Ternate - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

TERNATE 159
THE TERNATESE LANGUAGE
Thus the Prince Captain-Laut, the Imam-Secretary, and the Hukum-Sangaji visted
the Resident on Saturday. The Resident said: “I would like to install you at once as Sultan,
but the contract is not yet ready. Be patient until it is ready, and then I will install you. I
request that you wait for three months.” The Imam-Secretary replied: “We will do as you
order, but here at Ternate the presentation of the contract for the late Sultan did not take
place during the installation. In fact, it did not take place until the arrival of the Governor
of Ambon.”
The Resident answered: “Go back to the palace and first see what is written about
this in the book. 33 I will also make inquiries at the office and when you come back on
Tuesday, I will decide.” [p. 225]
The committee returned and that same day called the Sahbandar-Khatibi-Jurtulis
Sau who, together with the Imam-Secretary, opened the office and then the book of
ceremonies. In that book they found that when the father of the Prince Captain-Laut was
installed as Sultan, the contract was not concluded until fifteen months after the
installation.
On Tuesday, the twenty-first night of the moon, in the month of Sawal, three
members of the committee of four, namely the Captain-Laut, the Imam-Secretary, and the
Hukum-Sangaji (the fourth member, the Jogugu Major-Prang, was still unable to go out)
took the book in question to the Resident to discuss the matter with him. The Resident had
already discovered in his own books that the contract had not been presented until fifteen
months after the installation of the late Sultan. He then informed the committee of his
decision that the Sultan would be installed on Tuesday, the fourth night of the moon, in the
month of Dulkaidah, but ordered that the committee make a request to that effect by letter
on Monday, addressed to him in his capacity as representative of the Government. The
Resident also told them to assemble the notables, headmen of the kampongs, and royal
descendants, and according to the custom, notify them of this, and to get everything ready
in accordance with custom and the rank of the Sultan, and also to repair anything in need
of repair outside the palace as well as inside. Moreover, the Resident ordered the Prince
Captain-Laut to send the Imam-Secretary down the next Wednesday to receive the seal and
the key to the royal chest. 34 The Secretary recalled that it was also customary, when a
Sultan was installed, to draw up a letter to send to the villages to inform the headmen [p.
226] and to summon them. The Resident agreed that a letter to this effect should be
drafted. After that the committee members gave the Resident their greetings and left.
Then they went to the house of the Prince Captain-Laut and greeted the Jogugu
Major-Prang, who had plodded seaward [to that place], and communicated to him the
orders of the Resident as reported above. The committee members then made a salam and
called the Kali, the Kapita-Ngofa, the Kapita Kie, the Sahbandar-Khatibi-Jurtulis [as
corrected in Errata ⎯Trans.] ⎯the Imam-Sowohi Abdul Hair was taken ill and could not
come⎯and all these notables assembled in the house of the Prince Captain-Laut. The
33 [p. 224, n. 2] This is the Chronicle of the Sultan in which important events are recorded.
34 [p. 225, n. 1] The regalia are kept in this box. The key for the box and also the great seal
remain in the Resident’s keeping after the death of a Sultan.
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