In the early sixteenth century Gowa was merely one of the chiefdoms located in South Sulawesi’s southwest corner. After the mid-sixteenth century Gowa expanded southwards to incorporate the northern two-thirds of Polombangkeng. When Tunipasuluk (G13/T6/m5) briefly occupied the Tallok and Maros thrones between 1590 and 1593, he commanded the largest area ever directly ruled by Gowa.

Until 1593 the great majority of the recorded marriages involved Makassar polities, and one Bugis polity (Siang), located within the southwest corner of South Sulawesi. The notable rôle played by the (Gowa) Gelarang highlights the restricted geographical range of the marriages (Table 7). True, four royal and noble women from Bugis kingdoms north of Siang married Gowa royalty (Table 7), but no offspring resulted (Bulbeck 1992).

Most of the marriages which I recorded between close relatives descended from a conjugal pair (Table 4) resulted from the series of royal marriages between Gowa and Tallok during the early to middle sixteenth century (see Figure 1). These marriages bound the fortunes of the Gowa and Tallok royalty, but at Tallok’s peril since the number of princesses provided by Tallok was not reciprocated by Gowa (Table 7). When the Tallok raja Tumenanga ri Makkoayang (T4/TBB1) died in 1577, his only adult descendants were two daughters both married to the Gowa raja Tunijallok (G12). (One of the daughters, Karaeng Batu-Batu [e], may have already died, but this does not affect the argument.) Unless Tallok were to install an immature incumbent, the throne had to pass to a wife of Tunijallok. The woman appointed, Karaeng Bainea (T5), produced nine offspring but little evidence of government independent from her husband (Bulbeck 1992). Tallok was no longer in the position to exclude these offspring from the Tallok core on the basis of lacking patrilineal membership, because Tallok had become a lesser status lineage compared to Gowa. Consequently the first born son of Tunijallok and Karaeng Bainea, Tunipasuluk, claimed the Tallok throne while patrilineally inheriting the Gowa throne.

The growing status of the Gowa royalty compared to Tallok is clear from the number of brides taken by the Gowa royalty, accounting for over half of the marriages between lineage groups (Table 7). Moreover the Makassar lineage groups which produced rather than attracted wives came to fall within Gowa’s domain. These include Garassik, an early source of brides; and Jamarang and Katingang (here included within Polombangkeng) which had provided Gowa with several royal brides. In contrast Sanrabone and Pattekne attracted wives and survived as status lineages into the seventeenth century (Tables 7 to 9).