[
    {
        "id": 207990,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1977",
        "page_number": 29,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "BRUNEI A HISTORICAL RELIC\n\n13\n\nSultan Dewa Emas Kayangan, mated successively with fourteen aboriginal maidens. After much to-ing and fro-ing the fourteen chose one of their number as leader. When they were all converted to Islam the leader became sultan.\n\nThe chronicles of Brunei which date from perhaps the early 1700s, relate that the first Muslim sultan was installed by the Sultan of Johore. This agrees in general with the theory among historians that Islam spread from centers in Malaya and Sumatra to the eastern archipelago, as far as Mindanao in the Philippines during the 15th century.\n\nIt is interesting to note that among the ruling elite in Brunei there existed an admixture of ethnic origins. For the period of the 14th through the 17th centuries we know that there was much immigration to Borneo from Java, Sumatra, Malaya, China and Arabia. The second sultan was either Chinese or married to a Chinese woman, the daughter of a wealthy Chinese trader who had settled on the northwest coast. Accounts of the injection of Chinese blood into the royal line of Brunei vary. The third sultan was an Arab sharif who married the daughter of the second sultan according to Brunei chronicles. The addition of the blood line of the Prophet to the ruling clan would lend legitimacy to the ruler in Islamic terms. Whether fact or an invention of the royal chronicler it is impossible to verify. Up to contemporary times there have been numerous Arab adventurers living around the coastal regions of the Malay world who denominated themselves sharif - blood descendent of Muhammad.\n\nThe kingdom of Brunei reached its greatest extent of power and prosperity under the fifth and great sultan, Bulkiah, after whom the present, the 29th, sultan is named. Brunei extended its power southward and northeastward around the coasts of Borneo. Bulkiah's forces raided into the Philippines as far as Luzon and left colonies of Brunei Malays on the shores of Manila Bay where they encountered the Spaniards in the middle of the 16th century. The Catholic Spaniards suspected Brunei, probably quite rightly, of being the center of Islamization of the Philippines and so attacked Brunei Town in 1578. Thereafter sporadic warfare continued for over 300 years between Malay Muslim communities of northern Borneo and southern Philippines and the Spanish conquistadores of Manila. This warfare is referred to in Spanish records as the Moro wars.3",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207991,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1977",
        "page_number": 30,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "14\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nAt the height of Brunei's \"golden age\" the earliest contacts with Europeans occurred. The best records of the early contacts are found in the account of Antonio Pigafetta, the chronicler of Magellan's circumnavigation voyage. In 1521 Magellan's fleet visited Brunei. I quote at some length a description of Brunei under Sultan Bulkiah.4\n\nWhen we reached the city, we had to wait two hours in the prau, until there had arrived two elephants, caparisoned in silk-cloth, and twelve men, each furnished with a porcelain vase, covered with silk, to receive and to cover our presents. We mounted the elephants, the twelve men going before, carrying the presents. The present for the king consisted of a vest velvet in the Turkish fashion, a chair of purple velvet, five yards of red broad-cloth, one cap (beretoo), a gilded goblet, a glass vase with a lid, three quires of paper, and gilded inkstand. We brought for the queen three yards of yellow broad-cloth, a pair of silver-embroidered shoes, and a silver case filled with pins. We thus proceeded to the house of the governor, who gave us a supper of many dishes. Here we slept for the night on mattresses stuffed with cotton (Bambagic), and cased with silk. Next day, we were left at our leisure until twelve o'clock when we proceeded to the king's palace. We were mounted, as before, on elephants, the men bearing the gifts going before us. From the governor's house to the palace the streets were full of people armed with swords, lances and targets: the king had so ordered it. Still mounted on the elephants we entered the court of the palace. We then dismounted, ascended a stair, accompanied by the governor and some chiefs, and entered a great hall full of courtiers, whom we shall call barons of the realm (Baroni del regno). Here we were seated on carpets, the presents being placed near to us.\n\nAt the end of the great hall, but raised above it, there was one of less extent hung with silken cloth, in which were two curtains, on raising which, there appeared two windows, which lighted the hall. Here, as a guard to the king, there were 300 men with naked rapiers (stochi nudi) in hand resting on their thighs, at the further end of this smaller hall, there was a great window with a brocade curtain before it, on raising which, we saw the king seated at a table masticating betel, and a little boy,\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    }
]