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Kelantan

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Kelantan

Kelantan is the most northern Malay state on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, situated between latitudes 4°35′ and 6°15′ north and longitudes 101°22′ and 102°33′ east, bounded to the west by a range of jungle-clad mountains up to 6,500 feet high, to the south by the Pahang boundary at Gunong Tahan (7,186 feet), the loftiest summit in Malaya, to the east by a mountain range dividing it from Trengganu, and to the north-west by the Golok River, which forms the boundary with Patani [1, p. 44]. The state’s isolation landwards from the rest of the Peninsula meant that events in neighbouring regions left Kelantan more or less unconcerned for much of its history, and it passed through the centuries alongside its neighbours to the north-west—Patani, Rahman, Sai, and Legeh—and with Trengganu to the east, at times under the Siamese yoke [1, p. 44]. The state’s economic significance has been shaped by its gold-bearing river systems, its position on ancient maritime trade routes connecting the east coast to the Gulf of Siam and beyond, and, in the modern period, by the agricultural and mining concessions that defined its colonial administrative history [2, pp. 27–28], [3, pp. 166–167].

Ancient Origins and the Question of Antiquity

The early history of Kelantan remains obscure, with very few records available prior to the sixteenth century [1, p. 44]. The earliest trade routes from Europe, Arabia, and India went, after rounding Tumasik (the present Singapore), up along the east coast of the Malay Peninsula to Kelantan and Legeh (Patani), from there crossing the Gulf of Siam towards Cambodia and further north to China; Marco Polo followed this route in 1292 A.D., and the Chinese crossed the Gulf from Cambodia towards Kelantan some 2,000 years ago [1, p. 45]. Gerini’s Researches on Ptolemy’s Geography of Eastern Asia identifies Ptolemy’s “Koli” with Kelantan, arguing that the name was formed by affixing the Malay word thana (place, country) or the particle anta (limit, boundary) to a root form, and that the district was “no doubt, a very ancient foundation, early referred to in Malay annals as a powerful kingdom, while its abundance in natural resources and mineral wealth places it in a prominent position among the Malay States” [1, p. 45].

Hsu Yun-ts’iao’s 1947 philological study attempts to locate the ancient state “Tan-tan” (檀檀), first recorded in the Liang Shu of 530 A.D., by systematically eliminating competing identifications and ultimately arguing for its placement in the Kelantan region [4]. The Liang Shu records Tan-tan’s first embassy to China in 530 A.D., presenting ivory images, pagodas, fire pearls, karpasi (cotton), and perfumes; a second mission followed in 535 A.D. with gold, silver, and glass [4, pp. 7–8]. The T’ung Tien describes Tan-tan’s capital as accommodating more than 20,000 families, with eight Brahmin ministers called the “Eight Seats,” and a king surnamed Sha-li (Ksatriya) named Shih-ling-chia, identified with Cri Lingga, an alias of Siva [4, p. 10]. Hsu Yun-ts’iao identifies the village of Tendong, ten miles from the Kelantan River mouth and five to six miles from Kota Bahru, as the most probable location of the ancient capital [4, p. 18]. The name “Kelantan” itself first appears in Chao Ju-kua’s Chu Fan Chih (1225 A.D.), where it is listed alongside P’ong-feng (Pahang) and Teng-ya-nung as dependencies of Crivijaya; before this date, no Chinese source records a state in the Kelantan–Pahang region [4, p. 14].

Rentse (1947) argues that the Malays of the northeastern states represent a people culturally and historically distinct from those of the west and south coasts, developing through contact with Khmer, Mon, and later Thai peoples, and that their culture was shaped by Brahmanism and Hinduism transmitted through northern overland routes rather than through the maritime channels that brought Javanese and Sumatran influence to the west coast [2, pp. 19–20]. In 1225 A.D., the Malay-Buddhist kingdom of Palembang claimed suzerainty over Kelantan, alongside Kedah, Trengganu, and Pahang, as recorded by the Chinese traveller Chao Ju Kua [1, p. 45]. The Nagarakretagama, composed in 1365 A.D., relates that Kelantan was subject to Majapahit, an influence Rentse traces in surviving armlets of local type but Majapahit design, in dialect features, in the Panji wayang tradition, and in the ritual for cleansing the country [1, p. 45].

The Medieval and Early Modern Period

In the fifteenth century, Chinese chroniclers record that Kelantan was ruled by a Maharaja, and that in 1411 Maharaja K’u-ma-r (? Kumara) sent an embassy to China [1, p. 45]. The Malay Annals inform us how the last Sultan of Malacca (1488–1511 A.D.), Mahmud Shah, conquered Kelantan and carried away three daughters of its ruler, Sultan Iskandar Shah, a descendant of Raja Chulan; one Kelantan princess, Mengindra Putri, became the consort of Sultan Mahmud of Pahang [1, p. 45]. After the downfall of Malacca in 1511, the Portuguese tried to dominate Malaya; in 1523 they burnt Patani, and this may have affected Kelantan, as the family of Sultan Iskandar Shah appears to have gone out of power [1, pp. 45].

About 1580 A.D., Raja Husain became Sultan of Kelantan; he was a son of Raja Omar of Pahang and a grandson of Raja Ahmad of Trengganu [1, p. 46]. His power may have vanished when Siam conquered Patani in 1603, and for a considerable period thereafter we hear nothing about Kelantan, so that it may have come under the sway of Siam and been ruled from Patani [1, p. 55]. Almost certainly Kelantan during this period was divided up into smaller kingdoms, each ruled by its own chief, vassals partly under Patani and partly under Trengganu; tradition tells us that the chiefs west of the Kelantan River paid respect to Patani (Siam), and those east of the river to the rulers of Trengganu [1, p. 55]. This would explain the fact that no town at the mouth of the Kelantan River is to be found on maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries [1, p. 55].

The reconstitution of Kelantan as a unified state is attributed to the Long Yunus dynasty. A branch of the ruling family in Patani came to Kelantan apparently about 1730 A.D.; the Trengganu annals record that “masa itu Kelantan belum lagi ada beraja” (at that time Kelantan did not yet have a ruler) [1, p. 55]. Long Yunus, the progenitor of the present royal family, was installed as Raja of Kelantan with the assistance of Sultan Mansur Shah of Trengganu, who armed a fleet and went to Kuala Pak Amat, declaring: “I am not coming to conquer Kelantan, but to instal an anak Raja Kelantan as ruler” [1, p. 51]. Long Yunus died in 1794 A.D. and is buried at Langgar, the present royal cemetery; the gravestone is covered by an ant hill, regarded as a good omen [1, p. 52]. His son, Sultan Muhammad I, whose reign commenced in 1800 A.D., bears a seal inscribed “Khalilu’llah Raja Kelantan / al-Sultan Yunus al-Marhum / Sanat 1215” [1, p. 56].

Economic Life and the Gold Trade

The gold trade has been central to Kelantan’s economic history from antiquity to the modern period. Rentse (1947) traces a continuous chain of ancient mining sites from the Raub Gold Mines in Pahang northward through the Galas, Nenggiri, Pergau, and Sokor river valleys in Kelantan, across the Thai border into the Tadoh and Telubin (Sai) river systems, and finally into the upper Patani and Belum valleys in Perak [2, pp. 27–28]. He argues that these gold-bearing watersheds, separated by ridges of less than a thousand feet, formed a natural corridor of settlement and trade that linked the east coast to the west coast independent of maritime routes [2, p. 28]. Locally minted gold coins bearing Arabic inscriptions, the mas dinar, have been unearthed across the Kelantan plain, some dating to the sixteenth century and others probably two centuries older; Rentse argues a gold currency was in force before 1500 A.D. [2, pp. 27–28], [1, pp. 54–55].

By the late nineteenth century, the gold mining industry was dominated by Chinese labour. Bozzolo’s 1888 report documents the Tomoh mining settlement as comprising approximately 700 Chinese (excluding women and children) in 150 houses, with three water-powered crushing machines of six stampers each, let out at $1.50 per day, processing an average of 100 gantangs of quartz per diem [5, pp. 130–131]. The Sultan’s personal share from the mines was 130 gantangs of rough gold, collected via a tax of one tael per miner leaving for China [5, p. 111]. Market prices in Kota Bahru included gutta taban merah at $50 per picul, pepper at $18 per picul, and 100 gantangs of dammar for $1 [5, pp. 100].

The Chinese settlement at Pulai, in Ulu Kelantan, represents a distinct case in the history of Chinese mining communities. Carstens (1980) reconstructs the history of this Hakka Chinese gold mining settlement from the late eighteenth century to 1940, arguing that the community’s survival as a distinct, isolated settlement was determined by its transition from gold mining to subsistence rice farming and the resulting self-sufficiency in food and marriage partners [6]. By 1902, Waterstradt recorded a Pulai population of only 200, many of whom had already switched to rice farming; by Middlebrook’s 1933 visit, the population had recovered to between 700 and 800 Hakka-speaking Chinese [6, pp. 53–54]. Interviews with 80 of 100 Pulai households revealed that approximately 80 percent of families had been in Pulai for four to six generations, and 90 percent of those interviewed identified their forefathers as Hakka [6, p. 56]. The settlement’s isolation—characterised by the near-total absence of Malay residents—meant that the typical markers of acculturation simply did not apply, and adaptations were driven by the natural environment rather than by contact with the Malay majority [6].

Davison’s 1889 journal provides a comparative snapshot of the east coast economy, noting that Kelantan was primarily agricultural, growing paddy, coconuts, Indian corn, tobacco, and croton, in contrast to Trengganu’s economy dominated by fishing and the manufacture of sarongs and krisses [7, pp. 86–88]. Kelantan’s coinage at that time consisted solely of the silver dollar and small circular tin coins (five hundred equal one dollar); copper cents and fractional silver were not accepted [7, p. 89].

Colonial Administration and the Duff Concession

The transfer of Kelantan from Siamese to British suzerainty under the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of March 1909 marked a decisive turning point in the state’s administrative history [3, pp. 159–190]. Kelantan, having already experienced a decade of Siamese administrative reform under W. A. Graham’s Resident Commissionership (1902–1909), possessed a rudimentary but functional framework of government—courts, a police force, organised departments, and a revenue system that had grown from practically nil to $320,000 by 1909 [3, pp. 159–190]. The first two decades of British protection were a “period of construction” during which the British Adviser and a small European staff rebuilt the administrative machinery from scratch, integrating Malay chiefs into the new structure while introducing institutions such as the Conservancy Board (1912), the Majlis Ugama dan Istiadat Melayu (1916), and a codified legal system [3, pp. 159–190].

The Duff Development Company Concession, which had granted a private company quasi-sovereign powers over vast tracts of interior land in 1900, dominated Kelantan’s financial history and consumed the state in debt until a final settlement in 1930 [3, pp. 166–167]. Levos (1997) re-examines the long-standing portrayal of Robert W. Duff as an agent of British imperialism, arguing instead that Duff was fundamentally an economic entrepreneur operating within the liberal free trade tradition [8]. Duff obtained a 3,000-square-mile (776,996 ha) concession in 1905, for which the Raja of Kelantan received £2,000 and 200 shares in the company [8, p. 7]. The company’s mining operations for gold and tin were described as “the Invincible Error,” with poor returns by 1906 and complete abandonment due to unsatisfactory revenue and high transportation costs; by 1928 the company had 24,880 acres (10,068 ha) of rubber under cultivation, and the timber trade and opium/liquor franchises proved more lucrative than mining [8, pp. 11–13]. The 1912 Deed of Cancellation, which nullified the 1905 Agreement, was intended to resolve tensions between Duff and the colonial administration but instead triggered arbitration proceedings from 1916 to 1920 that proved enormously costly for the Kelantan government [8, pp. 13–15]. The 1925 arbitration award granted the Duff Company £378,000 plus costs for the Kelantan government’s breach of contract over the railway, while the FMS wrote off a £300,000 loan and extended a further £4,125,000 interest-free loan to Kelantan [8, p. 15].

By 1938, Kelantan’s revenue had risen from $400,000 in 1910 to $3,209,722, but the state’s external debt stood at $5,119,069, largely a legacy of the Duff dispute [3, pp. 166–167]. The state had 291 miles of road and was served by the East Coast Line of the F.M.S. Railway, opened in 1931 [3, p. 173]. The 1938 Census recorded Kelantan’s population as 399,299 (350,526 Malay), confirming the near-total preservation of Malay demographic character [3, p. 201]. The mortality rate was reduced from 40 per mille to under 20 per mille over the service of two medical officers, and cholera and smallpox, which had claimed one in two children, were practically unknown by the late 1930s [3, p. 174].

The 1915 Pasir Putih rebellion provides a critical case study in the dynamics of the advisory system. Cheah Boon Kheng (1995) argues that Sultan Mohamed IV did not simply comply with British authority but instead played a calculated “double game”—publicly endorsing the British Adviser’s military suppression while privately sympathising with the rebels’ grievances over land taxation and district officer misconduct [9]. The rebellion broke out on 29 April 1915; British troops from Singapore arrived in Kota Bahru on 5 May and reached Pasir Putih on 9 May, encountering no organised resistance [9, pp. 9]. The Sultan’s ministers reported rebel strength at 3,900 men across six positions with approximately 400 guns [9, pp. 18–19]. A punitive fine was imposed on all households in Pasir Putih: $10 for a large house, $5 for medium, $3 for small, with houses to be burned if unpaid within 15 days [9, pp. 24–26]. The Sultan petitioned three times to have Langham-Carter replaced, and his ambivalent strategies ultimately secured the Adviser’s ouster [9, pp. 29–30].

The Interior and the Temiar

The interior of Kelantan, particularly the Ulu Kelantan region, remained one of the few blank spaces on the map of Malaya in the early 1930s [10, p. 288]. Baker’s 1933 reconnaissance account documents a journey from the Cameron Highlands to the Gua Musang railway station through the previously unmapped interior, directed by the Governor of the Federated Malay States to assess a potential east-west access route linking the Cameron Highlands road system to the East Coast Railway [10, p. 288]. The expedition recorded ethnographic and geological observations of the Temiar communities encountered along the way; the Temiar population of the area traversed is estimated at approximately 3,000 individuals [10, p. 293]. The long house at Penghulu To’ Jagor’s ladang on the Sungai Ber accommodates at least 100 people grouped around five fireplaces with no internal partitions [10, p. 290]. A notable break in tribal cohesion was observed at the Jeram Gajah falls, where the previously open and friendly relations between ladang gave way to watchfulness and separation [10, p. 291].

Geologically, Baker identifies the transition from the granite of the Cameron Highlands through mica-schist and brecciated granite to sedimentary shales and quartzite below the Jeram Gajah, and notes tin oxide deposits in the Sungai Brok bed and reported tin deposits between Sungai Betis and Bukit Ayam [10, p. 293]. He concludes that the wide valley between the Pahang-Kelantan boundary and the Sungai Blatop offers a valuable extension to the Cameron Highlands agricultural area, while the flatter 200 square miles between Kuala Betis and Gua Musang, with its excellent soil and rail access, is suited to immediate development [10, p. 293]. A Chinese-managed gold mine at Panggong Lalat, visited en route to Gua Musang, produces approximately 70 tahils of gold per month [10, p. 293].

Rentse (1947) documents the archaeological significance of the interior, noting that a socketed bronze celt (8 cm long) was found in a gold mine at Sungei Jenera, two days’ journey from the nearest Malay village, in territory inhabited only by the Temiar; the site lies just below Gunong Chintawasa, which local tradition identifies as the seat of a queen who once ruled all of Kelantan [2, p. 38]. Sung Celadon porcelain was found about 2 feet below the surface at Pendek on the bank of Sungei Mulong, an old delta arm of the Kelantan River, and large Ming-period jars with incised dragon designs (50–57 cm high) were found at Ulu Sungei Galas, Kg. Temangan Lama, and S. Golok [2, pp. 38–39].

The Peranakan Chinese of Northeast Kelantan

Tan Chee-Beng’s 1982 ethnographic study examines the Peranakan Chinese of the Kelantan River corridor, arguing that Chinese religion is the single most important institution preserving Chinese cultural identity among a community otherwise heavily acculturated by Malay and Thai neighbours [11]. The 1970 census recorded 36,668 Chinese in Kelantan (5.34% of the total population of 686,266), of whom 57.76% were Hokkien speakers [11, pp. 27–28]. These rural Chinese wear Malay dress, speak Kelantan Malay and often Thai, eat with their fingers, and attend Malay-medium schools, yet they remain fundamentally Chinese in their religious life, domestic architecture, and communal ritual organisation [11].

The historical narrative draws on early Chinese sources to establish the antiquity of Chinese settlement in Kelantan. Xie Qinggao’s Hailu, describing his fourteen years in Southeast Asia (1782–1795), records that the natives of Kelantan did not allow their women to marry Chinese, that those who did married Siamese women, and that Fujian Chinese lived at the port while Guangdong Chinese lived in the hills mining gold [11, pp. 27–28]. The grave-stone of Peh Wan Cho (Lin Boxian), believed to be the founder of the Kg. Tanah Merah Chinese settlement, was erected during the Guangxu Yisi year (February 1905 to January 1906), suggesting the settlement dates to the early nineteenth century [11, pp. 39–40]. Shengchun Gong in Kg. Tokong, the oldest Chinese temple in northeast Kelantan, was already in existence by 1871 and was renovated in 1932; Zhenxing Gong in Kg. China, Kota Bharu, was renovated in 1918 and houses a drum presented by the Sultan of Kelantan in 1879 as thanks for Mazu’s divination revealing the safe return of a royal envoy to Thailand [11, pp. 45–46].

Tan’s central argument is that because Malay culture is fundamentally Islamic, a Chinese person cannot become culturally Malay without abandoning Chinese religion; conversely, as long as Peranakan Chinese observe their religious practices, they remain Chinese [11]. Thai Buddhism, by contrast, is non-exclusive and individualistic, allowing the Peranakan to participate in Thai temple life without compromising their Chinese religious identity, which explains the deeper Thai cultural penetration into Peranakan life [11].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on Kelantan reveals a clear evolution in scholarly priorities across more than a century. The earliest contributions—Davison’s 1889 field journal and Bozzolo’s 1888 travel report—reflect the natural history and colonial administrative concerns of the late Victorian period, in which the east coast was still largely unexplored by Western observers [7], [5]. Davison’s account, though modest in scope, captures a coastline in transition: primary forest felled within miles of Pekan, new police stations being erected, and a pumice-stone beach suggesting recent volcanic activity [7]. Bozzolo’s report, submitted to the Colonial Office as a confidential dispatch and not published for general distribution until 2018, provides a comprehensive assessment of the political, economic, and social conditions of Kelantan under Sultan Ahmad, documenting a state that had lost two-thirds of its population in six years due to the burning of Kota Bahru, a typhoon, cattle disease, and a cholera epidemic around 1885 [5, pp. 105–106].

The interwar period saw the emergence of Kelantan as a subject of serious historical reconstruction. Rentse’s 1934 article, drawing on Malay folklore, Chinese annals, Ptolemaic geography, old European maps, and royal genealogical manuscripts, established the deep Patani–Kelantan connection as the key to understanding the state’s political development and challenged earlier, less reliable accounts by Graham and Newbold [1]. His 1947 historical note extended this work by arguing that the northeastern Malay states possessed a distinct and far older cultural history than the west coast, driven primarily by ancient gold mining and a network of overland trade routes [2]. Hsu Yun-ts’iao’s 1947 philological study contributed a sinological dimension, systematically working through Chinese dynastic histories to locate the ancient state of Tan-tan in the Kelantan region [4].

The post-war period brought administrative

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References

  1. A. Rentse (1934). History of Kelantan, Part I JMBRAS 12(2): 44–62. Read on JSTOR
  2. A. Rentse (1947). A historical note on the northeastern Malay states JMBRAS 20(1): 23–40.
  3. Chan Su-ming (1965). Kelantan and Trengganu, 1909–1939 JMBRAS 38(1): 159–198. Read on JSTOR
  4. Hsu Yun-ts’iao (1947). Notes on Tan Tan JMBRAS 20(1): 47–63.
  5. C.F. Bozzolo (2018). Visit to Kelantan and southern Siam in 1888 JMBRAS 91(1): 93–150. Read on JSTOR
  6. S.A. Carstens (1980). Pulai: memories of a gold mining settlement in Ulu Kelantan JMBRAS 53(1): 50–67.
  7. W. Davison (1889). Journal of a trip to Pahang etc. with H.E. the Governor, August 17th to 27th, 1889 JSBRAS 20: 83–90.
  8. E. Levos (1997). Robert W. Duff: a British seigneur in Kelantan, 1892–1932 JMBRAS 70(1): 1–19.
  9. Cheah Boon Kheng (1995). Hunting down the rebels in Kelantan, 1915: the Sultan’s ‘double game’ JMBRAS 68(2): 9–32.
  10. A.C. Baker (1933). An account of a journey from the Cameron Highlands to the east coast railway and of a visit to the Temiar settlements in the valleys of the Sungai Blatop and S. Ber JMBRAS 11(2): 288–295. Read on JSTOR
  11. Tan Chee Beng (1982). Peranakan Chinese in northeast Kelantan, with special reference to Chinese religion JMBRAS 55(1): 26–52. Read on JSTOR