Cane-Burning in the Pasuruan Area: An Expression of Social Discontent

Abstract

Students of Indonesian history have shown a good deal of interest over recent years in movements and expressions of peasant revolt (e.g. Sartono 1966, 1973: The 1967–1968, 1969; Benda and Castles 1969; King 1973). Aside from the intellectual challenges involved, there were obvious practical reasons for this trend in scholarship. It was closely related to what has been the dominant concern of historians in the post-war years, that is, the tracing of various kinds of opposition to colonial rule and its impact. In most cases, too, there were available relatively large amounts of easily accessible information – an indication, perhaps, of just how unusual peasant revolts were in the context of the ponderous normality of the later colonial period. It is, therefore, surprising that (at least to my knowledge) no systematic treatment has been given to another expression of peasant unrest, more common if not so spectacular, and which has been well documented in colonial records and contemporary newspapers and journals – the phenomenon of cane-burning.