[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for that Gustav.

I do have a few of Jessup's books, she is a good writer & she produces pretty interesting books, but like all of us, she does make the occasional error, and she has been flim-flamed on more than one occasion.

I had a look at her notes on the carriage, and what she says is this:-

"Its full title is Singhabarwang Penambahan Pakuwati, meaning the lion commander of Pakuwati; both singha and barwang (barong) mean lion."

I cannot understand the name in this way.

I do not have much knowledge of Cirebon, just the general things that everybody knows, it is a town that has a very multi cultural population and a number of languages are used there, including the Cirebon dialect of Javanese & of Sundanese.

I read the name "Singhabarwang Penambahan Pakuwati" as if it was Sundanese, I struggle with Sundanese, but I thought that this name was Sundanese because I did not know the word "barwang" as Javanese, and when I ran this name past a native speaker of Sundanese he offered that "barwang" was probably bar + wang --- as I commented in post #7, and that this might be understood in the way I have noted.

Now Gustav has directed us to Jessup's notes in "Court Arts of Indonesia" and when I read these notes I had strong disagreement with Jessup's translation, simply because the word "panembahan" does not mean, and cannot be understood as "commander" this word is Javanese and it is a princely title, thus, as it precedes a proper name, it is the title applied to Pakuwati, ie, Panembahan Pakuwati.

Panembahan Pakuwati (or Pakungwati) was a descendant of Sunan Jati and he built a new kraton in Cirebon.

So, at that point I got off my backside and started to look at references instead of just writing what was already in my head.

Jessup tells us that the word "barwang" means "barong".

Well, it does not.

I did not know the word in Javanese, I assumed it was Sundanese, but I could not find it in a Sundanese dictionary, I could not find it in my little pocket Javanese dictionary either, and a native speaker of Sundanese had made sense of it as I have explained.

However, when I went to a solid, academic dictionary of Javanese (Balai Bahasa Jogjakarta) I did find "barwang", it is Krama and the meaning is given as "bruwang". Now, here was another word I did not know : "bruwang", so I went to the Balai Pustaka entry for "bruwang", which is Krama Inggil, and what I found was this:-

"Arane kewan galak awulu kandel bisa ngadeg kanthi sikel loro, congore dawa"

I translate this as:-

"A wild animal with thick fur, can stand on two legs, it has a long snout"

This is a description that perfectly fits a bear. The Bahasa Indonesia word for "bear" is "beruang". Essentially the same word, and spoken, it is difficult to differentiate between the two words.

The word "barwang" does not mean "barong", nor does it mean "lion".

The word "panembahan" does not mean "commander".

The two words "singha" and "barong", whether placed together as a single word, or separated into two words does mean "male lion".

Jessup's translation was wrong, this "Singhabarong Penambahan Pakuwati" in English is "Penambahan Pakuwati's Lion Carriage". ( in English the word "lion" is male, the female is "lioness", & in the Javanese title the word "kereta" (carriage) is understood)

Spellings can vary.

Looking at this title it is a bit difficult for me to understand why the carriage is named thus.

Just guessing, but I feel that this name might be drawing upon the Cirebon "Macan Ali" symbol which I have been told is also referred to as "Singha Barwang", there is strong lion symbolism in Islam, but perhaps the strongest is the "Lion of God", Asadullah (Hazrat Ali), which in Cirebon becomes "Macan Ali", a tiger instead of a lion.

So why is this carriage also named as "barwang"? Bears have got nothing at all to do with it.

Even after all this analysis, there is still no sense in it, and I am still inclined to think we might have a little bit of grass-roots humorous comment in this name, and that humorous tag has lasted.

Anyway, my initial naming was close, but not close enough, I honestly forget exactly what I saw 40 odd years ago, but since I was told it was Peksi Naga Liman, it probably was. I did not know there were three of these carriages.

I wonder where the third one is.