Woelang Kapala (10)

Component identifier:

Item 100

Content Summary:

BG No: 126

Alternate BG title: Woelang kapala

Abstract No: 94

Further remarks: Instructions for village headmen

Immediate source of acquisition:

The collection of manuscripts was purchased by the National Library of Australia from Martinus Nijhoff, Publisher and Bookseller, The Hague, Netherlands, in January 1959. This firm had acquired the collection from the estate of the late Mr. R. A. Kern, LL.M., after his death in March, 1958. Mr. Kern was sometime Advisor for Native and Muhammadan Affairs to the Netherlands East India Government at Batavia and afterwards lecturer in the Sundanese language at Leiden University; at times he also lectured on Islam and on the Buginese and Macassar languages. (For Mr. Kern's bio-bibliography see: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, vol. 114, pp. 345-358.) Mr. Kern built up his collection by having someone copy for him the greater part of the Sundanese manuscript collection of the Bataviaasch Genootschap voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen. This collection is, therefore, and always has been smaller than the original collection of Sundanese MSS of the Bataviaasch Genootschap. However, it is understood that some of the original MSS of the Bataviaasch Genootschap have been lost, so that their transcriptions in this collection may be the only extant copies available. According to Indonesische Handschriften by R. M. Ug. Dr. Poerbatjaraka, Dr. P Voorhoeve and Dr. C. Hooykaas (Bandung, Nix, 1950), p. 177, the lost MSS are BG nos. 68,80,125 and 137. (Hooykaas quotes the titles of BG. no. 125 as "Roepa roepa dongeng", which is also its title in Finding Aid IId, although here BG No. 124 has the same title. The actual volume, however, is entitled: "Tjarita dedemit", while BG no. 124 is called: "Roepa roepa dongeng".)

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