Although courtly literature provides insight into the high tradition of Old Javanese Hinduism, the nature of popular Javanese religion in former times remains a topic of considerable obscurity. In his voluminous masterpiece on pre-Islamic Java, the Dutch historian Th. G. Th. Pigeaud identifies some 218 clerical estates that existed in rural east Java in the fourteenth century, speculating as to the nature of their social and religious organization. But none of these Hindu and Buddhist clerical communities survived into the modern era, and as a result we know little of their relation to popular Javanese religion. For years scholars have lamented the dearth of primary materials on popular Javanese Hinduism both during and after the fall of the last of Java's major Hindu-Buddhist courts, Majapahit. At the height of its power during the second half of the fourteenth century, Majapahit was conquered by an alliance of Islamic principalities in the early sixteenth century.

The main characteristic of the Thai economy in the early Rattanakosin period, especially the extent of the development of overseas trade and its effect on the domestic economy and the peasantry in particular, has become one of the points of interest among scholars of Thai history in the past decade. This paper attempts to reconsider this question by examining the existing documents on suai (head tax in kind) sent from northeast Siam to Bangkok between the 1830s and the 1860s. The region canvassed here includes areas on both sides of the Mekong valley, i.e. the Eastern Lao provinces (huamuang lao fai tawan-k) and the Forest Khmer provinces (huamuiang khamen padong).

The Chinese community in the Philippines before the outbreak of the Pacific War was relatively small and homogeneous in comparison with those in other Southeast Asian countries. When the Japanese occupied the Philippine islands, they found a Chinese community of less than one per cent of the total population. This small alien group did not appear to be a serious threat to the Japanese authorities. However, during the three and a half years of Japanese occupation, the Chinese maintained several guerrilla groups, which formed part of the resistance movement in the Philippines.

Japanese forces attacked Malaya late in 1941 and, by 15 February 1942, had occupied the entire peninsula as well as Singapore. Among other changes, the Japanese regime introduced a new currency. Pre-war British currency remained legal tender but rapidly vanished from the open market, and by 1943 the economy operated on Japanese currency, commonly referred to as “banana” money because the ten-dollar note featured a banana plant. By the end of the occupation, the buying power of this currency had deteriorated dramatically, and the country experienced massive inflation as large quantities of money were printed and put into circulation.

On the Foundation Day of the University of Malaya on 8 October 1949, Malcolm MacDonald, the Chancellor of the new university and British Commissioner-General in Southeast Asia, proudly declared that the university was founded “at a timely and auspicious moment” when “we are witnessing in Malaya the birth of a nation”. MacDonald rested his inspiring theme on the British postwar policy of preparing Malaya for eventual self-government within the British Commonwealth. Under this policy Singapore was constituted a distinct crown colony with a legislature in which only six of the twenty-two members were popularly elected, whereas the other Settlements and the Malay States were merged into the Malayan Union which had fully nominated federal and state legislatures. It seems clear from the postwar political reorganization that the British policy-makers had intended to take Malaya slowly, stage by stage, to self-government and eventual independence.

This paper attempts to survey the development of a Malaysian Sino-Malay spirit cult, known as Nadugong in Chinese, or Datuk Keramat in Malay. The development of this cult shows that Malaysian Chinese are increasingly aware of their ethnic identity vis-à-vis the Malay identity, whereby local-born Chinese seek to adapt themselves to the patterns of multi-ethnic cultures while at the same time trying very hard to maintain their ethnic boundaries through the organization of their own socio-cultural institutions.

The outcome of this adaptive response may be seen in what is known as localization — a multilateral acculturative rather than a unilateral assimilative process. This process renders the existing syncretized elements more complex and has served as an internal defence-mechanism against, rather than as an unconditional submission to, the on-going proselytizing ideologies of “Malay nationalism” and “Malay national-culturism” based on the parameters of Malay culture, Malay language, Islam, and Malay esthetic values.