Article

Secret Societies

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Secret Societies

Scope and Historical Definition

The term “secret society” has long served as a colonial shorthand for a complex and heterogeneous range of Chinese and Malay political, economic, and social organisations that operated across the Straits Settlements, the Malay States, and Borneo from the eighteenth century into the twentieth. The label itself is contested. Wang Tai-peng (1979) argued that the word kongsi—which colonial administrators reduced to a synonym for “secret society”—denoted in fact a form of open, representative self-government rooted in Chinese partnership and sworn-brotherhood traditions [1, pp. 102–104]. Purcell observed that “all Chinese social organisation was necessarily ‘secret’ whilst it was not recognised or was banned by the Government,” a point that undermines the very category the colonial state imposed [1, p. 103]. Modern scholarship has widely recognised the so-called “secret” societies as vehicles of Chinese autonomy within colonial rule in Southeast Asia [1, p. 103].

The Straits Settlements administration did not formally distinguish hui-kuan (clan associations and provincial societies) from hui (brotherhoods) until 1892, by which time the confusion had already shaped decades of policy [1, p. 103]. The British drew a “clear-cut line” between the two categories, but as Wang notes, this distinction was “only real from the point of view of the administration”; among the Chinese themselves, no such separation existed [1, p. 103]. The kongsi that emerged in the eighteenth century were rooted in both Chinese partnership and brotherhood traditions, and although some may have carried over the ritual oath-taking ceremony and even the name of the T’ien-Ti Hui, they generally evolved from small partnerships in commerce or mining [1, p. 103]. On foundation they were called hui or union; later, when they grew into large organisations with hundreds or thousands of members, they were known as kongsi [1, p. 103].

The phenomenon was not exclusively Chinese. Mahani Musa (1999) demonstrated that the Red Flag and White Flag Societies in Penang originated as religious mutual-aid bodies (jumaah) among Indian Muslim and Jawi Peranakan communities before being transformed into Chinese-model secret societies through alliance with the Ghee Hin and Toh Peh Kong [2, pp. 151–152]. W.G. Stirling (1925) went further, asserting that these Malay-dominated organisations were “deliberate instruments created by the Chinese Ghee Hin and Ghee Hok Triad Societies to extend their reach into Malay administrative and police structures” [3, p. 57].

Colonial Governance and the Problem of Control

By 1876, sixty per cent of the Chinese population in the Straits Settlements were sworn members of secret societies, branches of the Ghee Hin, and the remaining forty per cent were strongly under their influence [4, p. 130]. The societies functioned as parallel governments: they adjudicated internal disputes, enforced judgments, settled inter-society conflicts by force, and inducted new arrivals as a matter of course [4, p. 130]. The colonial government, staffed by officials who could not speak Chinese and whose proclamations were rendered in the Chinese-language press as “red-haired barbarians,” was aware of the situation but unable to intervene meaningfully [4, p. 131]. The 1876 Labour Commission found that the vast majority of Chinese labourers returned to China “not knowing clearly whether there is a Government in them or not,” having never been brought into contact with any government officer during their entire sojourn [4, p. 134].

The turning point came with the appointment of W.A. Pickering as Protector of Immigrants in 1877, the only European officer in the Straits service who could speak Chinese [4, p. 135]. Pickering’s immediate effect was to place every new arrival under direct government supervision at the critical moment of entry: ships were boarded, immigrants questioned, contracts registered, and each man informed that the Government existed and was available to hear complaints [4, p. 136]. When the clerical work of society registration was transferred to his office, Pickering seized the opportunity to take the initiative in governing the secret societies themselves, insisting on a comprehensive re-registration and exercising day-to-day control over the headmen, who now faced the threat of deportation if they failed to keep their members in order [4, p. 137]. The headmen, whose power depended on their continued presence in the colony, became incentivised to prevent inter-society violence and to refer disputes to Pickering for arbitration [4, p. 137]. By 1879 Pickering asserted that the secret societies had been reduced to “nothing more than large Friendly Societies” [4, p. 137]. The Protectorate settled approximately 3,000 cases annually through informal adjudication and conciliation, providing an accessible alternative to courts whose fees, language barriers, and ignorance of Chinese custom made them effectively closed to ordinary Chinese litigants [4, pp. 137–138]. In 1890 the secret societies were declared illegal and formally dissolved; while the political problem was thereby solved, the residual police problem of splintered subordinate groups running protection rackets over prostitution and gambling persisted [4, p. 138].

Territorial Organisation and Economic Function

Mak Lau-fong and A. Wong (1978) examined how Chinese secret societies in Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia demarcated and contested operational territories across two distinct historical periods: the colonial Straits Settlements era and the post-independence modern era [5, pp. 37–45]. Their central argument is that territorial patterns shifted fundamentally from occupation-based ethnic monopolisation—sustained by the credit-ticket labour recruitment system—to protection-fee collection oriented purely toward maximising economic returns from subscribers regardless of ethnicity or trade [5, p. 37]. Under the pre-twentieth-century credit-ticket system, newly arrived sinkhehs (immigrant labourers) typically required at least three years of unpaid or nominal-wage labour to repay their transport debt to the employer, a mechanism that reinforced occupational monopolisation by speech group [3, p. 40, n. 4].

The authors constructed their historical case from three converging lines of circumstantial evidence: early street names, temple locations, and occupational-ethnic specialisations [5, p. 37]. Registration lists from 1860 and 1889 confirmed that the Ghee Hin society maintained a headquarters on Rochore Road, the Hai San on Upper Cross Street, and the Ghee Hock on Carpenter Street in Singapore [3, p. 37, n. 1]. In the contemporary period, the logic of territorial claim changed: societies no longer protected specific occupations but instead collected protection money from small businessmen, hawkers, and operators of cinemas, brothels, and markets [5, p. 40]. In Ipoh during the 1950s and 1960s, the town was divided into five major protected blocks controlled by three principal groups: Hsiao Pa Hung, Hua Chi, and Ling Pa [5, pp. 40–41]. In Penang, the Hua Chi Society controlled Munteri Street and MacAlister Lane, while its sublodge Pa Hsien controlled Rope Walk, Church Street, Bishop Street, King Street, Queen Street, and Ayer Itam [5, p. 40].

Pek Wee Chuen (2021) extended the economic analysis to the mining districts of Perak, proposing the kong-moon system—a Hakka term for a mining concession area governed by a Chinese headman—as the fundamental analytical unit for understanding Chinese social organisation in mid-nineteenth-century Perak [6, pp. 25–27]. Rather than treating the Larut Wars of 1861, 1865, and 1872 as an irreconcilable Hakka-versus-Cantonese ethnic clash, Pek argued that the two warring factions were in fact two distinct kong-moon production systems (Klian Pauh under the Hai San and Klian Bahru under the Ghee Hin), each an integrated socioeconomic entity that linked political authority, economic interest, and community life within the broader Malay feudal structure [6, pp. 25–27]. Captain Speedy’s 1874 report recorded 26,000 Chinese in Larut, four-fifths of them miners [6, p. 32]. By the mid-1860s there were thirty mining kongsis at Klian Pauh (twenty Chengsheng, three Fuichew, three joint) and approximately twenty mines at Klian Bahru [6, pp. 36]. The kong-moon-choo Chung Keng Kwee paid a monthly royalty of 8,000 dollars for the first six months of his Klian Pauh concession, later raised to 10,000 dollars [6, p. 34]. During the 1861 war, Khoo Oon Keong advanced $60,000 to Chung Keng Kwee for military supplies, illustrating cross-ethnic capital cooperation within the kong-moon [6, p. 39].

The Malay and Indian Dimension

The Red and White Flag Societies in Penang represent the most extensively documented case of non-Chinese secret society activity in the region. Musa (1999) traced their evolution from the 1830s through the 1920s, arguing that they originated as religious jumaah—mutual-aid organisations formed by Jawi Peranakan, Indian Muslims, Arabs, and Malays to protect their womenfolk, property, and communal interests in a rapidly cosmopolitanising Georgetown where the Chinese population was already outnumbering the Malays [2, pp. 151–152]. The PRCR witness Saiboo (aged 34 at the time of the 1867 enquiries) testified that the White Flag had existed before his birth and that the Red Flag had been formed into a kongsi only in the preceding eight years, pushing the origins of both societies back to the 1830s in their original religious form [2, p. 152].

The second stage (1850s–1867) saw the religious orientation abandoned as the societies allied with the Chinese Ghee Hin (White Flag) and Toh Peh Kong (Red Flag) between 1863 and 1865, becoming entangled in territorial struggles over Georgetown that culminated in the Penang Riots of August 1867 [2, pp. 152–153]. By 1860, Georgetown’s population of 59,959 comprised 16,928 Chinese, 3,792 Malays, and 7,310 Indians; the Red Flag fielded approximately 1,000 men and the Toh Peh Kong 3,000, while the White Flag and Ghee Hin combined numbered around 25,000 during the 1867 riots [2, pp. 153]. The Red Flag entrance fee was $1.16 (six cents to the Doorkeeper, ten cents to the Instructor of the secret sign, the remainder to the Society); Chinese members of the Ghee Hin paid $3.60 while Malays and Indians paid $1.60 [2, p. 167].

Stirling (1925) documented the societies’ internal mechanics in detail: pass grips, secret signs, oath rituals, and an elaborate system of coded communication used to request assistance for crimes ranging from grievous assault to murder [3, pp. 59–60]. Initiation oaths for Chinese candidates involved the pricking of a finger, the decapitation of a white cock, and the drinking of a blood-mixed cup, while for Malay candidates the Koran was placed on the head and an oath of entrails-devouring betrayal was sworn [3, pp. 59–60]. The Red Flag diploma was a ticket on yellow or red paper bearing crossed triangular flags and a facsimile of the Eight Diagrams (Pat Kwa), evidencing direct Chinese Triad influence [3, p. 61]. Stirling concluded that by 1925 the societies had become “insignificant” and “no longer exist” [3, p. 61].

Musa’s later research challenged this assessment. She demonstrated that the societies persisted far longer than previously acknowledged, re-emerging through boria troupes (a musical performance tradition of Indianised Shiite origin), gangsterism, and eventually football clubs before finally dissolving in the 1920s–30s under the pressure of the Malay reformist movement [2, pp. 151–152]. By 1920, between forty and fifty boria troupes operated in Penang, still organised under Red Flag (12 troupes listed) and White Flag (14 troupes listed) affiliations by mukim (district) [2, p. 175]. The Darul Makmur Football Club, founded in 1920 by former flag society leaders, had grown to 1,300 members by 1927 before being banned by the government in 1928 [2, p. 178].

A separate and more narrowly criminal organisation, the Shiu Lok Peng On Society, operated across the Straits Settlements and Hong Kong from 1885 to approximately 1892, specialising in the robbery of Chinese passengers aboard steamers [7, pp. 129–132]. Founded by a Cantonese named Kwan Fan, the Society maintained a network of Headmen across Singapore, Penang, and Hong Kong, with total membership estimated at roughly 400 people [7, pp. 129–130]. Its operations expanded from initial steamer thieving to include extortion of brothel keepers, confidence tricks, and rigged gambling [7, p. 129]. The Society’s power rested not on ritual or paraphernalia but on organisational discipline, mutual protection, and the economic leverage it held over the very communities it preyed upon [7, p. 130].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on secret societies spans nearly a century and reveals a clear evolution in analytical priorities. The earliest contribution, Pickering’s 1878 article in the inaugural volume of the JSBRAS, addressed the origins and nature of Chinese secret societies from the perspective of a colonial administrator confronting an immediate governance problem [8, pp. 63–84]. Stirling’s articles of 1925 and 1926 continued this administrative tradition, providing insider ethnographic reports on the Red and White Flag Societies and the Shiu Lok Peng On Society respectively, drawing on police records, Chinese Protectorate files, and personal knowledge of the communities concerned [7, pp. 129–132], [3, pp. 57–61]. Comber’s 1956 “Chinese secret societies in Malaya: an introduction” marked a transitional moment, offering a synthetic overview for a new generation of scholars [9, pp. 146–162].

The 1960s and 1970s brought a decisive shift toward historical and sociological analysis. Jackson’s 1967 article reframed the secret societies not as objects of suppression but as the central problem around which colonial governance of the Chinese community was constructed, using primary sources including the 1869 Committee report, the 1872 Commission into the Singapore riots, and the 1876 Labour Commission Report [4, pp. 130–139]. Mak and Wong’s 1978 study introduced an ecological-territorial model borrowed from ethology, explicitly linking the transformation of secret society functions to broader processes of colonial-to-postcolonial state formation [5, pp. 37–45]. Wang Tai-peng’s 1979 note represented the most radical historiographical intervention, arguing that the very category of “secret society” was a colonial misnomer that obscured the kongsi’s character as a form of open, representative self-government with deep roots in Chinese political tradition [1, pp. 102–105].

The 1990s and 2000s saw the field expand beyond its Chinese-centric framing. Musa’s 1999 article corrected the assumption that secret societies were exclusively a Chinese phenomenon, demonstrating through the Penang Riots Commission Reports, colonial office correspondence, and the personal diary of Sheikh Omar Basheer that the flag societies were of local Penang origin and persisted in cultural guises far longer than earlier scholars had acknowledged [2, pp. 151–182]. Her 2003 monograph extended this analysis to the northern West Coast states [10]. Pek Wee Chuen’s 2021 article challenged the essentialist dialect-group framework that had dominated Larut scholarship since Wynne (1941), offering instead an economic-integration model grounded in colonial correspondence, mining gazettes, and cemetery epigraphic material [6, pp. 25–50]. Together, these studies illustrate a trajectory from administrative description to structural analysis, from Chinese-centric to multi-ethnic scope, and from the colonial period into the post-independence era.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. Wang Tai-peng and Wong Tai Peng (1979). The word kongsi: a note JMBRAS 52(1): 102–105. Read on JSTOR
  2. Mahani Musa (1999). Malays and the red and white flag societies in Penang, 1830–1920s JMBRAS 72(2): 151–182.
  3. W.G. Stirling (1925). The red and white flag societies JMBRAS 3(1): 57–61. Read on JSTOR
  4. R.N. Jackson (1967). Grasping the nettle: first successes in the struggle to govern the Chinese in Malaya JMBRAS 40(1): 130–139. Read on JSTOR
  5. Mak Lau-fong and A. Wong (1978). Territorial patterns among Chinese secret societies in Singapore and peninsular Malaysia: some tentative findings JMBRAS 51(1): 37–45.
  6. Pek Wee Chuen (2021). The Kong-Moon System in Larut: Chinese Social Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Perak JMBRAS 94(1): 25–50.
  7. W.G. Stirling (1926). The Coffin Breakers Society JMBRAS 4(1): 129–132.
  8. W.A. Pickering (1878). Chinese secret societies and their origin JSBRAS 1: 63–84. Read on JSTOR
  9. L. Comber (1956). Chinese secret societies in Malaya: an introduction JMBRAS 29(1): 146–162.
  10. Mahani Musa (2003). Kongsi Gelap Melayu Di Negeri-Negeri Utara Pantai Barat Semenanjung Tanah Melayu 1821 - 1940-an : 200.