Page 70 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

STRUCTURE, AUTHORS AND DATE 61

a Muslim. He was well versed in Malay literary tradition and historio­
graphy. He had an intimate knowledge of local facts, ways, traditions,
etc. While he was not particularly hostile to the Siamese, he was, on the
other hand, quite critical of the Malay rulers of Johore. It seems useful
to go into each of these points at somewhat greater depth.
The statement that the author of part I of our text himself was a
Malay from Patani hardly needs further comment. The author speaks
of Patani ini (this Patani, where I live) (pp. 15, 42, and elsewhere),
and in a number of cases he refers to local details, obviously from
personal acquaintance: the pangkalan where the white mousedeer dis­
appeared is located where “now” the Pintu Gajah is situated (p. 5);
the grave of Tuk Panjang is known in Patani, and to the author, “to
this day” (13); the author explains why Patani, apparently as he
knows it, is “narrow on the eastern side” (p. 29); he speaks of all the
people in Patani “who now trace their descent to Pahang people” —
again apparently from personal acquaintance (p. 51); in the same way
the author gives a story about the descent of the people of a village
called Ba Bekal as this was still known in his own day by the people of
Patani (57). These two stories also make it clear that there must have
been a considerable distance in time between the rule of Marhum
Pahang and the time when the Hikayat in its present form was actually
written — there must be an interval of at least two or three generations,
as otherwise these explanations would make no sense. The story of Raja
Hujan, the grandson and only descendant of Raja Kali to escape the
massacre (p. 73), is more complicated, particularly because of the
difference between the two Malay versions. A suggests that Raja Abu
and Alung Nam were contemporaries of the author of the text {ini, “the
present R. A. and A. N.”), and that they were grandchildren of Raja
Hujan, by his son Raja Kecik. Now the rebellion of Raja Kali must
have taken place after 1645, the year of the reconciliation between
Patani and Johore which is described in the preceding story -1 — “some
time later”, our text says, Raja Hujan was three years old, so that he
must have been born in 1642 at the earliest, though it may have been
considerably later. His son Raja Kecik cannot have been born earlier
than about 1660, and his grandchildren in 1680 or later. They must
have been adults when the original author of A wrote his story — i.e.
any time after 1700.
However, this chronological picture, uncertain as it is, is completely *

4 See above, Chapter I, p. 19 and below, Chapter VI, section 16—20.