Add MS 12357

Part 4 of a series of four Bone diaries, in Bugis language and script, Add. 12354-7.

Annotated in pencil on front end-paper: 'Personal diary of Rajah of Boni'.

Buginese diary, prepared for A.D. 1795 to 1825, with two facing pages per calendar month, with many pp. for 1813-25 left blank.

The keeper of the diary must have been a person in the immediate vicinity of the king of Bone. He takes care of all kinds of household affairs, the building of a palace (the notes on ff. 3v.-4r. about the palace Saodĕnrae, built 22 June 1806, are very elaborate), and the purification of regalia. He looks after the royal ricefield, introduces officials of vassals and allied states, receives fines and other obligatory payments, arranges deerhunts, royal tours, and state affairs, and supervises road construction. He makes notes on ceremonies observed in royal families when the old Buginese shamans (bissu) perform, and on Islamic ceremonies. The diarist considers himself to belong to si-Bone, ‘the college of state officials', and gives orders to vassal chiefs. The MS provides much material for the study of Buginese history in this period; often dated notes not belonging to the diary itself are found. On f. 125v. a note that the diarist was born on 16 Dec/25 Dhu'l-Ka'da A.H. 11 90 [? the beginning of A.D. 1777]. On f. 6v. the full name of the king, Ahmad aṣ-Ṣāliḥ Shams ad-Dīn fī mulkihi wa-sulṭānihi Bone. Among other notes: poetry, especially warsongs (elong-osĕng) (ff. 19v., 22v., 204r., 409-12); sabo-songs (invocations of the spirits of the wood) (ff. 3v.4r., 164v). See Matthes, 1875, pp. 93-4. (This description from Dr. A. A. Cense)

At the end of the volume, after f. 413v, are five further folios numbered 1-5, perhaps comprising documents originally found inside the diary.