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Old 23rd July 2018, 03:03 PM   #1
Bjorn
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Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 188
Default Hierarchical ranks in the Surakarta keraton

In earlier threads, Alan has shared the colour coding of Surakarta wrongko sunggingan and pendok as they pertain to the keraton of Surakarta. I have copy-pasted the relevant section from another thread.

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Sunggingan:-
Colour means the base colour:-
White or yellow --- bupati or the royal family
Gold --- pangeran
Sea blue --- penewu
Light green --- mentri

Pendok colours:-
Red --- royal family or a bupati
Green --- penewu or mentri
Dark grey --- lurah
Black --- jajar and may also be used by all ranks, and for wear at a funeral

Court clowns can wear any colour sunggingan or pendok, but must wear it with a rojomolo ukiran
Cantung balung have same rules as clowns, but usually wear poleng motif.
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Now my question is, what exactly do these titles mean (I've underlined them in the copy-pasted segment above)? As I recall, a bupati is a district governor (head of a kabupaten). But what about the other ranks? What were people in these positions responsible for, and how many - if any - people did they govern. I seem to recall that a penewu was responsible for some 1000 people, but I could be remembering this incorrectly.
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