Negri Sembilan: the history, polity and beliefs of the nine states
R.O. Winstedt, General Adviser to the Sultan of Johore, published this comprehensive study in 1934 in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. The article reconstructs the political history of Negri Sembilan from the fourteenth century through British intervention in the 1870s–1890s, then provides a detailed ethnographic account of the Minangkabau matrilineal polity and belief systems that persisted in the Nine States. Its overarching thesis is that Negri Sembilan’s unique constitution—a hybrid of patriarchal Malacca-derived territorial chieftainship and matrilineal Minangkabau tribal law—was the product of successive cultural absorptions rather than a single founding act.
Summary
The historical section traces the evolution of the Nine States from pre-Minangkabau settlements (Klang, Sungai Ujong, Naning, Rembau) through the Portuguese and Dutch colonial periods, the Bugis interlude, and the rise of Raja Melewar as the first Yam-tuan Besar in 1773. Winstedt draws heavily on the Dagh-Register, Portuguese accounts (d’Eredia, Schouten, Barretto de Resende), and Dutch treaty records to reconstruct the complex web of suzerainty claims that layered over the hinterland. He argues that the “Nine States” was never a genuine confederacy in its early period but a congeries of Minangkabau settlements that gradually coalesced around the Sri Menanti palace, with the number nine itself likely inspired by the nine districts of Rembau recorded in a 1759 treaty (pp. 41–65).
The polity section examines the Minangkabau matrilineal system as it operated in practice: the four-tier political hierarchy (buapa/elder, lembaga/tribal chief, undang/territorial chief, Yam-tuan/ruler), the law of property distinguishing ancestral from personal holdings, criminal law centred on feasts of reconciliation, and the role of the Biduanda tribe as a surviving element of pre-Minangkabau Malacca society. Winstedt identifies two structural imperfections that prevented the constitution from achieving stability: the requirement of unanimity for all decisions, which turned every minority into a secessionist, and the anomalous position of the Yam-tuan, who owned no territory and could levy no taxes, rendering him a figurehead rather than a sovereign (pp. 77–95).
The beliefs section covers the medicine-man’s agricultural rituals (rice-soul invocations, triennial spirit-expulsion ceremonies), the shaman and his tiger familiars, sacred places (karamat), and the complex syncretism of Islam with pre-Islamic Hindu and animist practices. Winstedt grounds these in comparative ethnography, drawing parallels with Dayak, Karen, Siamese, and Assyrian traditions to contextualise what might otherwise appear as isolated survivals (pp. 97–109).
Key Findings
- The inscribed stone at Pengkalan Kempas, dated 1467 A.D. (the reign of Sultan Mansur Shah), bears both Arabic and Sumatran Malay inscriptions and marks the grave of a Minangkabau immigrant, providing the earliest datable evidence of Minangkabau presence in the Negri Sembilan hinterland (p. 44).
- The 1641 Dutch–Naning treaty imposed a tithe of rice, fruit, betel, and pepper, a tenth of money from land sales, and the surrender of all weapons; by 1765 the Dutch had commuted the rice tithe to a nominal tribute of 400 gantang (pp. 48–49, 64).
- The 1759 treaty between Governor David Bulen and the heads of the nine districts of Rembau is the first authentic mention of the “nine countries” (negeri) of Rembau and fixed the tin monopoly price at 38 Spanish reals per bahar of 300 kati (p. 57).
- The Naning War of 1831–32 cost the British £100,000; post-war revenue for Naning was $762 against expenditure of $463 in 1833, rising to $1,240 revenue and $490 expenditure by 1835 (pp. 65–66).
- The 1874 engagement signed by the Klana Putra, Sayid ‘Abdu’r-Rahman al-Kadri, and the Dato’ Muda of Linggi was a penal bond of $50,000 guaranteeing free passage on the Linggi River and ceding the station at Sempang to British control (pp. 69–71).
- The 1898 treaty established the Yang di-pertuan Besar as an elective office held by a royal prince, with the four great territorial chiefs (Sungai Ujong, Jelebu, Johol, Rembau) as electors, and explicitly barred the office from interfering in local customs or Muhammadan law (p. 76).
Conclusion
Winstedt’s definitive historical takeaway is that the Negri Sembilan constitution, for all its internal coherence and remarkable adaptability in absorbing patriarchal intruders and foreign dynasties, was structurally incapable of producing a stable, unified polity without external arbitration. The unanimity requirement ensured perpetual fragmentation, and the Yam-tuan’s lack of independent revenue or coercive power made him dependent on the very territorial chiefs whose disputes he was meant to settle. British protection, by creating a Council of the Nine States with the Yam-tuan as president and the Undangs as members, supplied the “coping-stone” that the indigenous system could never generate on its own (p. 95).
Context
- Winstedt served as General Adviser to the Sultan of Johore and had extensive personal knowledge of Negri Sembilan affairs; his administrative position gave him access to both British colonial archives and Malay oral traditions collected directly from the Undang and tribal chiefs.
- The study draws on the Dagh-Register (Batavia), Malacca Consultations, Straits Settlements Records, the Sejarah Melayu, d’Eredia’s Description of Malacca, and Dutch treaty collections, alongside extensive fieldwork in Rembau, Jelebu, and Johol. Its historiographical contribution lies in demonstrating that the “Nine States” was a late and partly artificial construction, and in providing the first systematic account of Minangkabau matrilineal law as practised (not merely theorised) in the Malay Peninsula.