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The date of the SOAS manuscript of the Sjair perang Mengkasar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Russell Jones
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Extract

This poem by a Macassar Malay describes the successful war of the Dutch against Macassar from 1666 to 1669. It was edited by Dr. C. Skinner for a London Ph.D. and published in 1963. The manuscript of the original poem is no longer available, but it is deduced that it must have been written between July 1669 and June 1670. The name of the author is recorded, an Enci' Amin; we learn from a comment in the poem itself that it was recorded on Chinese paper. It is unusual to know even this much about the original manuscripts of works in traditional Malay literature. Of the two extant manuscripts the earlier, preserved in Leiden, contains only part of the. poem. Although the name of the copyist is not given Dr. Skinner, continuing a fascinating piece of investigation by the Dutch scholar H. T. Damstè, is able to demonstrate with reasonable certainty that it was a Dutch lady, Cornelia Valentijn, wife of the famous Franςis; furthermore, that it would have been copied c. 1710 in Ambon.

Type
Notes and Communications
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , June 1975 , pp. 418 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1975

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References

1 Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Deel 40, 's-Gravenhage, 1963.

2 Skinner, 43.

3 Skinner, 218.

4 By a remarkable chance, since this was written a third manuscript of the Sjair Perang Mengkasar has come to light. It was an item in the collection of the late Sir Thomas Phillips(1792–1872) sold by Messrs. Sotheby and Co. in London on 27 November 1974 (see catalogue, pp. 38–9). It contains verses 1–434 of the text, and dates probably from the early eighteenth century. It was purchased by an agent for resale.

5 Skinner, 48–50; BKI, cix, 2, 1953, 164–79.

6 Skinner, 48.

7 See Churchill, W. A., Watermarks in paper in the XVII and XVIII centuries, Amsterdam, 1935, 53.Google Scholar

8 See Skinner, 47.

9 As evidence of the close contact between these two scholars, Dr. Bastin recalls that, when John Griffiths was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 1 May 1806, his first proposer was Wm. Marsden.

10 India Office Library, London, under: CH.31.F.2; G 35/26, 5–6–99 item 68 and 24–12–99 item 39; G 35/38, p. 165.

11 Dr. Bastin, John, The British in West Sumatra, 1685–1825, Kuala Lumpur, 1965, 118.Google Scholar

12 India Office Library, file G 35/26.

13 India Office Library, file G/35/24, letter no. 308.