Origin of Luwu In 1889,
Dutch administrator of
Makassar,
Braam Morris placed Luwu's peak territorial extent between the 10th and 14th centuries, but offered no clear evidence. The
La Galigo, an epic poem composed in a literary form of the
Bugis language, is the likely source of the dating. Morris' theory combined two older concepts which were already common in the region, which are (1) the so-called 'primordial age' as described within La Galigo, and (2) the widespread belief of other Bugis polities in South Sulawesi, who viewed the rulers of Luwu as the most senior lineages of all Bugis rulers. However, historians and archaeologists expressed doubts regarding these claims. They note that any historical records and chronologies of Luwu were 'disappointingly shallow' and 'absent of any evidence'. Archaeological and textual research carried out since the 1980s has undermined this chronology, however. The earliest textual reference to Luwu is in the
Majapahit court poem
Desawarnana (c.1365), which listed Luwu,
Bantaeng in southern part of the island, and Uda (possibly Cina) as the three major powers on the peninsula. However, there are no convincing archaeological evidence of Bugis settlement in Luwu region before c.1300. The new understanding is that Bugis speaking settlers from the western
Cénrana valley began to settle along the coastal margins of Luwu around the year 1300 CE. The Gulf of
Bone is not a merely Bugis-speaking area only: it is a thinly populated region of great ethnic diversity in which Bugis speakers are a minority among the speakers of
Pamona,
Padoe,
Wotu and
Lemolang languages who lived on the coastal lowlands and foothills, while the highland valleys are home to groups speaking other Central and South Sulawesi languages. The Bugis are found almost solely along the coast, to which they have evidently migrated in order to trade with Luwu's indigenous peoples. It is clear both from archaeological and textual sources that Luwu was a Bugis-led coalition of various ethnic groups, united by trade relationships and by the ability of the
Datu' (ruler) of Luwu to enforce peace among neighboring hill tribes. The main centres of Bugis settlement were (and still are) Bua, Ponrang, Malangke, and Cerekang near Malili. La Patiwareq is buried at Malangke and is referred to in the chronicles as Matinroe ri Wareq, ‘He who sleeps at Wareq’, the former palace-centre of Luwuq. His religious teacher,
Dato Sulaiman, is buried nearby. Around 1620, Malangke was abandoned and a new capital was established to the west at
Palopo. It is not known why this sprawling settlement, the population of which may have reached 15,000 in the 16th century, was suddenly abandoned: possibilities include religious turmoil, the declining price of iron goods and the economic potential of trade with the
Toraja highlands.
Colonial Luwu By the 19th century, Luwu had become a backwater.
James Brooke, later
Rajah of Sarawak, wrote in the 1830s that ‘Luwu is the oldest Bugis state, and the most decayed. [...] Palopo is a miserable town, consisting of about 300 houses, scattered and dilapidated. [...] It is difficult to believe that Luwu could ever have been a powerful state, except in a very low state of native civilisation.’
Present-day Luwu In the 1960s Luwu was a focus of an Islamic rebellion led by
Kahar Muzakkar. Today the former kingdom is home to the world's largest
nickel mine and is experiencing an economic boom fueled by inward migration, yet it still retains much of its original frontier atmosphere. == Economy ==