Sjahroe’n Noewi — Persian Sjahr “city”, noe “new”, noewi “newness”, together “New City” — is the great kingdom named in chapter VIII of the Sadjarah Malajoe that sends its hoeloebalang Awi Ditjoe (with 4,000 fighters in a hundred vessels) to capture the radja of Samudra, and which De Roo de la Faille identifies with Tandjoengpoera-Aroe on the east coast of Sumatra. The identification ties the Sadjarah Malajoe’s chronicle geography to the Atjehnese sphere: the Atjehnese conquest of Aroe in 1539 is, on this reading, the closing event of the long Sjahroe’n Noewi–Pasej-Samudra rivalry that the chronicle records.
The chronicle episode
In chapter VIII of the Sadjarah Malajoe, as De Roo de la Faille recounts, the king of Sjahroe’n Noewi — “a very great kingdom with many champions and countless people” — was told that Samoedra was a most lively trading-place with many merchants, and that its king had a very extensive territory. The king asked his war-chiefs: “is there no one among you who can capture for me that radja of Samoedra?” Awi Ditjoe — “a very strong and brave man” — volunteered, with 4,000 champions and a hundred vessels. Sailing to Samudra under pretence of trade, Awi Ditjoe presented himself as the king of Sjahroe’n Noewi’s envoy, then smuggled four champions each inside a chest; once brought before the radja, the champions sprang out and seized him. When the people of Pasaj fell upon the men of Sjahroe’n Noewi, the latter threatened to kill the radja; the people of Pasaj held back; Awi Ditjoe sailed home with his captive.
The captured radja was then made to “tend chickens” (menggombala ayam) — a humiliation that drove Sidi Ali Ghiyat oed’dir and the elders of Pasej to fit out a ship, buy Arab merchandise (for “in those days the people of Pasaj understood Arabic”), and dispatch Sidi Ali in person to Sjahroe’n Noewi to recover the sultan. After two more embassies — each bearing a fabulous golden gift — the king of Sjahroe’n Noewi, on being asked “what is your desire?”, received the answer: “we ask for our king, the tender of the chickens”. The king returned him, observing that “because he is a Muslim” — the request was made.
Persian name, Siamese overlordship
The Persian form of the name — Sjahr “city”, noe “new” — is unusual for a Malay polity, and De Roo de la Faille explains it by reference to the Siamese code Kot Monthiera ban of c. 1360, which records that Udjong-tanah, Malaka, Malayu and Worawari were tributary to Siam; and to the new city of Ayodhya that the king of Siam built on the Menam around the same date. Sjahroe’n Noewi, on this reading, was a Siamese tributary whose Persian name marks the Siamese overlordship. The padoeka Boeboennja of the chronicle — the king’s “foot-soled of Boeboen” — De Roo de la Faille identifies with the kampong Boeboen of Anderson’s 1825 mission, at the river-mouth of Tandjoengpoera in the bay of Aroe.
Identification with Cernovem and Xarnauz
The same Sjahroe’n Noewi, De Roo de la Faille argues, is the Cernovem of the Venetian traveller Niccolò de’ Conti (~1430), and the Xarnauz of the Roteiro of Vasco da Gama — the latter a “land of Christians and the king is Christian”, whose king “has 400 elephants of war. In the land is much benzoin and there is aloës won”. De Roo de la Faille decodes Xarnauz as k-s-ir-arnawa noe-s-a, “the island in the sea of Samatra”, with the “Christians” a bedekte taal form for keris-tijang “kris-bearers”, and the elephants a reference to the elephant-land of the Sumatran east coast. The benzoin and aloës point to the same east-coast products that the chronicle and Pinto record.
Significance
For AcehWiki, Sjahroe’n Noewi is the chronicle-name that ties the Sadjarah Malajoe’s rivalry-and-capture episode to the Aroe-Atjeh-Pasej triangle, and the bedekte taal form that links the chronicle record to the European travel accounts of De Conti and Vasco da Gama. Its identification with Tandjoengpoera-Aroe places the Atjehnese conquest of Aroe in 1539 as the closing event of the long Sjahroe’n Noewi–Pasej rivalry — the historical process whose earlier, dynastic phase the Sadjarah Malajoe recorded in allegorical form.
See Also
- Tandjoengpoera
- Aroe
- Aroe-baai
- Sadjarah Malajoe
- Awi Ditjoe
- Sidi Ali Ghiyat oed’dir
- Pasej-Samodra
- Sultan Malik at-Tahir of Pasej
- Atjeh-Aroe War (1539)
- Anderson’s Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra (1825)
- Nicolo de Conti
- Vasco da Gama
- 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), chapter “Over Sjahroe’n Noewi”, pp. 24-31.