A Prison in Tanjong

Sultan Zainal Abidin III (1881-1918)was given the posthumous title of Marhum Haji. He was, by all accounts, a devout man whose policy of non-commitment whilst maintaining friendly relations kept both the British and the Siamese at arm's length. Sir Frank Swettenham found him to be "an extraordinarily reserved man, very silent".

Swettenham also noted that for a Sultan, he had little wealth, and he went on to tell a story that he had heard in Trengganu, that on the Sultan's second visit to Bangkok (Zainal Abidin visited Bangkok twice) where he was lavished with presents by the King of Siam –

"he had been told that the Siamese government would lend him $2,000,000 and that he could have $500,000 as advance. This was a large sum to a poor man and it is a credit to him that he declined it."

Things were different then.

In a way the Sultan's other-worldliness also disadvantaged his subjects. He left the affairs of state to trusted men, and although himself a just man, he was unaware of many things that were carried out in his name. The administration of justice was entrusted to one Tengku Musa, and in this he was assisted by Tuan Hitam, a Sayyid who also acted as the Sultan's treasurer, and Encik Abdul Rahim, the Sultan's trusted adviser.

Clifford reported that justice was rough, people were imprisoned on scant evidence, and fines were imposed to punish as well as to collect revenue for the court. On April 22nd, 1895, Clifford went to Kedai Tanjong, not to buy fruits or fish, but to visit Kuala Trengganu's penjara (prison). He was appalled by its condition.

"It consists of an enclosure, built in the very centre of the Kedai Tanjong - one of the most crowded positions of the town - surrounding the cages in which the prisoners were confined. The prison is built of heavy slabs of wood, some 3 inches thick, a feet broad and 10 feet high, which are fitted together so as to form a solid wall. Inside this fence, and at a distance of 30 inches from it, are two rows of cages placed back to back, which are made of heavy bars of wood with intervals of a couple of inches or so in every eight for the admission of light and air. These cages are raised about 6 inches from the ground, and measure some 6 feet in length, 2 feet in width, and 5 feet in height."

He reported that there were 20 cages in all and during his visit, the penjara was 'fairly full'.

Prisoners were not permitted to leave their cages and sanitary arrangements were non existent. "[T]he space between the floor and the ground, and the interval which separates the cells from the surrounding fence, is therefore a seething mess of excrement and maggots," Clifford wrote.

The closeness of the cells, poor ventilation, and the solid wooden walls all added up to something appalling. "To add to this misery," he added, "no bathing appliance of any kind are supplied to the prisoners, and the filthy persons of the inmates of these cells beggar all description."

Reference:
M. C. ff. Sheppard, "A Short History of Trengganu", JMBRAS Vol. XXii Part 3, June 1949.

Mass Movements

Under the henna tree, on the weather-beaten bench in the compound fenced by a grill of thin metal spears over the low brick wall sat Pök Mud, wizened by time and jangling with a ring of keys that hung from his Haji's belt that was broad and green with pockets for loose change and the odd dollar. Hajis wore that belt to punctuate the middle of their elaborate gear, trousers underneath their kain pelikat dropping to the ankles, and an undershirt of silky material, collar buttoned halfway down the chest in a style that Father sometimes referred to as kanciperat, a word that's as elusive as its flavour's regal. At a wild guess I'd say that it's a marriage between kancing [buttoned] and sekerat, [halfway] from the style of its collar. Over this kanciperat went the baju melayu with its two patched front pockets to dip into when the conversation came to a standstill, and then the turbaned head, tasseled and tailed, that swung round quite breezily when talk turned to raucous laughter.

There were men who wore the kanciperat as de rigueur in Kuala Trengganu, firemen walking around in their off-duty hours wore it too as they loitered in their fenced area in Kampung Daik opposite the 'flowered shop', our kedai bbunga. But Pök Mud wasn't a fireman; he was a genial man and a retired warder as he'd tell you. In his working days he carried a heavy bunch of keys on his belt that held up his regulation trousers in the Kuala Trengganu gaol. I saw Pök Mud on his bench seat under the tree in the compound of the Masjid Abidin for many years before learning the true meaning of that glint in his eye. It transpired that in the last year of his wardering days he took into the prison walls some tiny brightly coloured laxative fruits of a palm tree that was known in Trengganu as buah manjikiang and dosed it liberally into the prisoners' meals. It was the day of the mass breakout of diarrhoea among the inmates of Kuala Trengganu.

Going back two generations or so before Pök Mud, prisoners were lucky to have found food in Trengganu gaols. Walter Skeat, who went on a 'scientific' expedition for the British in 1899 to Trengganu and beyond, illustrated Sultan Zainal Abidin III's 'original mind and a shrewd sense of humour' by his answer to the question why he did not pay off his debts promptly. His creditors would be constantly praying for his continued well-being for as long as they were waiting to be paid, answered the great man, deploying, no doubt, the Trengganu penchant for the leg-pull or mengayör as we call it even now. Unlike other states, Trengganu did not provide free food for its prisoners then; when tackled by Skeat on this matter the Sultan replied, according to Skeat, that if it were so then the entire population of Trengganu would be clamouring to be gaoled.

Pök Mud the prankster warder would have loved the humour even if there wasn't enough manjikiang fruit to set the population going behind those walls.