Alan, if you noticed my post #36 you will see that i have placed a link to this published text in the original Old Dutch. Tricky to translate, but certainly doable i suppose. If you go to this text you will see that it is a searchable database. However, searches for "Susuhunan", "Sussuhunam" and "Sussuhunan" produce no hits whatsoever. I realize that Maurice is busy and my not return to this discussion anytime soon, but i am curious where the English translation he provided came from that uses the word "Sussuhunam" and what word was actual used in the original text in it's place. :shrug:
Btw, just to clarify, i am not in the least skeptical that suasa as a talismanic metal could be wide ranging. My skepticism lay in the claim that it would ever be preferred over purer gold materials.

Sorry for my misunderstanding of your scepticism David, however even if it was directed at the preference question, I believe we could possibly allow that in some places amongst some people, suasa might have been preferred to gold for specific purposes.

However we look at this matter, it seems to me that we're all pretty much on the same page.

I did not look at the Old Dutch text, I cannot make any sense of Modern Dutch, so I would have even less hope of making sense of Old Dutch.

Link in post 36

I've had a look at your link David.

See page 204, last para above the line and "V HOOFTDEEL"

It is spelt as "SUSSUHUNAM" with the double"S" looking like "FF"

So the published copy does have this word in place

Hello Alan,

E. g. Ma Huan (earlier than Rumpf's account though); those Chinese annals seem to have a quite similar perspective than the VOC and other early European accounts; certainly, all have to be taken with a lump of salt.

Regards,
Kai

Hello David,

This is a general feature (for digital texts) which does not work with photographed sources as in this case.

Regards,
Kai

I thought I was pretty familiar with the Ying Yai Sheng Lan, Kai, seems like I need to go back and do another read of it --- something I've been doing for about 50 years now --- I cannot recall anything in these reports that refers to suasa. Can you save me some time by directing me to the relevant passages?

Thanks.

Hello Alan,

Rumpf's text mentions susuhunan several times; in the middle of page 206 he specifically mentions "Sussuhunam Amancurat" when reporting on a military episode in April 25th, 1680. [This fits well with the Dutch helping to reinstall Sunan Amangkurat II during this period and also his adversary "rebel troenajaja" aka Raden Trunajaya is mentioned.]

While it is possible that one of the editors of Rumpf's work did sneak in the title susuhunan before its publishing in 1705, I believe this to be pretty unlikely. Are there really no other sources on the use of this title during late Mataram reigns?

Regards,
Kai

Hello Alan,

I was not referring to suasa being specifically discussed in any anals that I remember. I was just trying to get across that the Chinese anals and Rumpf's work are important early sources that deserve to be taken seriously (or rather properly researched) even if some details are obviously off (based on second-hand info or misunderstanding).

Regards,
Kai

Without wanting to get sidetracked too much: AFAIK, the later rulers of Mataram (and Surakarta) are quite universely referred to as "Sunan" which is just a short version of "Susuhunan" - any reasons why this should not be a contemporary usage?

Regards,
Kai

Thank you very much for your clarification Kai.

None of this can be regarded as "sidetrack". When we look at early reports it is the language used in those reports that gives an indication as to their authenticity and reliability.

Sometimes later editions of a report will include words that were not in common usage at the time the original report was written; sometimes a European will use a word that although it would have existed at the time of the report, was not in use in the area covered by the report, or was not used in the way in which the European used it.

These are the clues that permit verification.

Incidentally, this method of verification is not exclusive to early reports dealing with old S.E.Asia, it is a method that is applied to the analysis of reports from anywhere and any time, and is a tool that I have used in my profession for many years.

To understand how reliable any report may be it is essential that the language in that report must be analysed. It can never be taken at face value.

Yes, I agree that the work of G.E. Rumphius must be given some weight. I further agree that in this respect his reports are similar to those of the Ying Yai Sheng Lan. My apologies for my misunderstanding of your original comment.

The truly interesting response you have provided is the information that the Dutch were referring to Amangkurat as "susuhunan".

This is so interesting that it forced me back to some reference books to refresh my memory, which would seem to be at fault.

What I found was this:-

the Javanese word "susuhunan" appears to have first been used in a royal title by the second ruler of the second kingdom of Mataram, Raden Mas Jolang --- Sri Susuhunan Adi Prabu Hanyakrawati Senapati-ing-Ngalaga Mataram --- the son of Panembahan Senopati, the first ruler of Mataram. This would have been very early in the 17th century.

The appearance of the word in royal titles after this is very inconsistent and in fact gives the impression that the titles varied according to who wrote the book or report.

Susuhunan does not appear to be known by Zoetmulder, so it can probably be taken not to have existed in Old Javanese. The rulers of Mataram are acknowledged as one of the prime moving forces in the emergence of Modern Javanese, so it is likely that the second ruler of Mataram originated the word, or at least, one of his court poets did, at his command.

Pakubuwana II was the last ruler of Kartasura and the first ruler of Surakarta. It seems that he began to use the word "susuhunan" as a part of his title after the shift to Surakarta.

"Susuhunan" has continued in use as a part of the title of the rulers of Surakarta.

The word "sinuhun" is sometimes taken as a synonym, or a derivative of "susuhunan" This is erroneous. "Sinuhun" must be understood as "lord", and is a part of the royal title of the rulers of Surakarta, it is used colloquially to refer to these rulers.


"State and Statecraft in Old Java" --- Soemarsaid Moertono is an accepted reference for politics in Mataram. Moertono claims that "susuhunan" is a Javanese word that is the result of changing a root word, "sunan", by interpolation of the infixes to create a word inferring religious authority, thus "sunan" is the original short form, "susuhunan" is the later Javanese form. However, he then goes on to claim that "sunan" has the word "suwun" as its root, which he gives as "to bow one's head". Regrettably Moertono's interpretations are at odds with current lexicographers. This tends to cast doubt on his opinions in this matter, in spite of the fact that he is Javanese.

However, De Graaf accepts the title as having religious implications, and this opinion must be taken seriously.

The word "sunan" was used by the walis as a part of their title, the walis were the apostles of Islam in Jawa, by inclusion of this word in a royal title it inferred that the ruler was also a religious leader. However, lexicographers do not accept "sunan" as a short form, or abbreviation of "susuhunan" , they regard "sunan" as having an Islamic association, and "susuhunan" as having a Javanese association, in fact, two separate words.

If we accept Moertono the developmental progression could be :-

suwun > sunan > susuhunan

even though I'm not certain we can accept this, it certainly does look like a nice neat solution to the matter.

Which brings us back to the use of "susuhunan" in the Rumphius publication.

It would appear that Europeans at that time were in the habit of referring to the rulers of Mataram as the "susuhunan", whether or not that word formed a part of the official title. If this is indeed the case, the appearance of "susuhunan" in Rumphius' work is not surprising.

Sorry Kai, but you are incorrect on that one. Try putting in a word you know is there such as "Suaffa" or "Batavia". The search engine works just fine and the one on the bottom will give you indictor marks of all the places in the text where the word appears. Hover over the indicator and the passage will appear in a pop-up or click on the indicator and it will bring you directly to the page.
What this tells me is the the words "Sussuhunam" or "Susuhunan" are not in this text.
However, what i failed to do was to use "ff" instead of "ss" when searching the text. So one must search for "Suffuhunam" instead. :o The only references point for this word in the text appear to be three, on pages 204, 205 and 206. ;)

Is there any authoritative information available giving the composition of suassa?

I suspect it is a somewhat variable mix that was determined by availability, local tradition, or even the smith's personal composition.

There seems to be a good deal of color variation.

Alloys have always fascinated me, especially the ones that go against the Western tradition of maintaining a certain gold or silver standard.

What comes to mind are the many Japanese alloys developed for sword mount furniture, where minuscule amounts of precious metals were mixed with copper and other metals and treated with various chemicals achieving colors unavailable to traditional western metalwork.

This is something that should be studied.