Large lantaka with Jawi script engraved
 

Please take a look at this thread that's been on an Ebay board for a few days. I just discovered this board and think members here may have more to add. I have sent digital pix of the script to the person suggested to see if he can have it translated. I am particularly interested in suggestions on the possible identities of "King Hadam" and "Mohammad Yousuf" which are the two names contained in the script, per preliminary translations by Arabic (not Jawi) speakers. I would ultimately like to know where this item was made. I acquired it in the Philippines many years ago, and the people who had it thought it came from Mindinao or thereabouts.

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.js...=1150994936856

An Opinion
 

Cannon such as this were indeed used on European ships ; they were known as swivel guns or 'murdering pieces' and were used to sweep the decks of an enemy vessel before boarding . They were indeed made in Europe also ; and out of brass .
I don't think I saw a picture of the cannon entire ; perhaps from a view of the overall piece and its decorations we may determine whether it is of European or Borneo/Moro manufacture .

Edit:

Okay , I scrolled down a bit more and found some pictures of the 'lantaka' in question. The decorations appear to be *very* European in style ; nothing like the traditional okir designs associated with the Moro cultures .

So I'm thinking you've either got an export/trade piece or a Euro murdering piece that wound up being captured or traded to the East . This just doesn't look like native work .

YMMV

Not Brass, Bronze

Name of Moro Ruler
 

Greetings all,

My two cents.
From the engraved script, I'm guessing it was the name of the owner of the lantaka (rentaka in Malay). My guess reading of it is 'Pemaka Datu Muhammad Iskandar Jamalul Kiram, anaknya Muhammad Tunnu?

I'm not sure of the extent of Jawi use in Moroland in the past, but it was the predominant script for the Brunei Malays, and was used by the Bugis alongside their indigenous script, so most Islamised peoples in the region are familiar with it, at least through the medium of Malay, which was the main trade Lingua Franca.

The example here is similar to the ones in the collection of the National Museum in Kuala Lumpur, as well as one I saw in Kuching, Sarawak some time ago. My theory is that they are local small sized cannons, though aesthetically influenced by European styles, such as the dolphin handles and scroll work you usually see on VOC cannons in the Dutch East Indies.

I might be wrong, but I guess the Kris wielding warriors of this forum would be able to extend some much needed help :)

Thanks! Here are pix.
 

Thanks very much for the input so far, particularly for the name of the ruler, no one had ever come up with that before (probably because I never asked a Malaysian!)

Anyway, so the pictures are more readily available than on the other post, I'm reposting them here. I'm new to posting here so I don't know if the pix will show up or not.

Pictures:

<br><br>
<img src="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/6jpg.jpg"><br><br><img src="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/2jpg.jpg"><br><br><img src="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/3jpg.jpg"><br><br>and a few more:<br><br><br><a href="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/1jpg.jpg">http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/1jpg.jpg</a><br><a href="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/4jpg.jpg">http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/4jpg.jpg</a><br><a href="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/5jpg.jpg">http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/5jpg.jpg</a><br><a href="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/7jpg.jpg">http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/7jpg.jpg</a><br><a href="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/8jpg.jpg">http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/8jpg.jpg</a>
<br><br>
</td>
</tr>

2nd try for pix
 

Now I see how you do it in this forum:

for Raja Muda re: Jawi script translation
 

Raja, thanks again for "romanizing" the script. I copied that over to the Ebay board and a frequent poster there, an American expat. living in Bali, did a partial translation of it, but he did not know one word. I'm copying part of his post here. Ultimately I'd like to get at the full meaning of the script. All I know now is that it has one or two names in it, but I'm not really sure of their relationship.

Since the inscription makes note, “anaknya Muhammad Tunnu, meaning child, or in this case son, of Muhammed Tannu, presumably this Muhammed Tannu was an important man...a “datu” (headman) of even greater stature than Iskander Jamalul. You may want to post a question on that forum as to what “pemaka” means as I can’t interpret it, being a Malay word that did not make its way into Bahasa Indonesia.

Thanks very much in advance!

No Moro at all. More Portuguese/Indonesian, especially with the type of dolphins in the middle and the floral style at the end.

Thanks Battara.
 

>No Moro at all.

Maybe I assumed too much. I guess I need to know more about exactly what the title "Datu" indicates. I thought it was unique to Moros, but if not, someone please let me know.

If there is any place to look up this particular, named Datu, please let me know-would like to know where he lived and when.

web definition of Datu
 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...ition&ct=title

So now I am smarter, the title of Datu has much broader application than just certain Moros in the Philippines.

Reference to son of Muhammad greater than Iskander might point to one of the Mindanao Sultanates? there is one branch with these two names in close succession.
Not sure of Tunnu and Kamdan, unless these are translated wrong or part of the full names, the others are more common.
Any date on the lantaka?

No date on lantaka
 

>Any date on the lantaka?

The only script or writing of any kind is that shown in my fragmentary pictures grouped on the ebay site, inked above, and since it is in Jawi script, I can't read it. But Raja looked at it and did not come up with any date. Come to think of it, I've never heard of a lantaka with a date on it, but that doesn't mean anything, I've only seen a tiny percentage of the lantakas in the US anyway.

I've noticed that mine, although not identical, bears a very strong family resemblance to the first and last of the large lantakas shown as fig. 519 (1) and (6) in Stone's famous work (A GLOSSARY OF THE CONSTRUCTION, DECORATION, AND USE OF ARMS AND ARMOR ....). The 6 lantakas shown in that figure were all from the Theodore Offerman collection, which was sold at auction in 1937. The catalog for the sale "is around" here and there, does anyone have it, and if so could you check if there is any additional information in it on the origins of the pieces shown? I would have thought Stone would have included that info, as he did for a great many other items in his book, but there's no specific provenance given for those fabulous lantakas.

Hi,
Just my two-bobs' worth:
'Datu' had/has various meanings, depending on the time and region (throughout the South-east Asian archipelago) of usage. It can mean anything from a village chief to a king (cf. 'raja', 'tumenggung). Remember, in the past, it was easy for anyone to open up an area (in fact, quite customery for members of a ruling family) and set up a 'state' and give himself/herself any title... woe betide that person should some existing ruler challenge that title!:)
In some areas, 'datu' is even accepted to be the origin of 'ratu' (king).

Cheers.