•The European conception of a state was also inappropriate in much of the archipelago where a type of political entity had evolved which enabled several kingdoms to join together and yet maintain a fundamentally equal status.
•According to the Portuguese chronicler Joao de Barros, there were once twenty-nine kingdoms along the coasts of Sumatra, 'but since we became involved with these oriental states, favouringsome and suppressing others according to the way they received us . . . many have been absorbed to the territory of their most powerful neighbors