Legends were Constructed as “History”: A Case Study of Brunei’s “Chinese Princess” and “Ong Sum Ping” Legends

Title

Legends were Constructed as “History”: A Case Study of Brunei’s “Chinese Princess” and “Ong Sum Ping” Legends

Author

Chong-Wah KOH

Page

75-126

DOI

10.6163/TJEAS.202512_22(2).0003

Abstract

In the early historical narrative of Brunei, there is a saying that “the Sultan married a relative of the king of China,” which was first seen in a 1590 Spanish manuscript. In addition, in several versions of “Silsilah Raja-raja Brunei” from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, there are also legends of “The Sultan married a relatives of the Chinese King” and “Ong Sum Ping married the daughter of the Sultan and succeeded to the throne”. Since the publication of the British scholar Hugh Low’s article on “Silsilah Raja-raja Brunei” in 1880, scholars began to pay attention to the inheritance of Chinese ancestry in the Brunei Sultan's lineage. Wen Xiongfei, the Chinese scholar who first mentioned Ong Sum Ping, translated it as “Huang Senping” and believed that he really existed. However, there is no relevant record in Chinese historical materials, and scholars in the past can only make reasonable speculations based on limited historical materials, and whether there is really such a thing is still inconclusive. Nevertheless, some contemporary Brunei scholars and officials still believe that the above two persons are “relatives of the Chinese emperor” and regard the Chinese woman married by the Sultan as “princess”. Among the people, there are many rumours about the origin of Ong Sum Ping, and it is difficult to verify the information. There are also descendants of the Huang family who insisted on including “Huang Senping” in their family pedigree. This article puts aside the question of whether there is a real person in history, whether it is a legend or historical fact, etc. The research focuses on the fabrication, spread, and evolution of legendary stories, and examines them with Chinese historical data to find out their “historical prototypes”. In addition, it explores the narrative motivations of storytellers with different backgrounds and positions in different eras, and the phenomenon that they have been constructed as “historical” in modern and contemporary times.

Keyword

Brunei, Silsilah Raja-raja Brunei, Chinese Princess, Ong Sum Ping

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