Item: Invitation (Wedding)

[tiaramerchgirl]

Item is on a parchment-like material embroidered around the edges with gold thread. The ink does not look especially unusual but its substance is not known.

Parchment seems to be written in the Minangkabau language of Western Sumatera. Translation provides this:

The Mato [head mother] Bunia of Ngarai Sianok
invites you to the wedding of

Grand Daughter Siareen Bunia

with

Aditja Marsukitjina
Kamakanan [heir] of Mato Darek Merapi

Isnen 2 Jumaada al-THaany 1191 Hijrihi
Anno Dominus 7 Julai 17-77

First star after sunset, when the sky is as blue as sapphire.
Rumah Gadang Buni Sianok, after the Pungent-Flower and the riverbend

Visitors: Follow the scent of the Pungent-Flower and wait by the petals. After each star the Kamakanan of Mato Bunia will allow you entry. Only those with this decree of welcome as marked by Mato Bunia will be allowed into the Rumah Gadang.

Then there was another two lines in a barely-visible and unintelligable script.

The parchment made whistling-like sounds when waved; it is unclear whether it is the property of the parchment or something else.

References to Buni and Bunia may point to the Orang Bunian, or Whistle-Elves, who are normally unseen by human eyes. Marriages between Bunian and humans are not uncommon and have been recorded in historical accounts of Sumatera, but it is rare to obtain a direct artifact.

Could the Pungent-Flower refer to what we now call Rafflesia? Botanists?

Comments

[nyarlathotep]

It's interesting that the invite as AD as part of it's invite.

Did either party intend to have European guests as well? Unless the invitees were Aos Sí?

I mean, they did adopt the European calendar systems...

[tiaramerchgirl]

I think it may have been a replacement date for the non-Muslims, not specifically European, but I'm not sure.

(also because I don't know any indigenous calendar systems and didn't want to assume that the area was totally Islamic :P)

[nyarlathotep]

Mmm. It is a fascinating possibility.

(ha! It's likely that it would have been some form of Indian calendar; but yeah, we've been using a lot of Hijra. Have seen some other potential candidates for calendrical standards; I might want to have a go looking for them at some point later this week)

[frangipani]

Hmm. If the governing systems of at least two or three of the major kingdoms use the Islamic calendar, it may have been taken as/perceived to be a common standard calendar (at least one of them). Though we haven't found anything so far that authoritatively settles the issue. Maybe there were calendars specific to a locality and/or community, but with a common standard (or more) in use as a bureaucratic practice?

... I'd hate to be a clerk there.

(Chinese calendar, maybe? Some of the past entries posit that the Middle Kingdom remains a major influence in the Nusantara region, so that's a possibility.)

[nyarlathotep]

Actually, I have no idea what major powers like Majapahit would use. Islamic calendars, because that's what their neighbors use? Some variant of the Hindu calendar? Maybe the Buddhist calendar, adopting Srivijaya's dating standards? The Chinese Imperial calendars, to facilitate trade?

[frangipani]

At some point, we'll probably find a letter by some n00b port clerk whining about how his boss is shocked, SHOCKED that he hasn't yet got all the different calendars straight in his head. Hint, hint.

[nyarlathotep]

Shuddup I have a day job XD

[horusporus]

my take on this is - the hindu calendar with concession to the islamic calendar if we can prove there are enough islamic empires/gahmens on the rise in the region for them to bother.

[nyarlathotep]

Or: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saka_era

Will be reading up more on this.

[horusporus]

Nice find thar chief.

[nyarlathotep]

God, I'm beginning to feel like one of frangipani's putative clerks... =_=;;

[horusporus]

tht's not true.

for one thing, she calls you by name.

[nyarlathotep]

I feel so special XD

[horusporus]

and dun u forget it!

[nyarlathotep]

More stuff:

http://calendarhome.com/converter/ - More or less the same converters that I found previously, but includes Kurdish, Afghan, French Republican, and Unix epoch dates.

http://www.cc.kyoto-su.ac.jp/~yanom/pancanga/ - MOTHERLODE. Documentation is as hard as hell to read, but it may serve as a good Hindu calendar calculator.

FYI, dates seem to depend on where the measurements are being taken. In the case of the Empire of Majapahit, the location would be Trowulan, at (-7.48, 112.37).

Will be posting this in the DB & Resources page, but jsyk.

[alyknight]

Because I couldn't resist trying out my Google-fu

79 AD - the use of Saka calendar as official calendar source
1636 AD - the switch over to Hijriah calendar source

and there is mentions of Balinese Calendar and Javanese Calendar *grew cross-eyed

[nyarlathotep]

Oh, yeah. AJ's in use in Modern Java today, and the Saka calendar is based on a variant of the Hindu calendar.

Yeah, it made my head spin, too.

[horusporus]

or maybe the flower in question be the frangipani?

alamak i think i summoned the boss---

[frangipani]

*limit break attack*

[horusporus]

*cries with a gunblade in hand*

[nyarlathotep]

*jumps in, dual BEAM katanas blazing-- wait wait hang on, wrong game*