GES1011 - Lecture 3: Text on Singapore's past

Recap:
- Human conversation mainly about singapore's past present and future in a global context
-  Geological unfolding
- Biological unfolding
- The spread of humans from africa to all around the world

Lecture:
- Make sense of text (Sulalat al-salatin)
- Perusing a second source (Arch data)
- attempt to interpret Singapore's past
- Learning two concepts commonly used in history...

Sulalat as- Salatin 

During exam we refer to it as Sulalat

- Tales/stories and myth

- Powers

- Relationships being forged and broken

- Alot of travel across water

- Linked closely to a genealogy

- Probably written on 17th Century

There's no notion of history but the dominant trope is of a genealogy.

- Sprinkled with issues of morality, love, beauty, achievements and accolades, conquests, rituals and feasts.

Sulalat talks about

- stories of someone ifs kings (five in total)

- Rise of polity

- Rivals

- Wealth and fame

The sulalat is to be sung and chanted by few people for pleasure.

In Miksic, John commented that (pg154), the Malay Annals has no reliable dates of events

However, we can try to use it and it can be use to depicts singapore's appearance in the 14th Century

Miksic's comments show how to inteprepete work.

- Its probably a group work

- The intended audience is?

A lack of easy answer mark human existence (past and present)

and in responding to them,

we need to learn to be comfortable with uncertainty

Even if thou its like an story, we can still refers because country, city and name is still holds the same since the time the story is being told. We can use the story as a guide to source certain information regarding singapore

The archaelogical record

- For a long time,  only some textual sources speaks about singapore's past. That's include Sulalat.

But its very difficult to be confident about the history of singapore in the 18s

TED x NUS whats is unknown about archaeological findings on singapore island

Because of the artifacts found, its difficult to doubt human activity.

Corroboration

Independent confirmation of another fact..

According to Miksic, there is a layer of white sand below padang.

Around 700 years ago, there was physical evidence relating human activity

Since Miksic said that there are white sands and another archaeologist also found that there are also white sand, does this mean that the salalat is reliable?

But how do we know when fact begins and myth ends?

How do we know the white sands is actually the white sand from the legends? Could it be that someone place it there and claim that it was from the stories.

Credibility of using the sulalat as a source.

Opinion: I feel that it is a slightly more appropriate source, even if its mostly just stories and less of the fact, certain aspects of the story would still be the same, like the location, time, events that happen may correspond to a event that happen in real time. It might not be a truly factual source but certain parts of the story could be use to relate and support the information.

However, in a use of academic context, it is not a reliable source to use as evidence to support certain ideas.

Stories that tell:

- Emboss

- Coinage

The sulalat may not be reliable in factual but it gives us a general and wider idea about the history.

Interpreting singapore's past

Is this 14th century a part of singapore's story? 

Is it part of the republic of singapore's story?

Is there a connection with the residence of the past and current?

If that so, what about Kwa, Heng and Tan's effort in writing a 700 year history of singapore?

Would we advise them differently?

In history, this is called a historiographical disagreement.

Historical Differences

Miksic's claim on 700 year beginning.
- Archaeological, literaly and some other chinese sources
- Emerged between 1980s and 1997
- Links singapore to regional and transoceanic

Turnbull
- Human activity since 1819
- Source is colonial documents
- Dominant since 1960s
- Links singapore to britan

Implications:
Does all these challenge what we have know about singapore