A study of dozens of pawn deeds—documents recording transactions for borrowing money against pledged land or other assets—from various areas of Minangkabau reveals a significant change in how writers identified the parties involved. The documents come from Pariaman, Pesisir Selatan, Padang, and Padang Panjang, written between the 19th and 20th centuries.
In documents created before Indonesian independence, scribes used a consistent opening formula, introducing the transaction parties with phrases such as "When the aforementioned is a Malay person" or "Statement of one Malay person". The reference to "Malay person" appears repeatedly in different texts, although written by different scribes at different times, followed by full identification details through name, title, clan, and nagari (village).
This consistent pattern changed in a document dated 1963. In that document, the opening formula no longer used "Malay person", but instead stated "We who undersign are the Indonesian nation." Although the structure of the letter as a whole remained the same—including the names of the parties, clan, land boundaries, terms of agreement, and signatures—the change in how the legal subject was introduced at the beginning of the document became significant in the context of Indonesian history.
The shift from "Malay person" to "Indonesian nation" was not merely a coincidental word substitution, but reflected a change in writing formula that aligned with developments in the social and political context after independence. Examination of customary legal documents born from everyday needs reveals traces of the linguistic changes used by communities in their writing practices.
Although a single document alone is insufficient to conclude that there was a broader change in identity throughout Minangkabau society, the document provides concrete evidence that the way identity was written did indeed change. The use of the term "Indonesian nation" in the pawn deed shows that the concept of national identity had become part of a new way of introducing oneself in administrative documents in the independence era.
