Pengantar Dari P. Voorhoeve Untuk PBH

Oleh: Limantina Siholoho

PREFACE

The Bandar Hanopan Chronicle is a collection of a legendary, historical and genealogical notes and stories from Dolog Silou, one of the seven local kingdoms in the Batak country Simalungun, east of Lake Toba. It is written in the Simalungun Batak language on a scroll of English paper made from 90 foolscap sheets. Some of these have a watermark A Lumsden, 1845. It was written in the district of Bandar Hanopan in lower Dolog Silou. The scroll was kept in the bamboo container which was kept as a precious heirloom in the adat house (rumah bolon) of the chief of the district, Tuan Bandar Hanopan, who was the descendant of the royal family. It was first mentioned in literature by G.L. Tichelman (Deli Courant 3.7.1936). Unlike many other royal possessions in Simalungun, it survived the social revolution of 1946.

In 1945 I was in Simalungun, searching for my pre-war notes in Simalungun language and literature. I found that most of these had been destroyed during Japanese occupation. Then I was lucky to get the scroll of loan from the owners for several months. The paper was badly damaged as it has been repeatedly crammed into the narrow bamboo. This has caused some loss of text, but after carefully arranging and joining the fragments I felt sure that I had found the correct order. With the help of my secretary Djaporman Saragih a complere transliteration of the text was made. In order to make it accessible to Simalungun readers we somewhat adapted the orthography to the rules given by Japorman’s father Pandita J. Wismar Saragih in an appendix to his Simalungun Batak vocabulary (Partingkian ni hata Simalungun, 1938, p.271-280) but at that time it was not possible to publish the text.

In 1985-86 Djaporman’s typewritten text was copied on a word-processor by K.A. Adelaar on a grant from the Royal Institute (KITLV) in Leiden. The orthography was adapted to the Indonesian Ejaan Yang Disempurnakan. Some parts of the material which I has collected for a scholarly edition were also adapted to the new orthography. I made a draft of a complete Dutch translation, but the historical perspective which I felt be necessary in a scholarly edition is still missing. So at last I decided to make a number of copies of Adelaar’s text for further study by future students of Simalungun language and history.
The text is followed by a short selection of textcritical notes, an English summary of contents and a list of documents (mostly in Batak and Dutch) in my collection of paper in Leiden University Library, which may be used in a further study of this unique Batak historical document.

My thankful thoughts go to all those, deceased and living, who have helped me in this project.

Barchem. October 1993                                              P. Voorhoeve