working-class and poor people.

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D-8 Figures

D-8, also known as Developing-8, is an arrangement for development cooperation among the following member countries: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey. It also adds a new dimension to enrich the social and economic relations of its partners.

Following the “Conference on Cooperation for Development”, on October 22, 1996, and after a series of preparatory meetings, the establishment of D-8 was announced officially by the Summit of Heads of State/Government in Istanbul, on June 15,1997 (Istanbul Declaration).

The objectives of D-8 are to improve developing countries’ positions in the world economy, diversify and create new opportunities in trade relations, enhance participation in decision-making at the international level, and provide better standards of living.

D-8 is a global arrangement rather than a regional one, as the composition of founding members reflects. Membership will be open to other developing countries subscribing to the goals, objectives, and principles of the group, sharing common bonds.

D-8 is a forum with no adverse impact on bilateral and multilateral commitments of the member countries, emanating from their membership to regional and international organisations.

Principal organs

The principal organs of D-8 are the Summit, the Council, and the Commission.

The Summit, which is the supreme organ of D-8 is composed of the Heads of State/Government of member states. It is convened once every two years.

The Council is composed of the Ministers in charge of Foreign Affairs of member states. It is the political decision making organ of D-8, and acts as a forum for thorough and comprehensive consideration of the issues.

The Commission is the executive organ of D-8. It is composed of senior officials appointed by their respective governments. Each Commissioner is responsible for national coordination in his/her respective country.

An Executive Director is appointed to ensure efficient communication, expedite the flow of information, and supervise the provision of services for the meetings.

Areas of cooperation

At the outset, ten sectors have been identified for cooperation and project development. They are: Trade; Industry; Telecommunications and Information; Finance, Banking and Privatization; Rural Development; Science and Technology; Poverty Alleviation and Human Resources Development; Agriculture; Energy; Environment; and Health.

On the basis of a division of labour for the coordination of D-8 activities, each sector is assigned to a member country.

Although 50-60 projects were originally proposed at the First Summit, in order not to spread resources too thinly, the following six priority projects were selected to be launched immediately:

Establishment of an International Marketing and Trading Company
Workshop on Poverty Alleviation
Establishment of an Industrial and Technological Data Bank Network among D-8
Establishment of Takaful Schemes (Insurance), including joint ventures between the companies of D-8
Cooperation for the Development of Inland and Coastal Aquaculture
Design, Development, Production, and Marketing of Agricultural Aircraft
D-8 countries have large, young populations with a growing and increasingly skilled labour force

D-8 member countries have relatively large populations. The total population of D-8 countries was around 800 million in 1997. This corresponds to some 13.5 percent of the world population. In four of the eight countries the population is well over one hundred million, in one country it is more than two hundred million.

After relatively high annual growth rates recorded in previous decades, population growth is gradually coming down in all D-8 countries, similar to the phenomenon observed in the rest of the world. Due to rapid growth in the past, a large part of their population will continue to be young for the foreseeable future, constituting a factor of dynamism in D-8 societies.

Moreover, an increasing number of these young people are being educated and trained in universities and research institutions in order to meet the requirements of high-tech industries for skilled labour.

http://www.mfa.gov.tr/d-8/facts.figures01.htm

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