Indonesian letters in the Public Record Office

bibliography

text notes

list of words

Bibliography

title:		Indonesian letters in the Public Record Office
edition:		Annabel Teh Gallop, “Seventeenth-century Indonesian letters in the Public Record Office”, Indonesia and the Malay World, vol.31 no.91 (2003}:412-39.
sources:		materials in the Public Record Office, London, as listed below.
dates:		1605 - 1680, as below.
provenance:		1:  Ternate;     2-6:  Banten.
words:		1585 words.
references:		to the letters (1-6) and lines of the printed edition.

 

This text was kindly provided by Annabel Gallop

 

Archival material

1 — PRO SP 102/4/24

Letter from Sultan Said Syah of Ternate to James I, [June 1605]

2 — PRO SP 102/4/50

Letter from the Pangeran Ratu of Banten to King Charles I, [1628].

3 — PRO SP 102/4/37

Letter from Pangeran Anom of Banten to King Charles I of England, [1635].

4 — PRO Ext.8/2, f.46

Letter from Sultan Abul Fath Abdul Fatah of Banten to Charles II, [31 January 1675]

5 — PRO Ext.8/2, f.58

Letter from Sultan Abul Fath Abdul Fatah of Banten to Christian V of Denmark, [31 January 1675]

6 — PRO CO 77/14, ff. 22-23

Letter from Sultan Abdul Kahar Abul Nasar of Surasowan [Banten] to Charles II, 23 January 1680 — in romanised Malay and English (Malay only included).

 

Editorial notes and bibliography

Gallop's article provides images of the letters, careful diplomatic transcriptions, together with translations into English.

Special characters:

Θ   in this text indicates a paragraph punctuation mark, being a small circle with a dot in it.

ð   represents dal with three dots below, sometimes one dot, signifying the Javanese retroflex /d/.

In the banten letters, the doubling mark tashdid (ω) is placed above consonants that follow a pepet (ĕ), a practice common in the very oldest Jawi spellings:  thus, for instance, k.r(ω)s = kĕris,   i.e keris.

Other transcriptions:

The Banten letters are also found in Pudjiastuti's Perang, Dagang, Persahabatan: Surat-Surat Sultan Banten.  See Surat Kesultanan Banten.  There may be differences between the transcriptions.

PRO 2 = Banten 2

PRO 3 = Banten 3

PRO 4 = Banten 8

PRO 5 = Banten 9

PRO 6 = Banten 10

References:

•  E.P. Wieringa, “Dotting the dal and penetrating the letters: The Javanese origin of the Syair seribu masalah and its Bantenese spelling”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 159.4 (2003): 499-518.

•  M. C. Ricklefs, “Banten and the Dutch in 1619: Six Early ‘pasar Malay’ Letters”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 39.1 (1976): 128-136.

•  W.G. Shellabear, “An Account of some of the Oldest Malay MSS. now Extant&rdquo, Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, no.31 (1898): 107-151.

 

Preparation

Added:  September 2008

A pre-publication digital version of text was provided by Annabel Gallop.  In case of difference with the published version, the reading of the published text is to be preferred.