Large lantaka with Jawi script engraved

[cannonmn]

Now I see how you do it in this forum:

[cannonmn]

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!

[Battara]

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

[cannonmn]

>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.

[cannonmn]

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.

[MABAGANI]

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?

[cannonmn]

>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.

[Pangeran Datu]

Originally Posted by cannonmn

>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.

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.