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Bantěn and the Dutch in 1619: Six Early ‘Pasar Malay’ Letters1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

M. C. Ricklefs
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Extract

While working in the Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague, in 1973, this writer had his attention drawn by Dr. G. V. Smith to an envelope in Koloniaal Archief 982 (Overgekomen Brieven en Papieren 1620) which apparently contained several early Javanese letters. Upon investigation these proved to be original correspondence between the dignitaries of Bantěn and the Dutch under Jan Pietersz. Coen after the Dutch conquest of Batavia in 1619. They are written not in Javanese but in Malay, five of the letters employing Javanese script and one Arabic script. The letters are of interest as evidence of the Bantěn opinion of the Dutch (although the reader would be wrong to accept the innocent tone of the letters at face value) and as early examples of pasar Malay, the lingua franca of maritime South-East Asia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , February 1976 , pp. 128 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1976

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References

2 Neither Dr. Smith nor the author was engaged in research related to the subject of this article.

3 This is not to deny that Portuguese played a similar role in South-East Asia and elsewhere at the same time. For instance, after the initial English success at Jayakěrta, the ruler of Cirěbon wrote to them in Portuguese, asking to purchase a piece of artillery from the Dutch fort if it should be surrendered; Sainsbury, W. Noel (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies, China and Japan, 1617–1621, London, 1870, pp. 234–5.Google Scholar

4 Blagden, C. O., ‘Two Malay letters from Ternate in the Moluccas, written in 1521 and 1522’, BSOS, VI, 1, 1930, 87–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 ibid., 87.

6 See for instance the letters in Malay from rulers of Aceh to English traders (c. 1602) and to Queen Elizabeth I (1602) and King James I (1612), published and translated in Shellabear, W. G., An account of some of the oldest Malay MSS now extant’, Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 30, 1897, 107–51.Google Scholar

7 See the Malay passages cited in Ricklefs, M. C., Jogjakarta under Sultan Mangicubumi, 1749–1792: a history of the division of Java, London, 1974, pp. 193–4, n. 58, p. 385, n. 46, p. 386, n. 47, p. 395, n. 68, p. 401, n. 82.Google Scholar

8 One commonly hears, for instance, pěgi for pěrgi, misi for masih, -kěn for -kan, etc.

9 The author some time ago compiled examples of Javanese palaeography from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, in the hope that these could one day be published. The present remarks should be regarded as preliminary. The letters are reproduced here because it will be some considerable time before the full study of palaeography can be prepared. The reader interested in this subject should examine the several examples reproduced in Pigeaud, Th. G. Th., Literature of Java: catalogue raisonné of Javanese manuscripts in the library of the University of Leiden and other public collections in the Netherlands, 3 vols., The Hague, 1967–1970, vol. IIIGoogle Scholar. For the period before the sixteenth century, see de Casparis, J. G., Indonesian palaeography: a history of writing in Indonesia from the beginnings to c. A.d. 1500 (Handbuch der Orientalistik, Abt. III, Bd. IV, Lief. 1), Leiden and Köln, 1975.Google Scholar

10 KNAW 98 (7) in Leiden University Library.

11 This may have occurred in the reign of Pakubuwana II (1726–49) of Kartasura, whea what looks like a pasisir script but which in fact would probably be more appropriately described as an archaic script is found.

12 Unless otherwise indicated, the description of events here is taken from de Jonge, J. K. J. and van Deventer, M. L. (ed.), De opkomst van het Nederlandsch gezag in Oost-Indië: verzameling van onuitgegeven stukken uit het oud-koloniaal archief, 16 vols., 's-Gravenhage, 1862–1909, II, 21–2, 35, 54, 395, iv, pp. xciv–cxvGoogle Scholar; Djajadiningrat, Hoesein, Critische beschouwing van de Sadjarah Bantěn: bijdrage ter kenschetsing van de Javaansche geschiedschrijving, Haarlem, 1913, 164–7Google Scholar. English documents concerning these events are to be found in Sainsbury, (ed.), Calendar of State Papers 1617–1621, pp. 213 ffGoogle Scholar. (see especially the documents on pp. 252–4, 288, 295–6, 405–6).

See also Meilink-Roelofsz, M. A. P., Asian trade and European influence in the Indonesian archipelago between 1500 and about 1630, The Hague, 1962, 245–55Google Scholar; de Graaf, H. J., Oeschiedenis van Indonesië, 's-Gravenhage, 1949, 149–51Google Scholar; Vlekke, B. H. M., Nusantara: a history of Indonesia, The Hague, 1965, 138–40.Google Scholar

13 See Djajadiningrat, 36, 126, 194. In 1638 the king adopted the title of Sultan (the first ruler of Bantěn to do so) and an Arabic name.

14 ibid., 36, 161–2.

15 Pigeaud, , III, 287Google Scholar. The title is also used for holy weapons and regalia.

16 The letter can be found in both Colenbrander, H. T. and Coolhaas, W. Ph. (ed.), Jan Pietersz. Coen: Bescheiden omtrent zijn bedrijf in Indië, 7 vols., 's-Gravenhage, 1919–1953, I, 523Google Scholar; and de Jonge, and van Deventer, , IV, 196Google Scholar. There are some variations in the two readings of the document.

17 Instead of the Malay causative suffix -kan, the scribe writes pěpět in the final syllable as in the Javanese (krama) causative suffix -akěn.

18 The scribe retains the Old Javanese character (obsolete in Modern Javanese except in the combination taling-larung for o) to represent a long o in the final syllable. Thus the Arabic spelling () is preserved, whereas when jawi (Arabic) script was used in more modern Indonesian and Malay the word was often written , reflecting the shift of the stress to the penultimate syllable in accordance with its pronunciation in Malay/Indonesian. Arabic z is represented by writing ja with three dots above it.

19 It appears that the writer has put the possessive before the thing qualified. The normal Malay order would be suruhan Kapitan, (as in fol. 324: ada suruhan Pangeran). Similar constructions are found in Blagden, 92–5; in lines 1 and 10 of the first letter are found Raja Sultan Abu Hayal surat datang…, which Blagden translates as ‘Letter of Sultan Abu Hayat to…’ and … bagaimana Raja Portukal jong dan harta dan lasykar…, which he translates as ‘How shall the junks, goods and soldiers of the King of Portugal…’. In the first case, however, a better translation might be ‘Raja Sultan Abu Hayat writes to…’, and other understandings are also possible for the second (e.g. ‘… how about it, King of Portugal, [if your] junks, goods, and soldiers…’).

20 See p. 132, n. 17.

21 A Javanese word used to end letters.

22 See p. 132, n. 19.

23 Kapitan Mur was the common form of reference for J. P. Coen. In the much later Javanese texts of the Baron Sakenḍer myths, he is called Mur Jangkung (i.e. Jan Coen); see Ricklefs, , 400.Google Scholar

24 Their names are not clear. The second is perhaps Si Bělědang.

25 See p. 131, n. 16.

26 See p. 130 above.

27 From sakit. Rather than the normal Malay active prefix ending in ny, the scribe writes n, an older Javanese form (see the discussion in Prijohoetomo, , Javaansche spraakkunst, Leiden, 1937, 61).Google Scholar

28 See p. 132, n. 17.

29 There were apparently almost 100 of them in the end; see de Jonge, and van Deventer, , IV, p. cxii.Google Scholar