The Kalang — also Kalang’s, in Javanese orang Kalang — are the people of Java’s north coast whom the Sadjarah Banten and the Babad Tanah Djawi record as Javanese but not “real” Javanese, and whom De Roo de la Faille identifies as Djawaka of lang-ka, i.e. as Hindu-Javanese of the Sumatran Overwal brought to Java as war-booty from the ancestral land of Taroema. They are the principal ethnonym by which De Roo de la Faille ties the Javanese chronicle tradition to the Aru-Atjeh sphere.
The Orang Hoed of Tjilatjap
When the Assistent-Resident De Wolff van Westerrode at Tjilatjap wished to know more of the so-called Orang Hoed of the local Kalang’s — who lived isolated around a cemetery, and were suspected of being a survival of some older community — he had a trusted Javanese offer himself for admission. The man returned with the report that, if he wished to be admitted, he would have to undergo a three-year probation; he had only learned that, on death, the soul of these people was thought to incarnate in a “white ape, called ka-rèh-an”, and that they yearly went up to a holy place in a desa Tenggara-wangi in the district Djamboe of the regency Poerwakerta. Further he could not bring it.
Decoding: ka-rèh-an and Tenggara-wangi
The “ka-rèh-an” white ape, De Roo de la Faille decodes as a bedekte taal form for a “in a holy-white land home-belonging sol-andjana Djawa-ka — réhan” — i.e. the Hindu-Javanese ancestral land of Taroema on the Sumatran Overwal. The desa Tenggara-wangi he decodes as “in the south-east (toenggara) located orangi”, i.e. as Aroem — koe-T-aroem-a — the ancestral land of Aroe whose “fragrant” (aroem) name the place preserved. The Kalang’s of Tjilatjap were, in De Roo de la Faille’s reading, the Javanese rememberers of the Sumatran ancestral land of Taroema.
The Kalang of Rembang
The Rembang region of Java’s north coast — the place whose name De Roo de la Faille reads as the Ari-ke-mbang of the Sumatran Overwal — was, in De Roo de la Faille’s reading, the principal Kalang settlement of Java. The Soenan Kalidjaga legend’s “forest of Djatisekar” — to the north-east of Lasem — is, in De Roo de la Faille’s reading, the same Ari-ke-mbang place-world, and the pasar at which Pangeran Bonang converted Raden Sahid was a Kalang pasar.
The lang-ka etymology
The ethnonym Kalang De Roo de la Faille decodes as ka-lang — i.e. as the ka (people) of lang-ka (the Sumatran ancestral land). The same lang-ka, De Roo de la Faille argues, underlies the Langka of the Javanese chronicle tradition (the Langka of Rama’s adversary Rahwana) and the Lang-ka of the Lang-ka-w-i-dja-ya of the Woekir Tjanggal inscription of 732 — the lang-ka of the ancestral land of Taroema on the Sumatran Overwal.
Significance
For AcehWiki, the Kalang are the principal ethnonym by which De Roo de la Faille ties the Javanese chronicle tradition to the Aru-Atjeh sphere — the Javanese rememberers of the Sumatran ancestral land of Taroema, whose Orang Hoed of Tjilatjap preserved the bedekte taal forms of the older Hindu-Buddhist geography into the colonial period. Their identification as Djawaka of lang-ka also marks them as the Javanese link in the Pasej-Atjeh-Java triangle of the early sixteenth century.
See Also
- Djawaka
- Taroema
- Aroe
- Soenan Kalidjaga
- Soenan Bonang
- Djatisaripa
- Rembang
- Tjilatjap
- Orang Hoed
- Bedekte taal
- Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java
Source
Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java, by P. de Roo de la Faille (Den Haag: Maart 1954), Inleiding, pp. 5-6, and chapter “Over Soenan Kalidjaga”, pp. 43-44.