162

26.030 Nitik Sultan Aguijan tales, by Can- dra Nagara, Yogyakarta: cod. 6489 a, b. 26.040 Nitik Sunan Mai}kurat Aguij, called Cabolèk, Yogyakarta: cod. 10.841. 26.050 Sërat Pagëdoqan, by Marta Arjana, Surakarta: cod. 8990 no. 2. 26.200 Pseudo History, Baron Sakèndèr. The remarkable Baron Sa kèndèr tales, referring to the beginning of Dutch relations with Java, are based on myth. Sakèndèr, sometimes called Kasèndèr, is Alexander the Great. Through the inter mediary of Persian-Arabic literature Alexan der (in Arabic called Iskandar) tales were spread all over the world of Islam. In Malay and also in Javanese literature Iskandar romances, closely related to> Persian-Arabic prototypes, are known. The Javanese Is kandar romance has been registered in the present Synopsis in Part Three, Belles- Lettres (31.065). The Sakèndèr tales are different. They seem to be a blend of the old mythic concept of the quest for the spring of life, represented by the Iskandar romance, with indigenous Javanese religious ideas on fundamental dualism in cosmic and social Order. The relation between Javanese Kings and Dutch traders was considered another instance of this dualism perfectly fitting in eternal Order (cf. 20.300, Korawasrama, and 30.570, Johar Sah). Baron Sakèndèr tales are found in several Javanese historical works. Perhaps they were current already in the Pasisir period, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Sepanol people are mentioned; in the eigh teenth century Spain did not occupy a place of any importance in Javanese history. The best known Central Javanese text is said to be the work of an author of the Mataram era, in the seventeenth century. Naturally the book attracted the attention of Dutch scholars studying Javanese literature. It was published and translated into Dutch by Dr. Cohen Stuart (1851). The present author published a paper, dealing with the mythic foundation of the tale (Djawa, vol. 7, 1927). The predicate Baron is as yet unexplained. Connection with the West European title of nobility seems improbable, because of the great distance in space and social outlook between sixteenth and seventeenth century Javanese authors and the Dutch traders they knew on the one side, and nobility (at the time in the Netherlands almost extinct) on the other. Perhaps Baron is connected with barn, which in Old Javanese texts seems to indicate a member of an ancient, pre-Islamic group of men of religion. If that is the correct explanation of the predicate Baron, its use in connection with Sakèndèr- Alexander is an indication of the relation ship between the mythic hero of the tale and Old Javanese religious concepts, still remembered, though vaguely, in the circles of sixteenth and seventeenth century Java nese authors (see Gen. Index: Baru Klintiij). In Javanese popular historical literature, beside the Baron Sakèndèr tales, other tales about the beginnings of Dutch settlements in West Java are found, e.g. the tale of the princess with the fiery womb. These tales have also mythic foundations. In many cases they are told as explanations of the origin of various groups or families: the tales are