The Bugis genealogy of the Raja Muda family of Riau-Johor
J. Noorduyn’s 1988 article provides the first systematic Bugis-linguistic analysis of the forty-generation genealogy embedded in the Tuhfat al-Nafis, the great Malay chronicle of the Johor kingdom composed by Raja Haji Ahmad and his son Raja Ali Haji in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The genealogy traces the ancestry of the Bugis-origin Raja Muda (vice-regal) family of Johor back to mythological progenitors, and Noorduyn’s central argument is that while most of the names are genuine Buginese in form, the genealogy as a whole is a symbolic legitimizing construct whose internal contradictions reveal the faded state of Bugis historical knowledge at the time of its composition.
Summary
The Raja Muda family of Johor occupied the second-highest position in the Malay state system from the early eighteenth century, yet its members were of Bugis (non-Malay) extraction in the male line. This dual identity—proudly Malay in political context, proudly Bugis in ethnic origin—gave the Tuhfat al-Nafis its characteristic structure: a history of the Malay kingdom beginning with Melaka, followed by a long Bugis genealogy intended to demonstrate the family’s ancient and exalted lineage. Noorduyn examines this genealogy from two complementary angles. First, he provides a corrected Bugis-language transcription of all the names, working from the Jawi-script manuscripts and applying his knowledge of Bugis phonology, morphology, and the naming conventions of the Bugis nobility (personal names with La/We proclitics, tecnomyms with To/Da, noble titles with Daeng, and posthumous names with Matinroe or Mallajangnge). Second, he investigates the genealogy’s symbolic function within its cultural context, drawing on a previously underutilized source: a section in Ahmad al-Patani’s Hadiqat al-Azhar wa’l-Rayahin (mid-nineteenth century), which records a Pontianak version of the same genealogy containing exactly forty names.
Noorduyn demonstrates that the genealogy’s upper reaches (names 2–7) are drawn directly from the La Galigo epic, the great Bugis mythological poem, and that its composer had genuine but imperfect knowledge of this epic. The names in the middle and lower portions of the genealogy correspond to real historical figures and places in Luwu’ and Wajo’ in South Sulawesi, including Arung Palakka (identified as La Tenritata’) and several Arung-matoas of Wajo’ whose posthumous names are attested in other sources. However, the genealogy contains internal contradictions—such as placing Patoto’ (the Creator in Bugis mythology) as a descendant rather than a progenitor, and duplicating certain names—that indicate it was compiled from memory and oral tradition rather than from written Bugis sources. Crucially, none of the five Bugis noble brothers who migrated to the Malay world (Daeng Parani, Daeng Marewa, Daeng Cellak, Daeng Menambun, and Daeng Kamase) or any of their ancestors have been traced in surviving Bugis sources from South Celebes, meaning the genealogy cannot be externally verified against its claimed homeland.
The symbolic dimension of the genealogy is perhaps Noorduyn’s most original contribution. He shows that the number forty was deliberately targeted as a symbol of completeness and numerousness, and that the insertion of Prophet Sulaiman and Queen Bilkis of Saba at the head of the genealogy (explicit in the Pontianak version, implicit in the Tuhfat) served to Islamize the lineage from its very beginning. This was necessary because the genealogy also states that La Maddusila, near its end, was the first Bugis king to embrace Islam—a claim that would otherwise render all preceding generations non-Muslim and undermine the family’s standing in the Muslim Malay world. The Tuhfat authors, Noorduyn argues, introduced rationalizing elements (such as their skeptical treatment of the Bilkis connection) that partially obscured the genealogy’s originally more overtly symbolic character.
Key Findings
- The genealogy contains up to forty generations; the Pontianak version recorded by Ahmad al-Patani has exactly forty names, while the Tuhfat version has 38–39 (pp. 83–84).
- Names 2–7 (Datu Palinge’, Patoto’, Batara Guru, Batara Lattu’, Sawerigading, La Galigo) are taken from the La Galigo epic, though with errors: Patoto’ is placed as a descendant of Datu Palinge’ rather than as her consort, and the sequence deviates from the epic’s own genealogical order (pp. 73–74).
- The title “Opu,” used for the father of the five Bugis brothers, was a high noble title employed exclusively in Luwu’, confirming the family’s claimed origin in that kingdom (p. 83).
- VOC records confirm that Daeng Parani, Daeng Marewa, and Daeng Cellak were brothers or half-brothers; Daeng Marewa died in 1728 and Daeng Cellak in 1745 (pp. 64, 88).
- Ahmad al-Patani dates La Maddusila’s conversion to Islam to 800 A.H. (1397/8 A.D.), a date Noorduyn judges “more than two centuries too early” given that the first Sultan of Luwu’ embraced Islam around 1604–1605 (pp. 84, 82).
- The Silsilah Melayu dan Bugis (printed 1911; MS LOr. 6345, Leiden) generally preserves more original and linguistically correct readings of the Bugis names than the four Tuhfat manuscripts, and includes two additional names (nos. [4] and 17) absent from the Tuhfat (p. 69).
Conclusion
Noorduyn concludes that the Bugis genealogy of the Raja Muda family was, in its original form, a powerful symbolic instrument designed to demonstrate the “peerless greatness” of the Bugis leaders in the Malay world by connecting them to a lineage of forty generations stretching from the divine to the historical, embedded in the true faith from its inception. The Tuhfat authors’ rationalizing tendencies partially obscured this symbolic architecture, but the underlying intent—to legitimize the Bugis vice-regal family’s lofty position through an unbroken, Islamized, and mythologically anchored ancestry—remains clearly discernible.
Context
- Primary archival sources include the Tuhfat al-Nafis manuscripts (KITV Or. 65 and three others) and the Silsilah manuscript (LOr. 6345) at the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology, Leiden, as well as VOC correspondence in the Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague (pp. 65, 69, 88).
- The article represents the first comprehensive Bugis-linguistic treatment of this genealogy, superseding the earlier partial efforts of Hans Overbeck (1926) and Andi Zainal Abidin (1974), and providing the corrected transcriptions on which Virginia Matheson’s 1982 romanized text edition of the Tuhfat was based (pp. 69–70).