• Tanjung Tokong

“History of Tanjong Tokong [1: Research on Tanjong Tokong commenced on 11 March 2008 after the general election in Malaysia when Cikgu Salleh Yahya, president of the Tanjong Tokong Residents’ Association, approached the writer to assist them to prepare a paper to propose Tanjong Tokong as a National Heritage Zone. They said that earlier efforts to do so had been dampened by the previous State government under Barisan Nasional, since ownership of the land had been transferred to UDA Holdings in 1972. Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) had earlier asked the writer to help resolve the issue of land ownership and loss of Malay heritage in Tanjong Tokong.]”

“In the sixteenth century the island of Pulo Pinaom (Malay, pinang; ‘betel-nut’ island) or Pulau Kesatu (Malay, ‘the first island’) was known to Portuguese traders coming from Goa to the East Indies in search of spices. They used the island to replenish their water supply, and the name of the landing site, Batu Ferringhi (Malay: ‘European or foreigner’s rock’), is currently the name of the most densely occupied coastal area of the northeastern district of Penang (Map 1). The Malay term of reference, Ferringhi, suggests that Malay fishing communities had already existed on this part of the island where the Portuguese landed.[2] Further south on the northeast coast lies the promontory (tanjong) of Tanjong Tokong at the bay (teluk) of what was formerly called Teluk Tikus (Malay: ‘Rat Bay’) by local Malays.[3: Sibert (2002: 1) suggests that the name tikus was given by Malays to refer to the mud ridges at low tide: ‘the shoals of sand banks which appeared like the back of rats leading on to what is historically known as Pulau Tikus [an inland Island of Rats?]’. Malays agree that the mud ridges looked like the back of rats with long tails and that at low tide they could wade to Pulau Tikus. The island off Tanjong Tokong and the bay was thus named.] An island off this cape, Pulau Tikus (Malay: Rat Island), was a popular resting spot for Malay fishermen. This small island contains a keramat Dato’ (sea spirit shrine) formerly founded and maintained by Malay pawang (sea sorcerers). The rise of Islamic revivalism in the 1980s caused much furore over Malay beliefs in sea spirits and the shrine was taken over by Chinese fishermen who use Malay pawang to bless and propitiate the shrine spirit. Pawang continue to be famed specialists of Tanjong Tokong although their public roles as sea sorcerers have diminished in coastal Malay villages.[4] The main marketplace of George Town continues to be called Pulau Tikus and, although Pulau Tikus and the area now called Cantonment Road characterized a coastal Malay community more than a century ago, natural reclamation from a retreating shoreline has transformed this into a dense commercial and residential area occupied mostly by Hokkien Chinese. Many of the native Pulau Tikus Malay families have since moved to Bagan Jermal and Pantai Molek, in the vicinity of Tanjong Tokong, while the more professionally trained generations of coastal Malays have moved to Kuala Lumpur.” (m.s. 2-4).

“The area now called Tanjong Tokong, sited at Teluk Tikus (Map 1), was pioneered by Kedah Malays who fished and collected jungle products, including mangrove wood, bamboo, nibong and coconut fronds for fishing stakes, house construction, walkways and thatching. Kedah Malays in the northeastern district often had permanent abodes along the coasts of Penang Island and constructed huts with nibong planking walkways to hoist their boats and dry nets. These Malay fishing villages were characteristic of the kampung gigi air (‘village at the water’s teeth’) of Malayan islands before rapid urbanization of the coastal areas at the height of British colonization in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries relocated these settlements away from beach frontage. Penang Island enjoyed a similar maritime economy prior to British rule and attracted Indian Muslim, Acehnese and Arab Peranakan migrants from the surrounding islands previously referred to as the Dutch East Indies during Dutch colonial rule.[5]

More well-to-do Malays in Tanjong Tokong had houses with an anjung (balcony), a main room (ibu rumah, ‘mother’ of the house) and high stone stairs (tangga batu) to accommodate the rising tides. There were obvious socio-economic differences among Malays in the eighteenth century, depending on their trade and origin, but Kedah Malays and the Jawi Peranakan who traded in rice, poultry, spices, pepper and forest products were generally better off than the fishing communities along Tanjong Tokong and they constructed stone town houses in George Town along Jalan Kelawei, Jalan Kedah, Jalan Muntri, Jalan Hutton and Jalan Seratus.” (m.s. 4).

Kiri: “FIG. 1. 90-year-old Jawi Peranakan house at Tanjong Tokong. (Photo: Wazir Jahan Karim.)”
Kanan: “FIG. 2. 110-year-old Kedah Malay houses at Jalan Tanjong Tokong Lama, Tanjong Tokong. (Photo: Wazir Jahan Karim.)”
(m.s. 5).

“Tunku Ismail Jewa and Hooker confirm that Kedah Malays fled to Seberang Perai (Province Wellesley), Penang, during the Siamese invasion of Kedah from 1821 till 1841,[10] but local Malay informants of Tanjong Tokong state that Malay fishermen were already occupying the coastal areas of the island from the early seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century, prior to Siamese intrusions in Kedah.[11] English ships followed, using the same approach from the Northern Passage, and landed on the northern shores of Pulo Pinaom after the Portuguese at Batu Ferringhi. The first Englishman to land in Pulo Pinaom in June 1592 was amerchant navigator, Sir James Lancaster (c.1555–1618), who was Queen Elizabeth’s special envoy to the East and commanded the first East India Company voyage in 1601.[12] Before 1601, however, he had sailed to the Malay islands from Zanzibar to pioneer trade in the East Indies. He anchored at Penang Island in June 1592 and left in September of the same year, pillaging ships with the help of local Malay pirates. He described the coastal areas as mosquito infested, thick with mangroves and harbouring pirates. This kind of extended stay required fresh food supplies and water, and suggests dependence on local Malay fishermen and pirates harbouring in the area. Dense mangroves in particular made it a suitable island for fishing and a perfect hideout for mercenary pirates referred to as lanun or ilanun.[13] These pirates were generally apolitical and sought favours from those from whom they could gain materially. Hence by the late eighteenth century, although Captain Francis Light in 1786 ‘founded’ Penang and made the island a ‘safe’ sanctuary from pirates and Siamese invaders, Kedah Malays were already occupants of the coastal areas of the island as fishermen, traders and pirates enjoying a symbiotic interdependency in maritime trade and economics.[14] Karim also confirms that the areas were occupied by Malay coastal fishing and farming communities prior to its founding in 1786.[15] Captain James Low estimated that there were about 1,500 Malays before 1800 and by 1826 about 84,500. The surge in population was a result of the Siamese invasion of Kedah by the Raja of Ligor in November 1821.[16]” (m.s. 6-7).

“Within two years after the ‘founding’ of Penang, the Eurasian Catholic community numbered 200, living mostly at Kampung Serani, at Argus Lane, Love Lane and Muntri Street. They were obviously a favoured community and although the Portuguese Catholics lost control over the parish when the French mission, Missions Etrangères de Paris, assumed control, the Catholic Church had secured sizeable parcels of valuable land on the peaks of the hills covering the northeast coast, including Cannon (Meriam) Hill where the original village of Kampung Tikus, now known as Kampung Tanjong Tokong, was located.[23] These land titles were given to Catholic seminaries some time after 1786 although Malay local history stated that the hill was first occupied as a military post after the cannon, dated 1785, was placed there. They were chased down Cannon Hill about a year before the official ‘founding’ of Penang and the hill was taken over by the mission.” (m.s.9).

“One of the Indian Muslim traders who befriended Captain Francis Light along the coastal trading posts of Kuala Kedah was Bapu Alaidin, a trader in cattle, buffalo, betel-nut, fish and mangrove wood.[24] Bapu Alaidin followed Captain Francis Light to Penang, where he took him to the strategic site on the hill of Teluk, Bukit Tikus, now named Bukit Meriam, overlooking Fort Cornwallis or Tanjong Penaga. On this hill was located a Malay and Jawi Peranakan village with a sprawling cemetery.” (m.s.10).

“The Malay kubu functions as a hideout and look-out post in the eventuality that a village is attacked, and in Tanjong Tokong, the close association of Malay fishermen with piracy suggested that such attacks were likely. The look-out post at the peak of Teluk Tikus gave a clear view of ships approaching the island. Kampung Tanjong Tokong was then a cluster of Malay fishing villages sited on a bay overlooking Tanjong Penaga[27] and was a thriving centre for fresh and dried fish, mussels and clams (Figs. 4 & 5). According to local elders’ descendants of pioneer residents in Tanjong Tokong, fishermen and pirates lived together and developed a congenial trading relationship in fishing and mangrove products. Tanjong Tokong elders describe these Kedah Malay families with inclinations to piracy as kahaq, meaning ‘rough, brave, strong, etc.’.” (m.s. 10-13).

Kiri: “FIG. 4. A rickshaw in Tanjong Tokong, early 1900s. (Photo courtesy of Cikgu Salleh Yahya, 2004).”
Kanan: “Fig. 5. ‘At the Edge of the Water’s Teeth’, Tanjong Tokong, 1913. (Photo courtesy of Cikgu Salleh Yahya.)”
(m.s. 11).

“Malays Chased from the Peak of Mount Meriam (Cannon Hill) in 1785

Villagers collectively recall past narratives of village elders, including prominent leaders such as Tok Ali bin Salleh, Haji Aziz, Pak Pin Chanai and Pak Kancil, that the villagers were dislocated from the cemetery at the hill peak when they moved downhill. The cemetery was located in what was previously referred to as Bukit Tikus. Malay Muslim villages were always located next to cemeteries, and the reason why the existing Muslim cemetery is on the peak of Cannon Hill while the village is now on lower hill slopes or roadside of Jalan Tanjong Tokong Lama (the original shoreline of Teluk Tikus) is because they were chased downhill (hambat turun). They were assumed to be in cohort with pirates and, realizing this, Francis Light secured this hill to maximize security for British and other European ships after they had assumed control of the island.

In Kedah and Perlis, the early system of land tenure was influenced more by the ancient Thai law of property than by Malay customary law. From an early date, surat putus (‘document of title’) was issued by the Kedah sultans. Originally, a surat putus was a written decision of a hakim (judge of the state) following an ownership dispute, countersigned by the sultan. The documents recorded the evidence submitted and the decision made, together with the dimensions and area of the land concerned and a rough description of its locality and abuttal. The earliest survey of property lots started around 1912 in Kedah. On Penang, Captain Francis Light allowed anyone, migrant or native, to register land in their name when they had cleared forests or swamps, but Malays lost out in this deal because they assumed that they had customary rights over the land they had cleared.28 The surat putus did not apply in Penang over the early and late nineteenth century, and Malays were marginalized in the movement towards acquisition of new capital or property due to poor schooling, legal illiteracy and lack of formal representation by native leaders; they were soon outnumbered by European, Chinese, Indian Muslim and Chettiar land owners.[29] The following description of Malay marginality in early Penang is provided by Ariffin Omar.

'The lot of the Malays during the first 50 years of British control was anything but rosy. Unlike the Chinese which came with their various clan associations, the Malay were left to fend for themselves. They were exposed to the full force of capitalism and being unprepared for this found that they had no value or worth in a social and economic system where profits were the criteria for evaluating the contribution and worth of any ethnic group. Thus Malays who found themselves living in the British settlement of Penang had to face the grim reality that they were being steadily displaced and reduced to being an insignificant community that only existed to provided cheap labour and products for the other communities that had successfully entrenched.'[30]

A century later, Malay landownership on the island was almost negligible when the Torrens system was introduced in 1889, requiring all land owners to have title deeds, registered and issued by the state.[31]” (m.s. 13-14).

“Tanjong Tokong Settlement Becomes Bukit Paderi

When Malay lands on the major parts of Mount Meriam (Cannon Hill) were transferred to the College General in the early 1800s, the hill came to be referred to as Bukit Paderi (Priest Hill). However, the name Bukit (Mount) Meriam was officially retained by the seminary and later by the Mount Miriam Hospital on Priest Hill. Hence European ownership of the hill was secured as early as 1804. The military post, however, preceded Fort Cornwallis in 1786, while the subsequent brick construction of Fort Cornwallis in 1804 coincided with the building of the retreat on Mount Meriam, which also had a tax collection office to enable priests to collect taxes from the Malay villagers who stayed in this area.[32] By then the land system was based on registration after clearing and native status and usufruct rights had been lost.[33] Captain Francis Light did not create Malay land reserves, nor did the British land administrators after him propose Malay land reserves on Penang Island despite the dire loss of ownership of Malay land. The early Tanjong Tokong residents here recall a curse on Christian priests who used to plague them for money in lieu of the taxes they were supposed to pay as tenants ‘occupying’ Christian lands. This curse, according to local elders, is peculiar to this area in the original village on the hillside and is not known by other Malays on the island. It is konkek seghari (serani) or ‘fornicate the European’, shouted out loud with all the energy a person can muster. This curse is supposed to express the derogatory position of the European endowed with such an apparatus.

The cemetery, however, was not destroyed. When the mission and military occupied this hill where the original village of Tanjong Tokong was located and had chased the villagers from the hilltop to the edge of the hill, the village on the hilltop merged with the Malay fishermen who had huts at the water’s edge on what was previously called Kampung Telaga Air (Map 2). The early families of traders, who were mostly Indian Muslims, secured their titles, but families of pirates and fishermen lost out in this venture. Without their ‘fort’ (kubu) on the hill they were reduced to petty mercenaries and poor fishermen.” (m.s. 14-16).

Kiri: “MAP 1. Pulo Penang or Prince of Wale's island, Laurie & Whittle, 1807” (m.s. 3).
Kanan: “MAP 2. Map of Telok Ticoose (Tanjong Tokong) 1785, showing a Jawi-Peranakan settlement on the hill. (Courtesy of Laurence Loh. Research on mapping byWazir Jahan Karim: ‘Dossier on the Conservation of Tanjong Tokong’, March 2010.)” (m.s. 15).

“Cikgu Salleh Yahya, a descendant from maternal kin of Bapu Alaidin’s family, also agreed that Bapu Alaidin Meera Hussein Lebai was responsible for leading scouts of Captain Francis Light up the hill to the village to show him the look-out stations of Malay pirates. He also showed him the strategic location of Tanjong Tokong vis-à-vis Tanjong Penaga, where Fort Cornwallis is located, to show the clear visibility of ships approaching Tanjong Penaga from the peak of Cannon Hill. For this reason, Captain Francis Light placed a cannon on the peak of the hill a year before declaring Penang the sovereign territory of the British Empire. The cannon, now located on the site of the present Mt Miriam Cancer Hospital, is dated 1785, a year before the official ‘founding of Penang’ (Fig. 6). Hassan Hj. Ariffin’s accounts of his ancestor showed him appointed as penghulu or head (ketua kaum) of the Malay community at Balik Pulau where he had considerable pieces of land. The date of the visit to the peak of Tanjong Tikus is put at 1786 + or –, but it is possible, based on the engraving of the date on the cannon, that this was before 1786.[34]” (m.s. 16).

“FIG. 6. The cannon dated 1785 at the College General, Mount Meriam, Tanjong Bungah, 2004. (Photos courtesy of Cikgu Yahya Salleh.)” (m.s. 17).

“In return for taking Captain Francis Light to Tanjong Tokong, Bapu Alaidin asked Light for parcels of land at Tanjong Tikus.[35] Bapu Alaidin did not help local Malays secure land titles despite his close connections to Francis Light, nor did he engage in philanthropy despite accumulating immense wealth in Kedah, Perak and Penang.[36] Families who later procured titles were descended from Bapu Alaidin Meera Hussein Lebai, from Kuala Sungei. Tajuddin Ariff and Wan Chik Ariff inherited much of Bapu Alaidin’s wealth. They sold a portion of their land to the Hai Zhu Tua Phek Kong in 1964. It is believed that Bapu Alaidin cleared the land on the peak of Tanjong Tokong for the cemetery, and this remains the only parcel of Malay Muslim endowed land (waqf) on the peak of Mount Meriam.[37] Since this precolonial settlement was on the water’s edge, the Malays made no attempt to procure titles. They had assumed the shore and its resources were theirs.” (m.s. 16-17).

“Muslim Missionaries after Bapu Alaidin in Tanjong Tokong

Oral historians in Tanjong Tokong said that the village also became well known for its religious activities when a Muslim missionary, Tok Guru Haji Hassan Fusanah, migrated to Penang in the mid-eighteenth century, around 1750.47 He was a religious teacher of Arab Peranakan origin from Madura. He was also believed to have contributed to activities of the Muslim congregation at the Batu Uban mosque, an area earlier founded by a pioneer Dato’ Nahkoda Intan Mohd Salleh around the 1740s. The earliest landing sites of Hadramis and Acehnese were at Batu Uban, another area undergoing rapid urban development. In this sense, the history of Batu Uban is linked to Tanjong Tokong. It is believed that these Muslim missionaries settled in Malay coastal villages and married Malay women, eventually gaining access to land and other resources. Around the same time, Gelugor, the area adjoining Batu Uban where Universiti Sains Malaysia is now located, was founded by Dato’ Jannatul with the permission and blessings of Sultan Muhammad Jiwa. The gravestone of Dato’ Jannatul is located outside the Minden gates of Universiti Sains Malaysia. The tombstone of Tok Guru Hassan is sited at the Tanjong Tokong cemetery on the peak of Bukit Meriam (Cannon Hill).[48] Masjid Tuan Guru, the first mosque at Tanjong Tokong, was founded by Tuan Guru Hj. Hassan Fusanah.[49]

All along the northeast and southeast coasts, Malay fishing villages known as kampung gigi air were the landmarks of an island populated before the official founding by Captain Francis Light in 1786. There were already Arab Peranakan and Indian Muslim missionaries and traders who had entered the island via Batu Uban for religious and trading activities. These Muslim migrants were readily accepted into Malay communities and their knowledge of Islam, Arabic and other ‘worldly’ languages captured the interest of the local Malays schooled only in oral Malay and the local Arabic script of Jawi (Malay written in Arabic characters).[50] These Muslim migrants married Malay women for ready acceptance and ‘loci standi’. It should be noted that the Malays who offered their women to Indian Muslim and Arab Peranakan Muslims who had earlier settled in the islands of the Dutch East Indies and subsequently moved to the coastal areas of Penang became the first Jawi Peranakan families of Tanjong Tokong and were the first landowners of these Malay-occupied areas. They were literate and aware of the emergence of land ownership through titles, issued by the British after they occupied Penang Island in 1786.

Another family of prominence in this village was that of Tok Ali bin Salleh, who originated fromKedah and died at the age of 103 around 1890.[51] His son Lebai Hassan had two children, Hussein and Che Ani. Among their children are Syukri, Abdul Rahim and Illias; the children of the latter, who still live in Tanjong Tokong, comprise the sixth-generation Malays of this area. This line of Tok Ali, from Lebai Hassan, descends to Hussein, Syukri, Mohd Fahmi, Lebai Dan, Pak Dali, and Che Puteh, Salmah and Ghazali.

Other pioneer families who remain in Tanjong Tokong are the those of Haji Aziz, Pak Pin Chanai, (penghulu) Pak Kancil, Pak Khamis, Pak Haji Mohd Noh (penghulu and jermal trap owner), Tok Mat Diah, Lebai Dan, Bahauddin, Mastan Pak Abbas, Pak Yit, Pak Seman Kelabu, Haji Hassan Fusanah, Pak Niana, Pak Ajan, Mak Hatiah, Mastan, Romsa, Nayan Saidan, Pak Nagor, Pak Sheikh Hassan and Hassan Kassim. In 1893 Karwa Nina Mohamed of Nina Mohamed and Sons financed the Masjid Karwa at Tanjong Tokong (Fig. 7). He was a wealthy moneychanger and importer who lived at Muntri Street and set up a money-changer’s shop outside the Netherlands Trading Society in Beach Street.[52]

From the names, it can be established that the Tanjong Tokong pioneer families of Indian Muslim and Malabar origin (Pin Chanai, Niana, Masan, Nagor Sheikh Hassan) assimilated with Kedah Malays to develop the hybrid Jawi Peranakan. Their strong influence in local politics led the British to acknowledge Jawi Peranakan as an ethnic identity in Penang in the early twentieth century.[53] These families only communicated in Malay, and their socio-economic advantage led them to be professionally trained as teachers, journalists and civil servants. Among the influential imam of Masjid Tuan Guru and Masjid Karwa were Haji Mahmud, HajiWahab, Lebai Dan and Tok Haji Mat Diah, all Kedah Malays.

Around 1820 and pushed by rapid urban development of the eastern seafront of the island at Gurney Drive, Kelawei, Cantonment and other fishing areas of kampung gigi air, more Malay fishermen settled at Kampung Tanjong Tokong. The eastern seafront where Malay fishing villages were formerly located became the most prestigious area of housing forHokkien Chinese kapitan, taipan and the Kedah royalty. These newcomers secured titles, while the indigenous poorer communities became even more marginalized by the British crown system of land ownership and their inability to afford to buy titles for the lands they were occupying.” (m.s. 19-21).

(Sumber: Wazir Jahan Karim, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 86, Part 1, June 2013, No. 304 pp. 1-29: |"The 'Discovery' of Penang Island at Tanjong Tokong before 1785: Bapu Alaidin Meera Hussein Lebai and Captain Francis Light").