The term was popularized after Indonesian independence as a respectful replacement for the Dutch colonial term (normally translated as "native" and seen as derogatory). It derives from
Sanskrit terms
pri (before) and
bhumi (earth, land, or soil). Following independence, the term was normally used to distinguish indigenous Indonesians from citizens of foreign descent (especially
Chinese Indonesians). Common usage distinguished between
pribumi and
non-pribumi. Although the term is sometimes translated as "indigenous", it has a broader meaning than that associated with
Indigenous peoples. The term (with
WNI meaning "Indonesian citizen" and
keturunan asing meaning "foreign descent"), sometimes just
WNI keturunan or even
WNI, has also been used to designate
non-pribumi Indonesians. In practice, the usage of the term is fluid.
Pribumi is seldom used to refer to Indonesians of
Melanesian descent, such as
Moluccans and
Papuans, although it does not exclude them. Indonesians of
Arab descent sometimes refer to themselves as
pribumi. Indonesians with some exogenous ancestry who show no obvious signs of identification with that ancestry (such as former President
Abdurrahman Wahid who is said to have had Chinese ancestry) are seldom called
non-pribumi. The term
putra daerah ("son of the region") refers to a person who is indigenous to a specific locality or region. In 1998, the Indonesian government of President
B. J. Habibie instructed that neither
pribumi nor
non-pribumi should be used within
the government because they promoted ethnic discrimination. The
Dutch East India Company, which dominated parts of the archipelago from the 17th century, classified its subjects mainly by religion, rather than ethnicity. The colonial administration which took power in 1815 shifted to a system of ethnic classification. Initially, they distinguished between Europeans (
Europeanen) and those equated with them (including native Christians) and
Inlanders and those equated with them (including non-Christian Asians). Over time, natives were gradually shifted de facto into the
Inlander category, while
Chinese Indonesians,
Arab Indonesians, and others of non-Indonesian descent were gradually given separate status as
Vreemde Oosterlingen ("Foreign Orientals"). The system was patriarchal, rather than formally racial. A child inherited his/her father's ethnicity if the parents were married; and the mother's ethnicity if they were unmarried. The offspring of a marriage between a European man and an Indonesian woman were legally European. Today,
the Indonesian dictionary defines
pribumi as
penghuni asli which translates into "original, native, or indigenous inhabitant". == Background ==