Temenggong
Temenggong (also spelled temenggung) was the title of a high-ranking official, the commander of the troops and police, in the premodern Malay states. The term is undoubtedly related to the Javanese tumenggung. In the kingdom of Majapahit in the second half of the fourteenth century, this title was given to the commander in chief who belonged to the five top officials of the realm. In the Malay world there is general agreement that a ruler was supported by four senior officers, but there is no unanimity as to who these four were. Depicting the world of Melaka in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals) mentions the bendahara (prime minister), penghulu bendahari (treasurer), and laksamana (admiral), along with the temenggong. The temenggong's principal concern was Melaka's security, and he was therefore in charge of the police and acted as chief magistrate. Later he became more important than the penghulu bendahari and was considered to be the bendahara-designate, equivalent to deputy prime minister in charge of internal affairs. According to the Undang-Undang Melaka (Laws of Melaka, i.e., the Melaka Digest), which dates from the fifteenth century, the temenggong was given jurisdiction over crimes committed in the country and matters such as the investigation of crime and the apprehension of criminals in the land, and was allowed to execute people he arrested without waiting for a royal order. The Syair Sultan Maulana (Poem of Sultan Maulana), dealing with events in the sultanate of Kedah in the beginning of the nineteenth century, shows us the laksamana of Kedah acting as commander of the fleet and its temenggong as commander of the troops.
Concerning the expressions adat parpatih and adat tumenggung, British colonial writers have erroneously translated adat perpatih as "law of ministers" and adat tumenggung as "law of the minister for war and police," which obscures the real character of the two systems. In the first place, the term adat has a much wider meaning than "law"; it also means "custom" and "etiquette" and extends to the legal system. Second, Parpatih and Tumenggung were the names (or titles) of two legendary Minangkabau ancestors, Parapatih nan Sabatang and Kyai Katimanggungan, after whom the two varying adat were called. So adat perpatih designates the custom of the Minangkabau state of Negri Sembilan, and adat temenggung denotes "the customs instituted by our ancestor Kyai Katumanggungan"— the custom of the surrounding Malay territories.
Adat
Further Reading
Andaya, Barbara, and Leonard Andaya. (1982) A History of Malaysia. London: Macmillan Education.
Josselin de Jong, P. E. (1951, 1980) Minangkabau and Negri Sembilan; Socio-political Structure in Indonesia. The Hague: Netherlands: Nijhoff.
Liaw Yock Fang. (1976) Undang-Undang Melaka: The Laws of Melaka. The Hague, Netherlands: Nijhoff.
Skinner, C. (1985) The Battle for Junk Ceylon; The Syair Sultan Maulana, Text, Translation and Notes. Dordrecht, Netherlands, and Cinnaminson, NJ: Foris Publications.
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