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The maritime code of the Malays

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

The maritime code of the Malays

Sir Stamford Raffles’ “The Maritime Code of the Malays (Continued),” published posthumously in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1879, presents a sweeping survey of Malay legal institutions, the political history of the Straits states, and the origins of the Malay nation as a distinct people. Raffles’ overarching thesis is that the Malays constitute a comparatively recent formation—shaped by Arabian contact and Islamic adoption—whose maritime law, particularly the Nacodah’s power of life and death, represents a purely indigenous legal innovation with no parallel in Arab or European sea codes (p. 20).

Summary

Raffles frames his project as a systematic collection and translation of the Undang undang (Institutes) of the principal Malay states, arguing that a digested compilation would serve both practical diplomatic purposes and the intellectual goal of illustrating “the unjustly degraded character of so extensive a portion of the human race” (p. 3). He catalogues the codes he has acquired: the Undang undang Achik and Undang undang Siak from eastern Sumatra; the Undang undang Kedah, Undang undang Malaka, and Undang undang Johor from the Peninsula; and partial materials from Borneo, Java, Celebes, and the Sulu Islands (pp. 3–5, 16–17). The Undang undang Malayu, compiled during the reign of Sultan Mahmud Shah, is designated as the principal text for commercial and maritime usages, supplemented by the Institutes of Johor for civil and criminal law (p. 4).

The publication includes two substantial narrative translations from Malay manuscripts. The first recounts the marriage of a Menangkabau prince to the daughter of the Raja of Johor, the subsequent massacre of the Menangkabau community by the Raja Muda’s followers, and the prince’s retaliatory campaign that ended with the death of the Raja of Johor at Trengganu (pp. 7–10). The second narrates the Portuguese seizure of Malacca—beginning with the devious “skin of a beast” grant of land, the secret landing of cannon, and the night attack that drove Sultan Ahmed Shah into exile—and continues through the Dutch capture, in which fifty Malays entered the fort and ran amok, killing or driving out every Portuguese garrison member (pp. 11–16).

Raffles devotes considerable attention to the question of Malay origins, arguing that the nation did not exist as a distinct entity prior to Arabian arrival in the Eastern Seas. He compares the Malay to the Chuliah (Kling) of the Coromandel Coast or the Mapillas of Malabar—peoples “gradually formed as nations, and separated from their original stock by the admixture of Arabian blood, and the introduction of the Arabic language and Moslem religion” (p. 20). He rejects the contemporary claim that the Malays are the source of the Arabic alphabet, asserting that no Malay writing in the present character can be traced before the invention of the modern Arabic script (p. 19).

Key Findings

  • The Undang undang of each Malay state share a general accordance, differing only where “situation and superior advantages or authority have naturally dictated” variation; some contain mere trade regulations while others address civil and criminal law (pp. 2–3).
  • The Maritime Code’s most singular feature is the Nacodah’s (captain’s) power of life and death, which Raffles identifies as “purely Malayan” with no counterpart in Arab maritime law, which nowhere admits a captain’s authority to inflict capital punishment (p. 20).
  • The fall of Malacca to the Portuguese is narrated through the “skin of a beast” ruse: the Portuguese requested ground “to the extent of what the skin of a beast may cover,” then cut it into cords to measure a large plot within which they built a fortified storehouse with gun apertures disguised as windows (p. 12).
  • The Dutch captured Malacca not by siege but by a coordinated amok attack: fifty Malays entered the fort at 5 a.m. on the 21st of the month, killing or expelling every Portuguese, after which the city was divided between the Dutch and Johor per their prior agreement (p. 15).
  • The Jokang tribe near Malacca (a subgroup of the Orang benua) shares core vocabulary with Malay (e.g., tanah, api, ikan, burong) but diverges in terms for moon (Ishub), water (Yehs), tiger (Kokang), and house (Cheringu), and uses the Portuguese word Deus for God (pp. 5–7).
  • The Batta calendar (Ketchehalima) employs divisions named Mukiswara Wishna Birahana Sulala, corresponding to Hindu deities, which Raffles cites as evidence of Indian cultural penetration into the archipelago’s original populations (p. 18).

Conclusion

Raffles’ definitive historical takeaway is that the Malays are not an ancient, autochthonous people but a relatively recent synthesis—formed through the admixture of Arabian blood, the adoption of the Arabic script, and the introduction of Islam into a substrate of indigenous island populations. The Maritime Code, in this framework, represents the one domain where genuinely original Malay legal thought survives: the Nacodah’s sovereign authority at sea, a institution with no foreign precedent that “may tend in a slight degree to account for, if not reconcile, some of the peculiarities of a nation generally believed to be guided solely by individual will and passion” (p. 20).

Context

  • This text was published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JSBRAS), Vol. 4, 1879, more than fifty years after Raffles’ death in 1826; it forms part of the Society’s long-running programme of publishing his collected manuscripts and translations.
  • The publication reflects the colonial archival context of the Straits Settlements, where Raffles had gathered his manuscripts during his tenure as Governor of Java and Singapore; the work was intended to form “six books of the Malay Laws” but was presented here as a preliminary sketch (p. 18).

References