The lower Barito and Martapura rivers, the swamp-rice country of the Negara and Amuntai rivers, the Meratus hills with the diamond gravels of Cempaka, and the coast to Pulau Laut and Pagatan.
The Banjar as a Malay-speaking and Muslim people are formed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the Hikayat Banjar (a seventeenth-century chronicle) gives them a kingdom of Negara Dipa; neither is shown for 1200. The hill people of the Meratus (later called Bukit) and the Maanyan side are the older population in the later record.
Who holds it
- Title
- No overall chief: village or longhouse headmen, elders and war leaders, each answering for their own people
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Nothing is written about the rulers or headmen of this country for 1200. The structure is read from geography and from ethnography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
What it holds
- Swamp rice land and river passage
- The Meratus hills
- The diamond gravels of Cempaka (board)
- The Barito and Martapura mouths
Allies and rivals
The Barito mouth headman (Barito mouth headman) and the Negara and Amuntai record (Negara and Amuntai).
How things stand that morning
Not described for 1200; the villages are presumed to be farming, fishing and selling what the rivers and forests give.
Wealth
Diamonds, gold, rice and forest goods; no figures.
Military
Not known; boats, spears, shields and blowpipes in the later record. No numbers.
Threats
- Feuds and raiding between villages
- Flood, drought or fire
- A change in the trade that comes by sea
Places of note
- Banjarmasin district: Barito mouth (a later name).
- Martapura: Diamond country (a later name).
- Amuntai: Negara river country (a later name).
- Candi Agung: Brick platform; the usual date is the fourteenth century.
- Kotabaru (Pulau Laut): South-east corner (a later name).
Where the sources disagree
- The ethnic names used here (Dayak, Kayan, Kenyah, Iban, Ngaju, Banjar and the rest) are later outsiders' or ethnographic names; the ethnic map of 1200 is not known and differs from the modern one.
- No Banjar state is shown for 1200; the Barito mouth headman and the Negara record say why.
Evidence: Geography and later ethnography only; no text of the period describes this country.
On the map: A rough outline of the people's country; the real extent of any village group in 1200 is not known, and nothing here is a border.
Sources and studies
- Background knowledge of Southeast Asian history (Wolters; Hall; Bellwood; Scott; Junker; Reid), recalled and not re-read in this pass
- The OMNIA board (September 2026) note for this place: a lead only, not a source
- The isa regional brief (ISA_BRIEF.md) and assignment ise.txt
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.