This paper explores livelihoods of people in Routa who come from various places of origin bringing different cultures to establish and transform their livelihoods in response to environmental changes, turbulent situations, market fluctuations and development from national and multi-national investments.

The people of Routa have historically suffered dislocation and privation but in the face of adversity and isolation they have developed feelings of togetherness, which have encompassed the various suku¹.

In the space of a few generations, the people on this frontier have moved from relying on forest products and swidden agriculture to cultivating cash crops, but some, particularly in times of crisis, return to relying on forest products; I observed this time-honoured and proven strategy to cope with financial difficulties such as harvest failure and unforeseen circumstances. I found that the transformation of livelihoods is inevitable. The coming of migrants both as farmers and traders has brought information, influenced the creation of new livelihoods and connected people to external markets. Traders establish mutually beneficial relationships with residents through patron-client relationships.

The analysis of livelihood strategies, societal roles and institutions provide a vehicle for examining this frontier, both past and present. The directions of change over time may suggest trends and trajectories for the future of the development of remote places. Kopytoff [1] explains the characteristics of a frontier as ‘permissive rather than determinant’. Rather than creating a type of society and culture, it ‘provides an institutional vacuum for the unfolding of social processes’ [1]. Furthermore, frontiers are defined both socially and politically by the communities from which the frontiersmen originate [1]. This is also the case in Routa. In this paper, I narrate the history of migration into Routa, its frontier characteristics and its formation from the precolonial era until the present. The transformative power of migration has been pivotal in the development of this remote area.

Because there is little recorded history regarding Routa prior to 1906, I have taken the available written sources that provide illumination on events in the region around Routa, and augmented them with oral history from the people themselves.

According to oral history, headhunting was once practiced in Routa. A frontier can be a hot war zone [2]. Information from a former village head of Routa, revealed that headhunting was carried out between Routa people and the Padoe, a group who lived across Towuti Lake. He told me that the name Routa² means ‘the debt of a head’. Grubauer [3] encountered two ‘victory poles’ (Figures 1-3) located in a field not far from Wiwirano which displayed a number of heads collected by successful warriors from Routa. From other studies in Sulawesi, we know that headhunting was a feature of inland (To Bela)³ and coastal relations [4-7].

Figure 1: Victory poles; Evidence of headhunting in Routa, 1911 by Grubauer [3].

Figure 2: Toraja dammar resin gatherer in 1911 by Grubauer [3].

Figure 3: Invited and independent migration to Routa sub-district.

Routa appeared to be ungoverned and ungovernable in the precolonial era but little information has been recorded regarding its situation from the pre-colonial until the colonial era. Although the Dutch laid claim to Sulawesi in 1667, marked by the Bongaya treaty, they managed to reach as far as the highlands of the interior of Central Sulawesi only in 1906 [4,5,7,8]. In this highland area of Sulawesi, before 1906 can be considered the pre-colonial period, headhunting and tribal wars preceded reciprocal peaceful relations between the people on the coast and those of upland Central Sulawesi [4-6,8,9].

Frontier men are the entrepreneurs on the margins of development. For them, distinctions between legal and illegal, public and private, disciplined and wild are blurred and productive [10]. They are focused on their desired outcome. At the end of the 19^th century, Turner describes the frontier as ‘the meeting point between savagery and civilization [10]. The frontier then appears to roll with its own momentum. It is the place where possibility becomes reality. While these pioneers of development may operate on the margins, they do not see themselves as marginalized (Figures 1-3).

Development in the Routa area has been complex. The focus on this frontier has evolved from tribal war (headhunting) of people in inland Sulawesi Island to become a place where natural resources (dammar resin and other forest products) were paramount and then also as Darul Islam rebel hideouts between 1950s and mid-1960s.

Although Routa had a stigma as a place of a former insurrection, the abundance of unexploited land and the low man-land ratio provided opportunity for people and capitalism to migrate. Almond and Coleman [11] examined the inter-dependence between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors during the course of economic growth in developing economies in Africa and Asia. They found that agricultural development must be viewed as a part of modernization encompassing widespread literacy and access to education, considerable geographical and social mobility, an extensive network of transport and communications, a comparatively high degree or urbanization and widespread participation by members of the society in modern economic processes, characterized by extensive use of capital and inanimate energy. Similarly, Welch [12] revealed that the agrarian transformation in Brazil was affected by globalization which led to the loss of millions of farm livelihoods. This has explained the rise of the autonomous peasant movement in the late twentieth century and describes the recent development of a polemic between a peasant vision of expanded family farming and the agricultural capitalist model, promoted by powerful agribusiness interests. Development in Routa has followed the similar path. There, people are gradually engaging in the consumption of an array of goods and services other than food stuffs which have become important social markers of success.

The Dutch who finally assumed power over the interior of Sulawesi in about 1906 banned the practice of headhunting and the carrying of weapons [4,5,9,13]. It is likely that, as in other former headhunting areas in Indonesia, the relationships between warring groups over time became the basis of exchange, alliance and trade between them [8]. In addition, Robinson [4] states that headhunting and warfare were connected with customary religious practices which brought peace and stability to the region.

Around 1908, when the Dutch civil administration was established in Luwu and they had appointed the Luwu noble as District Chief (Kepala Distrik) in Matano [4], they then imposed a tax (to be paid in cash) which stimulated the extraction of forest products [4]. Only people who had paid their tax could go freely down to the market in the lowlands (coast). Those who refused to pay attracted the risk of ‘harassment’ if they visited the coast [14].

The obligation of paying taxes in cash imposed by the Dutch colonisers on mainland Sulawesi, including the areas around Lake Matano and Towuti, posed a problem for cash-poor villagers. Many of the inland people moved further into the jungle in order to collect forest products because their only source of cash was payment for the collection of rattan and dammar resin [4]. This tax requirement forced men to spend much time away from their villages. Some people also sought to escape Dutch imposition and resided permanently in the remote hinterland in places such as Routa. Scott [15] emphasises that people on the frontier are often fugitives, fleeing the oppression of taxes, epidemics and warfare.

During the colonial period in Southeast Asia there was plenty of land [1,15]. People felt free to move anywhere and therefore, ‘the power of state was predicated largely on the control of population rather than territory’. It was a general policy of the Dutch regime to resettle people to more easily maintain control. The people who lived in the mountains surrounding Sorowako were relocated in order for them reside closer to the new roads in Wasuponda, Wawondula and Sorowako [4]. This was the beginning of government control on the frontier.

As well as keeping the obligation of paying tax at bay, many people came to the remote area to accumulate funds for a dowry or to meet other expenses [6]. From the end of the 19th century, many people from the highlands such as the Toraja moved to the sparsely populated lowlands because of the networks of trade in arms, coffee and slaves with the Bugis ruling elites in Luwu and Enrekang. Trade increased in the highlands of Sulawesi [13]. The movement of the Toraja people into the area surrounding Malili was encouraged by their predilection for gambling [16] — Toraja people, unable to pay gambling debts, ultimately sold themselves, or their whole families, into slavery. Moreover, Sanusi Dg Mattata [17] recalled that when his father returned from Toraja, he brought two slaves to Malili as a present from a Toraja nobleman. Grubauer [3] notes that when he travelled by boat from Palopo to Malili on 2 September 1911, there were hundreds of Torajan immigrants in the boat seeking to collect dammar resin around Towuti Lake. Between 13 and 14 September 1911, he found Toraja who were dammar resin tappers in the same area. Grubauer reached Routa on 14 September 1911, during his journey of Timampu-Loeha-Tokolimbu-Routa around the lake. He explained that the arrival of many Toraja at that time was probably related to the cessation of slavery in the Toraja region, as many former slaves then left Tana Toraja to seek a better life outside Toraja area. Grubauer supposed that people from Toraja had already come into Routa to participate in the resin trade before he visited [18].

The Toraja and Bugis people told me that in the Dutch colonial era, their forebears collected dammar resin from the forest around Routa and transported it using buffalo ‘patekke’⁴ to Lengkobale on Lake Towuti. They sold the dammar resin to Bugis traders there. The Bugis traders then marketed dammar resin to wholesalers in Timampu or the Chinese in Malili.

Dammar resin was a material for ‘decorative and protective purposes’ for wood in a severe climate. Mantell [19] writes that natural dammar resin from Sulawesi is produced from Agathis Alba, and Dipterocarpacae. Over the period 1926-1934, the United States (US) ordered about 38,000,000 lb of natural resin annually from all over the world [19]. The price was considered high at that time. In the Malili district, 200,000 trees were trapped under NEI government supervision [20].

The strength of the resin trade at that time attracted more and more people from Toraja and Palopo. They moved into the area surrounding Towuti Lake to seek dammar resin, causing many newcomers to move progressively deeper into the forest. Later dammar collectors (Buginese and Torajan) established another place of transit in Lengkobale around the 1920s [18].

The Bugis and Luwu traders have long been engaged in trade activities in the area surrounding Routa (Timampu), principally as wholesalers and middlemen [17,18]. People in Routa told me that in the heyday⁵ of dammar resin collection there were Bugis traders who resided in the port of Lengkobale⁶. Based on the information related by people in Routa, together with several references, it is likely that migration into Routa started in the Dutch colonial era with the heyday of dammar resin and the decline of inter-communal warfare.

Forests have played an important role providing food and livelihood support for people in Routa with huge tracts of jungle well known as a source of a number of forest products. Many kinds of timber are harvested. During my field work, I found through observation and interviews that a considerable amount of timber had already been taken from the forest. Although many people have moved from gathering forest products and harvesting timber to cultivating cash crops, a range of products from the forest are still important to support everyday life.

People who are disengaged from forest products in Routa can be divided into two categories: firstly, individuals who are involved in the sawn timber industry; and secondly, people who are engaged in collection of NTFPs (Non-Timber Forest Products), such as dammar resin, eaglewood, palm sugar and other less valuable but nonetheless important products from the forest, because some still rely on them for medicine or food. Observation of the current situation shows that assets from the forests are critically important to people in Routa; they can derive their main income directly from the forest, or they can also use the money from forest products generated as needed as an income buffer to overcome unforeseen circumstances. In addition to income, many people still rely on the forest to support their everyday life such as wood for fuel, medicinal plants and staple foods, such as vegetables as well as fish from the lakes and rivers. There are also many fast-flowing rivers in the jungles of this frontier. In the past, some were used as corridors for transportation, but today they are mainly used as a source of water to support everyday life, farming activities and as a source of electricity.

In the case of logging, people use only chainsaws to fell the timber. Men and buffalo are the only ways of hauling logs from the forest to the logging-truck tracks. Logs will be taken by those trucks to a saw mill to be milled into boards or beams of various sizes before transporting them by truck to the port of Lengkobale and then to Timampu using a motorised raft. A logging truck is the main mechanised vehicle in Routa. Almost every day logging trucks can be found travelling back and forth, transporting timber out and bringing supplies in; indeed the people themselves use the logging trucks as an important mode of transport — the only alternatives are riding pillion on a motorbike (ojek) or a long hike.

The timber agent who owns the timber mill in Lalomerui is the village headman; he told me that you must have a licence to be a legal timber trader. The type of timber licence that they needis a ‘permit for the utilization of forest timber rights’ (Izin Pemanfaatan Kayu Hutan Hak/IPKHH). This permit is given to the people who want to process timber from their own land. Although it is not necessarily true, timber suppliers will often use this authentication certificate for timber sourced well outside their own concession. This practice is not unusual in Indonesia, especially when quotas exceed what a concession can produce.

In Indonesia, people who own land are allowed to use any timber it contains. The ownership of land usually has to be proven by a land certificate published by the national land agency (Badan Pertanahan Nasional). However, in remote places like Routa, a ‘local land certificate’, issued by the village head is considered sufficient. To obtain a licence, an applicant has to write a letter that goes together with the SKT to the district head (Bupati), with a copy to the Head of Forestry at the district level. The official from the forestry office is then supposed to visit the site to calculate the amount of timber and identify the species growing in the area in question. The forestry official should then write a letter that includes a report detailing his calculations, to be included with a map of the location. Based on these calculations, a forestry office team will give technical consideration to the application. With this hurdle over, the Bupati will issue an IPKHH licence.

However, due to Routa’s remoteness, for most applications, forestry officers do not actually visit the location to calculate the amount and identify the timber. The timber quota will be determined by the amount of money the applicant can provide rather than the amount of timber in the concession. If the concession is too small to provide the stated volume of timber, they will find some elsewhere, more often than not, illegally. This is but one of many corrupt practices in the timber industry.

After receiving the licence, but before any felling can begin, the applicant has to pay an upfront tax, known as ‘provision for forest resource/reforestation funds’ (provisi sumberdaya hutan/dana reboisasi or PSDH/DR). The amount of tax that should be paid is based on the volume of timber provided by the applicant. They will use proof of this tax payment to obtain certification of the validity of timber (Surat Keterangan Sahnya Kayu Bulat or SKSKB) from the district forest officer. After receiving that document, the timber agents can commence their business. A few additional documents however are still required when they transport timber, incurring additional costs.

Before transporting the timber to the wholesaler, timber agents need to provide an additional document concerning the origin of the wood. According to the Ministry of Forestry Regulation No P.51/ Menhut-II/2006, a local person of standing, such as the village head, has the right to issue the certificate of the origin of wood (Surat Keterangan Asal Usul Kayu/SKAU); for this reason, a wholesaler will support a local village head in pursuit of a licence as his timber agent, such as happened in Lalomerui.

Every cubic metre of timber will require Rp. 100,000 (AUD 10). Given that most agents in Routa have a quota larger than 1,000 m³, at approximately Rp 100,000,000 (AUD 10,000) an applicant needs to provide a huge amount of money upfront. This is the reason that agents in afrontier area like this always need financial backing from a timber wholesaler outside Routa. So, the economics of the patron-client chain begins in the timber industry.

At the outset, a potential owner of a saw mill in Routa needs to act just as a supplier for a timber wholesaler, either in Kendari or in Timampu; he will mill the timber himself until the supply can be guaranteed. Regular supply will encourage the wholesaler to provide financial support so that the suppliers (timber agents) can also become mill owners.

Other than Lalomerui, there are two other timber agents who own sawmills, one in Routa and the other in Parudongka; they established their sawmills prior to the one owned by the head of Lalomerui. Both the owners are Bugis migrants. Even though they obtained permits from the Southeast Sulawesi government at Unaaha, they carry out timber trading through Timampu in South Sulawesi rather than through Southeast Sulawesi. This is largely due to easier transportation and stronger business ties with wholesalers in South Sulawesi. The owner of the saw mill in Routa relies on the wholesaler in Timampu who has controlled timber trading in Routa for a long time.

The establishment of Routa as a sub-district, which was followed by the development of new villages, has further increased the pressure on forest resources. The arrival of large agro-industrial investments such as the oil palm plantation has changed the landscape particularly that of Lalomerui village, from a forest once rich with various types of plants now reduced to a depleted monoculture.

Routa will never look the same. The landscape changes once effected cannot easily be reversed. Even though people’s activities in establishing their farms or settlements are not on the same scale as that of the oil palm plantation, they do contribute to the landscape changes. The jungle once cleared will never be able to share its secrets; we may never know what has been destroyed by ‘progress’.

In Routa a discussion of migration cannot be separated from a discussion of history. Historically, there have been many reasons which have predisposed people to migrate. Dutch colonial rule, internal wars, climate change, varying demands and patterns of regional and world trade [4,20,21] are factors that influenced have migration in the archipelago.

Chronic labour shortage is a major issue for many people in Routa, restricting the expansion of their farming enterprises as well as adversely affecting the operation of their main form of livelihood. With the partial exceptions of Java and Central Thailand in relatively modern times, Reid states that ‘the key of Southeast Asia’s social system was the control of men rather than the control of land’. This was because of the abundance of land in many parts of Southeast Asia. The accumulation of followers and control over manpower were the keys to wealth and political advance. Individual chiefs strove to gather manpower by offering security and goods. The Routa region is no exception; power is predicated on the accumulation of followers who are the source of labour as well as being clients in patron-client relationships [20].

Often people will invite relatives to help (bantu-bantu) set up, plant or harvest cacao, pepper or staple foods and operate a saw mill. This practice is what I term ‘invited migration’; their motivation is to come to help. The migrants who come with invitation have a close kin relationship with people who invite them. It results in short-term (temporary) migration at peak labour times. People who invite their relatives will usually provide them with daily provisions. The few invited migrants who decide to move permanently receive help from those who invited them to access land. If the migrants come at the invitation of a trader, often they too will receive support for their daily needs after deciding to stay permanently. These relationships may develop to become patron-client relationships.

By contrast, independent migrants come with the intention of being permanent migrants. Those who seek their fortune in Routa are motivated by their own prospects rather than helping others. There are people from Toraja who came independently to Routa and now live in Leperi, a hamlet of Walandawe village. Not only did they come independently, but they came to an area without any relatives living close by. Some of them told me that they had already sold many of their assets in their homeland. It is evidence of their commitment to change and a motivating factor to achieving success.

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of chain migration to Routa, invited and independent migration. Every suku continues to invite family members and friends to join them to overcome labour shortages, but in most cases only temporarily. The success stories of particular people and the availability of land have tempted people from surrounding areas to voluntarily migrate to this remote place.

Invited migration has many benefits, more benefits than downsides. It boosts the workforce during times of peak labour shortage. The invited migrant has the opportunity to ‘test the water’ to see whether a permanent move may be advantageous, to see how they could be part of Routa society. By inviting friends and/or family, any who choose to stay have a ready-made social support network.

Those who do the inviting often become their financial supporters. Patron-client relationships begin and grow from this base, with mutual benefit. Because the rate of invited migration is slow and the invited migrant is incorporated into a ready-made social network, any resultant social pressure has not yet posed a problem. This is in contrast with the significant social pressure that has resulted from the large-scale transient migration in Lalomerui village.

From around the 1990s, many households in Routa sub-district began to grow cash crops. When the rice crop fails they can rely more heavily on their cash crops (cacao or pepper) to meet their daily needs. On the other hand when the price of cash crops falls, farmers can still rely on their rice fields [21,22]. People combine the growing of staple foods (wet or dry rice and vegetables) with the farming of cash crops.

Generally, when establishing cash crops, people do not use good quality seeds. Most do not buy seeds; they rely on a supply from their neighbour who may have established their cash crop earlier or they seek assistance from their patrons. In the case of a cacao crop, the poor selection of quality seed combined with the homogeneity of species has made most cacao trees vulnerable to die-back. My informant told me that people in Routa obtain their cacao seeds from family or friends in North Kolaka or Maili. I took this as evidence that they lack understanding that the seed quality and variety matter. He made no mention of this.

Nevertheless, many are generally aware that the use of fertiliser will enrich the soil and improve productivity. In order to meet the demand of fertiliser, people rely on farmyard manure, which is always provided by their patron. Only a few mix organic fertiliser with chemical fertilisers. Some people stated that ignorance of the type and dose is the reason many are reluctant to use chemical fertilisers. The price of chemical fertilisers in any event is still relatively high which reduces farmers’ interest in it. By way of comparison, the price of one sack of organic fertiliser is Rp 40,000 (AUD 4), while the price of one sack of urea fertiliser is Rp 120,000 (AUD 12), rendering it three times more costly. Again, the absence of any agricultural institution also creates more difficulty for people do not have enough knowledge regarding fertilisers.

Today, many people in Routa have profited from the fruit of their pepper vines. There are people, particularly the Bugis, who rely solely on cash crops (cacao or pepper) for their livelihood; they obtain rice and other daily needs from their patrons, the cost of which eventually will be deducted from the value of their cash crops. In frontier places agriculture will transform from subsistence to partly commercial crops, which anticipates commercialisation [23]. The comeback of pepper in around 2009 with a boom price (more than three times that of cacao (which was cultivated previously), has given an unimaginable opportunity to Routa residents to earn and own tens of millions of rupiah per year. However, at least there are two factors which mitigate against the achievement of a high yield in pepper production: limited labour and the limited availability of modern agricultural techniques to increase productivity. These work against the development of extensive pepper farms; as a result, overall and production per hectare of pepper is still low.

The changes in expectation and lifestyle require a significant increase in income. Most residents in Routa sub-district carry out more than one livelihood activity; when they can, they will give priority to cash crops. This is also an indication of the engagement of the frontier people in Routa with the global mercantil market.

The existence of traders has become pivotal in this community. The absence of government has meant that the traders have stepped into many roles to fill the vacuum. People are happy to cooperate with traders to solve the local problems of limited infrastructure. Traders have also been pivotal in the development of informal financial institutions through a patron-client system which performs an important social as well as economic function. Because of their high profile and the way, they conduct themselves and participate in all aspects of everyday life, traders often become community leaders, especially in the matter of religion, which is important to all suku.

Local traders are concerned with the development of cash crops in Routa in order to fulfil the wider market demand. Most of the traders/ patrons support their clients in Routa to set up their own cash crops so they can accumulate sufficient product to transport to the market. Grogan, Thomsen and Lyimo [24] note that economic influence from markets often provides incentives for farmers to intensify their agriculture, especially where land is abundant, such as it is in Routa.

The establishment of the oil palm plantation in Lalomerui village has also created dirt roads to markets in North Konawe district, and even as far markets in the provincial capital, Kendari. These roads have increased accessibility, particularly for the residents who live in nearby hamlets and villages nearby. Some government officials from villages in Routa sub-district now use this road rather than going through North Kolaka district if they have government business in Unaaha (the capital of Konawe district).

Along with palm oil, the mining company in Routa has also improved the road from Routa to Walandawe, and provides roundthe- clock electricity in Lalomerui village. This has allowed traders from North Konawe district to carry out a forthnightly night market in Lalomerui. When I revisited Lalomerui on September 2014, I found that the night market was the first in the sub-district. Changes in Routa are resulting from both local mercantile capitalism (traders) and big business (palm oil and mining). The transformation in this frontier might be considered inevitable; from the history of transformation in Routa, people have always been able to adapt to the changes stimulated by the traders and migrants. Both are agents of change. People seem to readily assimilate the gradual transformation facilitated by the agents of local mercantile capitalism. This contrasts with big business, which imposes novel ways outside their everyday experience and even their imagination.

The arrival of the palm oil and the mining companies has gradually pushed Routa from a forgotten frontier into the limelight of development. Even the government which had ignored this area for so long has begun to take an interest, attracted by the potential of financial gain, both government revenue and private benefit.

The presence of both the oil palm plantation and the mining company will contribute significantly to changes in Routa, although the benefit derived may be more advantageous to the companies than to the people, who may only enjoy a few changes to their lifestyles. Li Murray [14] suggests caution that any transformation which is not in the context of everyday life requires negotiation.

There are both population and landscape changes in Routa due to development initiated by its own residents and a steady trickle of migrants encouraged by the pepper boom. Until recently, people have been able to accommodate their increasing needs because of the abundance of natural forest areas. But land is a finite resource. Already there are signs that the pressure of large-scale capitalism is requiring more space and natural resources. For local people and those who come to farm, it will be harder to achieve their dreams if land becomes a scarce resource. When government decision favours big business over the small landholder, both the pace and directions of change are influenced. In the future, the frontier features which made this area a magnet for people will fall victim to what is loosely called progress.

¹Suku defines a socio-cultural group of people who use the same language, have similar culture and come from a similar place of origin.

²‘Ro’ means head and ‘uta’ means debt in the Routa language

³To Bela is a Bugis term to describe the inland people.

⁴ Buffalo transportation used for items other than timber is known as patekke, whereas buffalo transportation for timber is pajekka. Although both patekke and pajekka are now in common usage in Routa, according to my informants, the terms are originally Toraja language because Toraja was the first suku to use buffalo to transport dammar resin.

⁵They did not mention the exact time, but probably around the 1920s as Robinson [18] explains.

⁶The port on the shore of Towuti Lake where people from Routa take the boats to cross to Timampu.