アチェ特別州南東部へのトバ・バタク族の移民

Abstract

The southern part of the Southeast Aceh Regency of the Special Province of Aceh, Indonesia, is named Alasland now as in ages past. Before 1904, only the Alas people lived there, but since the 1920s Toba Batak migrants have flowed into Alasland, brought wasteland under cultivation, and built many villages there. They first settled in the southernmost area, partly because this area was all uninhabited forest, and partly because in the 1910s, when the political situation in Alasland became stable, a main road was opened between the forest area and Medan. After World War II, the number of the migrants grew rapidly. In 1985 there were 164 recognized villages in Alasland. Of these, 73 villages (45%) were occupied by Angkola Batak, Mandailing Batak, Gayo, Singkil, or Javanese migrants as well as Toba Batak migrants, who together accounted for half of the population of Alasland. Because of a great difference between the Alas and the Toba Batak in terms of land rights, the former have lost a huge area of Alasland while the latter have gained large tracts of land there. Among the Toba Batak, a special land right called golat, which is the right of disposal, is observed. The patrilineal descent group owns this land right, and the members exercise the right of possession only. Normally, therefore, the Toba Batak people are not allowed to sell their land. On the other hand, the Alas people have the right of land ownership. Because of this right, the Alas have been able to give or sell immense areas of unoccupied wasteland to Toba Batak migrants since the colonial era. The increasing population of Toba Batak migrants in Alasland has now caused economic imbalance and religious antagonism between the Alas and the Toba Batak. In addition, the Alas traditional pattern of clearing forest to build new hamlets has been destroyed by the disappearance of uninhabited forest.