A Naning Recital. 
BY 
J. L. Humphreys. 
Malayan Civil Service. 
When stationed at Alor Gajah in 1908, I heard an 
eld Malay, named Ungkai Lisut, recite at a wedding-feast a 
pleasant speech of Menangkabau customary sayings. He after- 
wards repeated the recital for my benefit (it was printed, with a 
translation, in Number 72 of this Journal), and some time later 
gave me the tattered manuscript of a longer and f deeper ’ speech — 
the text now published. The restoration of the manuscript has 
been a difficult task: Ungkai Lisut’s memory of the sayings proved, 
in fact, more accurate than his document; and the present version 
contains several passages that came back to his mind (after a 
special discipline of prayer and fasting) during a visit he paid me 
at Singapore in the year 1914. 
An explanation of all the references in the recital would fill a 
small volume, but a few words will make it intelligible. 
Naning, now included in the Settlement of Malacca, was 
formerly one of the Nine States — the original Negri Sembilan — 
founded by Sumatran immigrants, who crossed the Straits of 
Malacca in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and brought with 
them the Menangkabau Custom ( Adat Menangkabau) of exo- 
gamous tribes, descent of property through females, and mild 
criminal procedure of compromise and reparation. Naning' came 
under Portuguese influence, and afterwards (by treaty made in 
1643) paid nominal tribute to the Dutch conquerors of Malacca; 
but remained in effect an autonomous and semi-democratic State, 
with a constitution of Chief (the Dato’ Naning), Heads of Tribes, 
and Elders of Clans. 
After the East India Company had replaced the Dutch, at- 
tempts to levy a full tribute led to the Naning War of 1831-1832 : 
Dol Said, the Dato’ Naning, made a stubborn resistance to the 
Indian troops, but finally succumbed ; the tribal constitution was 
abolished (even the use of ‘ the terms Dattoo and Sookoo ’ was for- 
bidden) ; and Naning became a Malacca ‘ District’, divided into 
Mukims under territorial Penghulus. 
In spite of political annihilation and the steady pressure of 
Colonial Courts and Law, the tribal Custom still survives with 
remarkable vitality in all matters affecting property, marriage and 
inheritance. The survival is due partly to the neighbourhood of 
Rembau, where the fuller Adat still survives; but it must also be 
Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc., No. 83, 1921. 
