The claim here set forth by the first settlers in the original Sakai country embraces the whole country side, to the effectual exclusion of the Sakais, who themselves tacitly acquiesce in it, by gradually retiring to the more remote jungle-covered hills without any protest.
The Waris tribe were the first-comers, followers of a chief, who followed their chief's example and intermarried with the Sakai race; therefore as the land belonged originally to their Sakai wives, the custom is still in force in the Negri Sembilan, that all ancestral land shall be held by the women.
The census taken in 1891 shewed that the Malay population in Rembau was much more dense than in any other of the protected Native States, and that it was the only State in which the native women outnumbered the native men; in Rembau not one per cent of the native customary holdings are registered as the property of men. I believe the same thing obtains in Nanning of Malacca, where the customs are very similar.
The Johol chief, Dato Johol Johan Pahlawan Lela Perkasa Setia W'an, is to this day, although a man, to some degree looked upon as a woman, and in consequence except to pay homage to his suzerain he is not supposed to leave his house for any purpose of adminstering justice or attending ceremonies. Of the Undang yang ampat who first administered the Negri Sembilan, one of them, the youngest, was a woman, who settled in Johol. As a further mark of his feminine attributes he always wears his hair long.
Although the Sakais have given up the land to the Malays, they still, as shown under No. 2, retain the right—or the semblance of it—of appointing the Undang or Penghulu; themselves being in turn confirmed by the Penghulu when appointed as Batins by their people.
