The President and Council of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society gratefully acknowledge generous contributions towards the cost of the publication of this Monograph from The State Government of Melaka PETRONAS and SIME DARBY Edited for the Council of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society by Tan Sri Dato’ Dr. Mubin Sheppard All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in retrievable system, in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise - without prior written consent of the Council of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.The MALAYSIAN BRANCH of the ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY MONOGRAPH No. 16 NANING in MELAKA by JONATHAN CAVE Printed for the Council of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society by Eagle Trading Co. Sdn Bhd, 81, Jalan $S25/32, Taman Mayang 47301 Petaling Jaya.THE MALAYSIAN BRANCH of the ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY PATRONS Duli Yang Teramat Mulia Paduka Seri Pengiran Perdana Wazir Sahibul Himmah Wal-Wagar Pengiran Muda Mohamed Bolkiah. Tun Hussein Onn : Lee Kuan Yew Es President Vice Presidents Councillors Hon, Secretary Hon. Treasurer Hon, Editor Review Editor The Council for 1989/1990 q. Tun Mohamed Suffian bin Hashim Tan Sri Dato’ Dr. Mubin Sheppard P.M. Dato Sharifuddin Professor Dato Khoo Kay Kim Tan Sri Dato Alwi Jantan Dato’ Zakiah Hanum Mrs, Hedwig Anuar Dato Shahrum bin Yub Asso Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Egoh ate Professor Ernest Chew Associate Professor Cheah Boon Kheng Datuk Abdul amid bin Haji Mohamed Datuk Haji Safri Awang Zaidell Dato’ Dr. Mohd. Noordin bin Hj. Keling Tuan Haji Hisham bin Alwee Tan Sri Dato” Dr. Mubin Sheppard Datin Patricia Lim Pui Huen. 543758 APB 1S NOV. 1990 Perpusn.. MalaysiaACKNOWLEDGMENTS Among many old friends and colleagues, Haji Nordin bin H. Mat Som, aNaning man and son ofa Penghulu, was Land Office Clerk and later Deputy C.LR. at Alor Gajah and introduced me to the Custom, which we have discussed over a span of forty years; Dato’ Mohamed Shah, who succeeded when I was in Melaka, has always been welcoming and has helped me with references from his own ‘Book of Naning’, which contains detail no outsider can acquire; Tun Mohamed Suffian opened many doors and made many valuable introductions, and contributed laughter; and Tan Sri Dato’ Dr. Mubin Sheppard helped me with unpublished correspondence, advice on an early draft, and encouragement at all times. More recently officials at Melaka and Alor Gajah were uniformly helpful to an old man turning up out of the past. To them and many others (including my wife), who checked my translations but none of them is responsible for any errors or opinions: these are my own. Copyright in the documents quoted and reproduced vests for India Office and Colonial Office papers in the Crown and for later papers in the National Archive of the Federation of Malaysia, In their former case translations, transcripts and reproductions appear by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Jonathan CaveAGLC AGPK AR B.Pol. B. Pub. B. Rev. B. Sec. B. Sec. Pol. co DNB GN JIA JIA (NS) JMBRAS JSBRAS LP&J MLI MNR PMS RCOM SG SSR Wilkinson ABBREVIATIONS Alor Gajah Land Cases Notebooks Alor Gajah Distribution Suits Notebooks Annual Report Bengal Political Consultations Bengal Public Consultations Bengal Revenue Proceedings Bengal Secret Consultations Bengal Secret and Political Consultations Colonial Office Dictionary Gazette Notification Government Gazette Notification Journal of the Indian Archipelago 1847-1855 Ibid. New Series 1856-1859 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Malayan Branch 1923-1963 Malaysian Branch 1964 — Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Straits Branch 1878-1922 Public and Judicial Department Malayan Law Journal Ministry of Natural Resources, Federation of Malaya Papers on Malay Subjects Resident Councillor's’ (after 1946 Commissioner's) Office Malacca Surveyor-General’s Office, Federation of Malaya Factory Records, Strait Settlements Malay-English Dictionary, 2 vols.NANING An explanatory Note Balthazar Bort, the Governor of Malacca, wrote and published a Report on Malacca in 1678. A Note at the end of the report read: Naning: a large species of Wasp; the name of the territory lying to the North of Malacca. RJ. Wilkinson. M.C.S. published his English- Malay Dictionary in Singapore in 1901. It included the word Naning: a large yellow banded wasp. In a separate alphabetical section he added: Aning-aning: a large wasp, very venomous, bigger than a homet. Naning can still be seen at Taboh Naning in 1989.Holders of the Post of DATO' PENGHULU NANING, SRI RAJA MERAH Itis probable that there were holders of the Post of Dato’ Penghulu Naning during the Sultanate of Malacca (1400 - 1511), and during the Portuguese occupation of Malacca, (1511 - 1641), but no records of the names of the holders are now to be found, and the earliest list of Dato Penghulu Naning begins soon after the commencement of the Dutch occupation, and even this list does not contain the dates of appointment. In Rembau, a neighbouring territory, the earliest Chief, (*Undang Luak") on record was named Dato Maharaja Gelebang, and his appointment dated from 1540, It is improbable that the appointment of a major Chief in Rembau preceded a similar event in neighbouring Naning. A list of eighteen Dato Penghulu Naning is set out below: The dates of the 14th. to 18th. holders have been obtained from records in Taboh Naning. 1. Dato’ Megat Alam Melintang 2. Dato’ Megat Junjongan Limau 3. Dato’ Juara Megat 4. Dato’ Kekak (Zohri) 5. Dato’ Gahan Berhulu 6. Dato’ Janggut (Selamat Idris) 7. Dato’ Timba 8. Dato’ Anjak 9. Dato’ Abdul Said (Doll Syed) 10, Dato’ Idas 11, Dato’ Mohammed Salleh (‘Dato' Arab’) 12. Dato’ Ranting 13, Dato’ Hassan 14, Dato’ Omar 1918-1923 15. Dato’ Arshad Pemangku (Regent) during the minority of Othman bin Kering : 1923-1932. 16. Dato’ Othman bin Kering (Prisoner of war killed by Japanese) 1932-1942 17. Dato’ Che’ Lah bin Mat’Sah (abducted and killed during the Emergency) 1946 18. Dato’ Mohammed Shah 1950.Note by Mr. Cave: Tam indebted to Dato’ Mohammed Shah for this list, given to me by him at Taboh Naning in 1978. The cighth Dato’ was appointed in 1786. He died in 1801 and was succeeded by Dato' Dol Sa'aid. The post of Dato Naning was abolished by the British East India Company in 1832. The post was officially revived by the British administration in Malacca in 1932. (See Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 53. Part 2. 1980, pp.96- 100). Editor.CONTENTS List of Dato’ Penghulu Naning Sri Raja Merah BOOK ONE: The HISTORY Chapter 1. Early Times and the Malacca Sultanate Chapter 2. The Portuguese Era Chapter 3. ‘The Dutch East India Company Chapter 4. ‘The Establishment of British Rule Chapter 5. Land and Revenue Questions Chapter 6. The Question of Jurisdiction Chapter7. The War Chapter 8. The Post-War Settlement Chapter9. ‘The English East India Company"s Administration Chapter 10. The India Office Chapter 11, ‘The Early Years under the Colonial Office Chapter 12, The Winds of Change Chapter 13. The Reforming Legislation Chapter 14, ‘The District Administration Chapter 15. ‘Prosperity and Peace in this Fertile Comer’ Chapter 16. Depression, Restriction, War, Emergency and Independence. BOOK TWO: The CUSTOM Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. ‘The Literary Approach Village Authority: the Family, Clan and its Inheritance Marriage and Marital Possessions Dissolution of Marriage Clan Membership and Adoption The Hierarchy, its Jurisdiction and the Gap between Customary and Statute Law The Naning Community BOOK THREE: The NEW INDEPENDENCE Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Political Currents ‘The Custom and Change 4723 485ENVOL 520 APPENDICES A, Short History of Kuala Linggi 525 B. Tribes and Clans (Suku dan Perut) of Naning 527 C. History of the establishment of Sungei Baru 531 D. Dutch Land Grant 13th. January 1794 to Bellemont 534 E, Treaty with Naning 1801 535 F. _ Inter-departmental Correspondence, 1825-1830, in Malacca 542 G. Report by Thomas Church on his visit to Naning in 1829. 550 H. Letters from Syed Shaaban of Rembau betraying Naning during the Naning War 957 1. Mosques and Penghulus of Naning in 1832 559 J. The Malay Writer’s (Mohd, Jafar’s) visit to Naning in 1892 and his Report 561 Memorandum on Naning Circa 1892 K. Extract from Humphrey’s ‘Malay Proverbs’ from Naning 580 L. 1972 Circular letters on customary charges at marriage and other occasions 594 References Sources and Authorities 607 References: Book One 618 References: Book Two 714 References: Book Three 740 Index TaLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Chapter 2 Map of the Malacca Territory Chapter 3 Reproduction of the signature of Governor Balthasa Bort of Malacca. Chapter 7 Manuscript document dated 1829 Signature of (Governor) Fullertot Garling and Church .... Proclamations issued in 1832. ............ Photo of an engraving of the defences and lines at Taboh .. Facing P. 130 Facing P. 150 Chapter 8 Line Drawing of a Map of Melaka & Negeri Sembilan 1874... Chapter 15 Group Photo in front of the District Office at Alor Gajah 1935. Photo of Dato Othman bin Kering, Dato Naning, in 1941 Chapter 16 GroupPhoto of Naning Customary Officials on 18th April 1966 . Photo of Encik Ghafar Baba, Chief unveiling Memorial Board. The Dato Naning stands beside him ... Modern Map of Malacca showing the District of Alor Gajah with Mukim boundaries ....BOOK ONE THE HISTORYEo EEE EEE EE ee a Chapter 1 Early Times and the Malacca Sultanate Naning covers twenty-five mukims or parishes across the northem part of the State of Melaka! and marches on its northern boundary with Rembau and Tampin, constituent States of the Negri Sembilan; southwards down- river are mukims such as Beringin, Durian Tunggal and Kesang whose in- habitants follow the usual Adat Melayu sometimes called Adat Te- menggong,’ while the coastal mukims from Kuala Linggi have vestiges of Adat Laut? It has an area of some 220 square miles and is the most southerly of the Districts or Luak where the Adat Perpateh obtains; but it was politically disjointed from its cousins by four and a half centuries of Portuguese, Dutch and British presence in Malacca. ‘The first inhabitants have been thought to have been among those megalith builders who came in the second wave of migration south.‘ The megaliths and alignments of baru hidop (‘stones which are alive’) are earlier than the establishment of a settled Muslim culture,’ and together with these, the matrilineal system, the possible meanings of “Taboh’ and *Naning’ , the significance of colours, of flags and other characteristics, led Winstedt to consider an origin shared by the Khassis of Assam.® There were certainly inhabitants when the first settlers arrived from Minangkabau in Sumatra: these inhabitants were ‘the black crows from the hills’ as distinct from the ‘white egrets from over the sea’. There is no evidence in Naning of Mon Khmer settlement or exploitation before the collapse of that empire in A.D. 1451, and the inhabitants must have been aborigines and proto-Malays, variously called ‘Benua’ and ‘Mantra’ by early writers and now classified as Temuan.” “Malacca and all the great Island belongs to us’, an aborigine told Logan in 1847 when he visited Bukit Panchor. ‘It belongs to us: the Ma- lays have come into our country, but Malacca and all the land is ours and not theirs.”* This heir of the long-dispossessed was a Besisi refugee from Rembauand amember of that race which Wilkinson wrote was to be found down to Gunong Tampin (just across the Naning border) and indeed on the Sumatran side of the Straits of Malacca.’ At the time of the 1947 Census, there was an established group of aborigines living on Bukit Payong in the mukim of Taboh Naning, and they said that they were Besisi, but also that their headman was a Jekra and that their Batin was at Kenaboi.!° (They were lively and genial, and took such matters as rice ration cards, kerosene4 Book One: The History lamps and khaki drill shorts for granted; the Malay penghulu, Land Bailiff and Bailiff's Follower were clearly not at ease.)!’ At that same time, there was a Jakun Reserve on the eastern boundary of the Bukit Panchor Re- serve, in Machap, then a Naning mukim, where a few families who had intermarried with Chinese lived in small huts and allowed squatters to market-garden in their area. These were what remained in that District of the Jakun found across Johore'? and the *Benuas’ of d’Eredia,!* Bort,'* Logan’ and others. One legend" says that these ‘Sakai’ came from Johore, from Skudai in the Pulai hills, up to Johol, led by three men and one woman. The woman stayed in Johol. and the men went on to Jelebu, another to Sungei Ujong. and the last to Klang: of the lesser chiefs in their company, one was sent to Naning and another to Rembau. Another legend’ stated that Dato’ Klana Putra of Sungei Ujong established Naning and Rembau and placed his sons over them. This To’ Klana Putra was a son of To’ Entah, first Batin, who amongst other things reduced the number of suns from three to. one and was the first man ever to feel thirsty, so this would seem to have been fairly carly in the world’s history. The traditions however include the Bendahara Sekudai,!* who has been identified as an historical figure of the first half of the seventeenth century by Winstedt,'” and he names Tun Perak, later Bendahara of Malacca, as the first Klana Putra.” This implies that the proto-Malays of the west coast of central Peninsular Malaysia came within the embrace of political organisation in the period between circa A.D. 1450"! and 1644 as the last possible date, when the Sultan of Johore disclaimed respons for the Minangkabaus and said they were the Bendahara’s tenants:” the opening date was accepted by both Winsted and Wilkinson. The closeness of the embrace’ depended on the effectiveness of the Malacca Sultanate’s rule over such of the population as had ceased to be nomadic, and this was greatly loosened but not entirely broken by the Portuguese capture of Malacca in A.D. 1511. Before that date ‘Malacca had become a capital instead of being an entire State in itself with expansion in the mid-Fifteenth century of suzerainty over Pahang, Kampar and Indragiri, What was this capital and its State? Both Tomé Pires? and d’ Albuquerque” attributed its beginnings to ‘Cellates* ‘robbers who used to go about pirating over the sea in launches...” who ‘fished in the river that runs at the foot of the fortres: (that is, the Malacca River): «ts they often Went up the said river fishing, for a distance of a league ortwoaway from the sea, they saw a large and spacious place with large fields and lovely waters, and they saw how well this place was adapted for a large town, and that they could sow large fields of riceEarly Times and the Malacca Sultanate 5 there, plant gardens, pasture herds...and they gave it the name of Bretam, which means spacious plain... This small group (Pires said there were eighteen) reported this to the ‘Parimicura’, then at Muar after being driven out of Singapore some years before. He came, and saw that it was good, and he established himself there with his followers: d’ Albuquerque says” that within two years (circa A.D. 1400) there was a population of two thousand, / The other details given by Pires raise some queries. A map contem- porary with his work™ shows a small river north-west of the Malacca River and running to the sea, and marked as the ‘Rio Bretam’. This tallies with the Sungei Hitam, the estuary of which is still known" by the honorific “Kuala Sungei Sri Melaka’ and meets the sea at Klebang Kechil: this river, how canalised, drains the padi-growing areas of Balai Panjang mukim, and ‘one tributary runs down from Bertam Ulu. There is a low watershed between its basin and that of the Malacca River. Place names have not shifted: Bort™ listed ‘Groot Bretang’ and ‘Kleen Bretang’ as divided by Malim and nearer Malacca than Kandang. Pires said” that ‘with the tide they can descend from Bretio to Malacca in an hour’, By the Malacca River it is over eight miles upstream to where the Sungei Ceng joins it, opposite Kandang: and high water ordinary spring tides reach hardly to Pringgit, three miles up; even in A.D. 1511 there was a bar in the Malacca River on which Antonio d'Abreu's ship grounded during the first Portu- guese attack on Malacca. The distance from the confluence of the Sungei Bertam Ulu and Sungei Ayer Salak to form the Ayer Hitam is about eight miles, of which nearly half is by sea passage along the coast: and the latter is the more likely to be the hour’s journey with a favourable tide. By the time of Aladin Riayat Shah (A.D. 1477 to 1488)" the popu- lation, according tod’ Albuquerque, had reached forty thousand, and at the time of its fall had one hundred thousand inhabitants and extended a good league along the coast. Pires says” that ‘from the Alcoala Panajy (i.e. Kuala Linggi) to the river of Muar along the sca, Malacca had a cate of men-at-arms who could fight. That is 100,000 men’. These must be apocalyptic figures: when Sultan Mahmud counter-attacked the first Portuguese assault on Malacca bridge, he had a force of two thousand men" in support of seven hundred Javanese already committed to the fight — and this when he had had time to mobilise in the week or two while the Portuguese fleet lay off Malacca and d’ Albuquerque sent demand after de- mand. The captains and crews of five Chinese junks which had been requi- sitioned by Sultan Mahmud Shah reported to d’Albuquerque that inside the city ‘were more than twenty thousand fi; ighting men, Javanese, Persians and Coracones, with twenty war elephants....’, but these forces did not appear in the battles. D'Albuquerque also stated that: