Raja Ambong: a Malay fairy tale. {Text with summary in English
W. E. Maxwell published “Raja Ambong: a Malay fairy tale” in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1887, presenting a Jawi-script text with an English summary of a cheritra (romance) attributed to the Malay literary figure Mir Hassan. The tale, recorded in Bandar Menggafura (Manggarai, Flores) in July 1886, narrates the adventures of Raja Ambong of Tanjong Bima and his sister Princess Bonsu Chandra Rupa, tracing a magical sea-voyage that encompasses encounters with jinn, dragon kings, and multiple kingdoms across the Indian Ocean.
Summary
Maxwell’s publication serves as both a philological document and a piece of early colonial-era folklore collection. The tale itself is a classic Malay cheritra in which the orphaned Raja Ambong, having reigned for seven years and nine months at Tanjong Bima, receives a dream-vision directing him to construct a magic vessel, the Batara Saludang Mayang, from a merbau tree on an enchanted plain. The construction requires the services of a legendary hunchback carpenter, Tukang Bongkok Bonsu Bangsawan, whose supernatural skill exceeds all other craftsmen—a figure banished from Java for his excellence. The ship’s launch demands the use of first-time pregnant women as rollers, a ritual detail that Maxwell reproduces without commentary.
The narrative then follows Raja Ambong’s voyages to seven named kingdoms—Champa, Chala, Tanjong Jambu Lipa, Teluk Jambu Ayer, Dong Sip, Tanjong Chamara Bunga, and Pulau Mayang Manggi—where he encounters the fleet of Si Dewa Mambang (son of the King of the Jinn), defeats him in single combat, marries his sister Princess RENEK JINTAN, and subsequently marries Princess MAYANG MANGGI of the last-named kingdom after a series of magical shape-shifting episodes. The tale concludes with the defeat of Mambang Bonsu, a rival suitor, and the return of the party to Tanjong Bima, where CHE ALANG of Linggi is married to Princess Chandra Rupa.
The text is of particular interest for its syncretic religious imagery, blending Hindu-Buddhist cosmology (Dewatas, Naga, the seven divisions of the earth) with Islamic elements (rose-water, sandalwood incantations, the tepong tawar holy water), and for its detailed depiction of maritime magic, including the omens (langkah) observed before voyages and the specific armament of the magic ship.
Key Findings
- The tale was recorded in Bandar Menggafura (Manggarai, Flores) on 22 July 1886 (10 Shawwal 1302 AH), indicating the circulation of Malay literary texts well beyond the Malay Peninsula into eastern Indonesia (p. 54).
- The Batara Saludang Mayang was constructed from a merbau tree that, after the hunchback carpenter’s incantations, reduced to a single stem “not thicker than a man’s forearm,” measuring twenty-five fathoms in length when on the ground and completed in seven days (pp. 59–60).
- The ship’s launch required an odd number (seven, five, or three) of first-time pregnant married women to serve as rollers; only the daughters of the Laksamana, Tumonggong, and Orang Kaya Besar were available, and their husbands were seized and bound to prevent disturbance (p. 59).
- The magic ship’s armament included two mariam (cannons) in the bow space, two in the stern, seven snapang (crossbows) on the upper deck, a bota crouching at the bow, a pelangi drinking in the bow space, a jin praying above the cabin, and a langsuyar (vampire) perched on the mast-top (p. 60).
- Si Dewa Mambang’s vessel had been becalmed for twelve years, its anchor caught in the roof of the Raja Naga’s palace at the bottom of the sea (p. 62).
- Raja Ambong’s swordsmanship, inherited from Si Raja Nandong who received it from Sang Barma Dewa in Menangkabau, allowed each cut to carry three minor cuts and each downward blow to fall seven times without being raised (p. 70).
Conclusion
Maxwell presents the tale as a specimen of Malay literary culture circulating in the eastern archipelago, without offering extensive interpretive commentary. The definitive historical takeaway is that the cheritra genre, here attributed to Mir Hassan, maintained a living oral and written tradition across the Indonesian archipelago into the late nineteenth century, preserving a syncretic cosmology that blended pre-Islamic Hindu-Buddhist elements with Islamic magical practice, and that such texts were still being performed and recorded in places as distant from the Malay heartland as Manggarai.
Context
- W. E. Maxwell was a British colonial administrator serving in Sarawak (British North Borneo); his collection of Malay literary texts in the 1880s was part of a broader colonial-era effort to document indigenous cultures, and this publication appears in the JSBRAS as the third of Mir Hassan’s Cheritras (the first two, “Sri Rama” and “Raja Donan,” having appeared in preceding numbers) (p. 55).
- The recording location in Manggarai (Flores) rather than in the Malay Peninsula or Sumatra suggests that Maxwell obtained the text through contacts in the eastern Indonesian islands, possibly via the Dutch colonial administration or local Malay-speaking communities in the region.