A high valley with a lake in it under the biggest volcano of the archipelago, growing rice far above the malaria line and sending cassia bark and forest goods down the Merangin to Jambi.
The Kerinci are their own people with their own chiefs. A fourteenth-century law code written on bamboo and bark at Tanjung Tanah in Kerinci (the Kozok reading, from memory) shows a Malay-writing, law-making highland society a century and a half later; nothing is known of 1200. Whether the Malayu king of Jambi ever claimed the valley is not recorded.
Who holds it
- Title
- Chiefs of the Kerinci valley, not named
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
No source names a holder for any date near 1 January 1200.
Overlord
None named.
What it holds
- The valley's villages, rice land and forest
- The Merangin road down to Jambi
Allies and rivals
Jambi downriver as the market; Minangkabau Solok to the north.
How things stand that morning
Not recorded. A highland world with no state in it.
Wealth
Cassia bark, forest goods, rice.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Thin: later ethnography, the campaign board and geography; nothing dated near 1 January 1200 describes the people.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: Drawn on the modern regencies (kabupaten) that match the people's later homeland; the boundaries of 1200 are not known.
Sources and studies
- OMNIA board note (a lead only, checked against the sources above)
- Nineteenth and twentieth century ethnography of the Batak, Minangkabau, Rejang and Lampung peoples (Dutch and later writers), read back to 1200 as a caution only, from memory, not rechecked
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.