Pati Oenoes — also Pate Unus, in Javanese tradition Pangeran Sabrang Lor, and in De Roo de la Faille’s conflation Raden Sahid / Soenan Kalidjaga — was the early-sixteenth-century Javanese commander who, as lord of Japara (and later Demak), led the great Javanese naval attack on Portuguese Malacca in January 1513, married his younger sister around 1523–1524 to the Paseier Faletahan who became Sunan Gunung Jati, and is identified by De Roo de la Faille with the Raden Sahid of the Babad Tanah Djawi and the Sadjarah Banten. The identification, which De Roo de la Faille defends at length in Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java, makes Pati Oenoes a key link in the Pasej–Atjeh–Java triangle of the early sixteenth century.
The 1513 attack on Malacca
In January 1513, Pati Oenoes — then lord of Japara — led a great Javanese fleet against Portuguese Malacca in an attempt to retake the city for the Muslim trade. The attack failed; Pati Oenoes saved himself and his fighting-junk by a hurried return to Japara. There, De Roo de la Faille records, “as a memorial of his bold deed he had this junk placed under a shed on the beach”, a vessel “as large as a Portuguese ship of 500 tons, caulked with seven layers of a mixture of lime and oil”. The fame of the deed was, Castanheda noted, so great “that the Javanese even now [sc. before 1552] speak of this deed, and on account of it made him king of a city called Demak”.
Lordship of Japara and marriage to Faletahan
Tome Pires’s Suma Oriental (~1515) describes Pati Oenoes as “the knight of whom the Javans speak because they say he is a great warrior in Java and very prudent”, lord of a great deal of land, whose grandfather had been a working man in the islands of Lawé (Borneo) and had come to Malacca with little means. Pati Oenoes, Pires records, “took the island of Banka under his jurisdiction” — probably Bengka-lis, “the vanished Bangka” — “and that of Tanjungpura (in Langkat and Laue and other inland lands), and made his country great”.
Around 1523–1524, Pati Oenoes — by then lord of Japara — gave his younger sister as wife to the Paseier Faletahan who had crossed to Java after the fall of Pasej to the Portuguese. In this marriage, De Roo de la Faille sees the dynastic link that brought a north-Sumatran Paseier into the Javanese Islamic establishment, and so the conduit by which the Pasej tradition entered the Javanese wali tradition.
Identification with Raden Sahid / Soenan Kalidjaga
The boldest claim of De Roo de la Faille’s chapter Over Soenan Kalidjaga is that the Pate Unus of 1513 and the Raden Sahid / Soenan Kalidjaga of the Babad Tanah Djawi and Sadjarah Banten are one and the same person. The identification rests on several convergences: both are associated with the “pasar” at which Raden Sahid was converted by Pangeran Bonang; both are connected with the building of the Demak mosque (traditionally dated 1468 Saka, but which De Roo de la Faille reads as 1546 A.D. — the year of the Demak attack on Pasoeroewan); and the title Pati Oenoes is itself, in De Roo de la Faille’s reading, a bedekte taal form for the patya-oenoes — “market-master of the noenoes-an” (the toll on the pasar of Kampi) that the petjat tonda (market-master) of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles’s History collected.
The mosque of Demak and the kjahi goendil
The Babad Tanah Djawi records that when the walis built the Demak mosque, Soenan Kalidjaga — having gone to tirakat at Pamantingan — returned late, gathered the tatal (shavings) into a bundle, and raised the saka goeroe (main pillar) in a single act. From the heavens fell a bundle containing the saléndang of the Prophet — which the walis tried to divide but which Soenan Bonang insisted be thrown up; the bundle fell to Soenan Kalidjaga, who then sewed it into the kjahi goendil — the leather over-garment that later Javanese kings were to wear at their installation and on the field of battle. “Sultan Demak and Sultan Padjang did not do so”, the Babad adds — and De Roo de la Faille glosses: “that was their misfortune, for the kjahi goendil was a coat of mail, such as was used of old in Java. […] Both sultans, at the moment when murderous steel threatened their lives, did not have that protection”.
Significance
For AcehWiki, Pati Oenoes matters as the Javanese commander whose 1513 attack on Malacca marked the first Muslim attempt to retake the city from the Portuguese — a strategic echo of the Atjehnese sultanate’s own war on Aroe in 1539 — and as the dynastic link by which a Paseier religious figure entered the Javanese Islamic establishment. His identification, by De Roo de la Faille, with Raden Sahid also makes him, in the bedekte taal reading, the “Coming Man” of the ngélmoe sadjati tradition — the king of justice whose coming the Javanese walis awaited.
See Also
- Soenan Kalidjaga
- Faletahan
- Japara
- Demak
- Demak’s attack on Pasoeroewan (1546)
- Tome Pires
- Pigafetta
- Castanheda
- Pasej-Samodra
- Aceh Sultanate
- Babad Tanah Djawi
- Sadjarah Banten
- Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java
Source
Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java, by P. de Roo de la Faille (Den Haag: Maart 1954), chapter “Over Soenan Kalidjaga”, pp. 43-58; and chapter “Over Sjahroe’n Noewi”, pp. 27-31. Citing Tome Pires, Suma Oriental (~1515), and Castanheda.
Pati Oenoes — also Pate Unus, in Javanese tradition Pangeran Sabrang Lor, and in De Roo de la Faille’s conflation Raden Sahid / Soenan Kalidjaga — was the early-sixteenth-century Javanese commander who, as lord of Japara (and later Demak), led the great Javanese naval attack on Portuguese Malacca in January 1513, married his younger sister around 1523–1524 to the Paseier Faletahan who became Sunan Gunung Jati, and is identified by De Roo de la Faille with the Raden Sahid of the Babad Tanah Djawi and the Sadjarah Banten. The identification, which De Roo de la Faille defends at length in Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java, makes Pati Oenoes a key link in the Pasej–Atjeh–Java triangle of the early sixteenth century.
The 1513 attack on Malacca
In January 1513, Pati Oenoes — then lord of Japara — led a great Javanese fleet against Portuguese Malacca in an attempt to retake the city for the Muslim trade. The attack failed; Pati Oenoes saved himself and his fighting-junk by a hurried return to Japara. There, De Roo de la Faille records, “as a memorial of his bold deed he had this junk placed under a shed on the beach”, a vessel “as large as a Portuguese ship of 500 tons, caulked with seven layers of a mixture of lime and oil”. The fame of the deed was, Castanheda noted, so great “that the Javanese even now [sc. before 1552] speak of this deed, and on account of it made him king of a city called Demak”.
Lordship of Japara and marriage to Faletahan
Tome Pires’s Suma Oriental (~1515) describes Pati Oenoes as “the knight of whom the Javans speak because they say he is a great warrior in Java and very prudent”, lord of a great deal of land, whose grandfather had been a working man in the islands of Lawé (Borneo) and had come to Malacca with little means. Pati Oenoes, Pires records, “took the island of Banka under his jurisdiction” — probably Bengka-lis, “the vanished Bangka” — “and that of Tanjungpura (in Langkat and Laue and other inland lands), and made his country great”.
Around 1523–1524, Pati Oenoes — by then lord of Japara — gave his younger sister as wife to the Paseier Faletahan who had crossed to Java after the fall of Pasej to the Portuguese. In this marriage, De Roo de la Faille sees the dynastic link that brought a north-Sumatran Paseier into the Javanese Islamic establishment, and so the conduit by which the Pasej tradition entered the Javanese wali tradition.
Identification with Raden Sahid / Soenan Kalidjaga
The boldest claim of De Roo de la Faille’s chapter Over Soenan Kalidjaga is that the Pate Unus of 1513 and the Raden Sahid / Soenan Kalidjaga of the Babad Tanah Djawi and Sadjarah Banten are one and the same person. The identification rests on several convergences: both are associated with the “pasar” at which Raden Sahid was converted by Pangeran Bonang; both are connected with the building of the Demak mosque (traditionally dated 1468 Saka, but which De Roo de la Faille reads as 1546 A.D. — the year of the Demak attack on Pasoeroewan); and the title Pati Oenoes is itself, in De Roo de la Faille’s reading, a bedekte taal form for the patya-oenoes — “market-master of the noenoes-an” (the toll on the pasar of Kampi) that the petjat tonda (market-master) of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles’s History collected.
The mosque of Demak and the kjahi goendil
The Babad Tanah Djawi records that when the walis built the Demak mosque, Soenan Kalidjaga — having gone to tirakat at Pamantingan — returned late, gathered the tatal (shavings) into a bundle, and raised the saka goeroe (main pillar) in a single act. From the heavens fell a bundle containing the saléndang of the Prophet — which the walis tried to divide but which Soenan Bonang insisted be thrown up; the bundle fell to Soenan Kalidjaga, who then sewed it into the kjahi goendil — the leather over-garment that later Javanese kings were to wear at their installation and on the field of battle. “Sultan Demak and Sultan Padjang did not do so”, the Babad adds — and De Roo de la Faille glosses: “that was their misfortune, for the kjahi goendil was a coat of mail, such as was used of old in Java. […] Both sultans, at the moment when murderous steel threatened their lives, did not have that protection”.
Significance
For AcehWiki, Pati Oenoes matters as the Javanese commander whose 1513 attack on Malacca marked the first Muslim attempt to retake the city from the Portuguese — a strategic echo of the Atjehnese sultanate’s own war on Aroe in 1539 — and as the dynastic link by which a Paseier religious figure entered the Javanese Islamic establishment. His identification, by De Roo de la Faille, with Raden Sahid also makes him, in the bedekte taal reading, the “Coming Man” of the ngélmoe sadjati tradition — the king of justice whose coming the Javanese walis awaited.
See Also
- Soenan Kalidjaga
- Faletahan
- Japara
- Demak
- Demak’s attack on Pasoeroewan (1546)
- Tome Pires
- Pigafetta
- Castanheda
- Pasej-Samodra
- Aceh Sultanate
- Babad Tanah Djawi
- Sadjarah Banten
- Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java
Source
Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java, by P. de Roo de la Faille (Den Haag: Maart 1954), chapter “Over Soenan Kalidjaga”, pp. 43-58; and chapter “Over Sjahroe’n Noewi”, pp. 27-31. Citing Tome Pires, Suma Oriental (~1515), and Castanheda.