The relationship between the adat and state constitutions of Negeri Sembilan
M.B. Hooker’s 1969 article examines the dual constitutional system of Negri Sembilan—where adat and legislative government operate in parallel—using the 1967–1968 installations of the Undang of Jelebu and the Yang di-Pertuan Besar as a focal point for analysing how these two systems interact, conflict, and ultimately subordinate adat to the state constitution.
Summary
Hooker’s essay pursues two complementary aims. The first is documentary: to record the adat constitution governing the election and installation of the Undang of Jelebu and the Yamtuan, with particular attention to the clans, lineages, and title-holders who participated. Hooker argues that these lists constitute “hard data” essential for tracking constitutional change over time by comparing present rosters with past ones (p. 155). The second aim is analytical: to situate the roles of the Undang and the Yamtuan within the framework of the Negri Sembilan State Constitution of 1959 and to identify where the two systems generate friction.
The adat constitution of Jelebu is built around eight clans divided into three hierarchical categories. The Waris Biduanda (five clans) hold superior status by virtue of prior settlement and retain a symbolic right to hasil tanah payments commuted in 1891. The Waris Berundang (three clans) provide candidates for the Undang office in rotation, while the Waris Silasila (two clans) occupy special advisory positions but cannot themselves hold the office of Undang (pp. 155–156). The Yamtuan’s position is more complex: the office is simultaneously elective (chosen by unanimous vote of the four Undang) and hereditary (confined to the male-line descendants of Raja Radin, the fourth Yamtuan). Hooker resolves this apparent contradiction by noting the Yamtuan’s double status—ruler of Sri Menanti by birth and ruler of the state by election—a duality expressly preserved in the State Constitution (pp. 161–162).
The most instructive tension arises from the 1957 Council of Muslim Religion Enactment, which legislated the method of zakat and fitrah payment. Villagers in Jelebu regarded voluntary payment as adat and resented the Undang’s signature on the enactment. When the Undang rebuffed the lembaga’s protests and attempted to bypass them, the lembaga unanimously dismissed him under adat. Yet the dismissal proved constitutionally ineffective: the state executive supported the Undang, he retained his government income, and the post was never declared vacant despite Article XIV(3) recognising valid adat dismissal (pp. 167–168). This incident crystallises Hooker’s central argument: adat is a constitutionally “inferior” system of law in Negri Sembilan, amendable by a two-thirds legislative majority under Article LXXVIII, and an Undang who infringes the State Constitution cannot retain his position even if adat would permit it (pp. 168–169).
Key Findings
- The eight clans of Jelebu are hierarchically structured into Waris Biduanda (five clans, superior status, entitled to hasil tanah payments as small as 20 cents per month), Waris Berundang (three clans providing Undang candidates in rotation), and Waris Silasila (two clans with advisory but not elective functions) (pp. 155–156).
- The Sri Menanti Agreement of 4 June 1887, Section IV, formally recognised the hereditary succession of the Yamtuan within the Sri Menanti family, resolving the tension between the office’s elective and hereditary dimensions (p. 162).
- The Yamtuan’s civil list stood at $82,200 per annum at the time of writing, a marked increase from the “frugal lines” Wilkinson noted for the nineteenth century (p. 162).
- The 1957 Council of Muslim Religion Enactment (No. 1/1957), Sections 54–56, legislated zakat and fitrah payment methods, triggering the lembaga’s dismissal of the Undang of Jelebu—an adat-valid but constitutionally ineffective act (pp. 167–168).
- Article LXXVIII of the State Constitution permits amendment of the adat constitution by a two-thirds legislative majority approved by the Council of the Yang di-Pertuan Besar and the Ruling Chiefs, establishing adat’s formal subordination to statute (p. 168).
- Eligibility for the Undang is traced matrilineally, while eligibility for the Yamtuan is traced patrilineally—a divergence Hooker interprets as reflecting the contrast between localised territorial power (rooted in women’s land ownership) and centralised state power (pp. 169–170).
Conclusion
Hooker’s definitive takeaway is that the dual constitution of Negri Sembilan, while preserving the formal architecture of adat, has rendered it constitutionally subordinate to the state legislature. An Undang who violates the State Constitution cannot retain his office, whereas one dismissed under adat may continue to exercise state-constitutional powers indefinitely. The adat system thus survives as a cultural and ceremonial framework but lacks independent constitutional force against the elected legislature.
Context
- Hooker draws on official installation programmes for the 1967 Undang of Jelebu and the 1968 Yamtuan as primary sources for clan and lineage lists, supplemented by Wilkinson (1914), Sheehan (1936), and Swift (1965) for historical and ethnographic context.
- The article contributes to the historiography of Malay adat by treating constitutional lists as empirical data for diachronic comparison, a methodological approach that influenced subsequent studies of indigenous political systems in western Malaya.