Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society/Volume 75/The Flags of the Malay Peninsula

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The Flags of the Malay Peninsula.

In response to a request made some little time ago, the Council of the Society has decided to publish here seven plates illustrative of the flags generally recognised in the Malay Peninsula. The drawings from which the plates have been prepared were in most cases procured through members of the Society, who are at the same time Officers of the State serving in different parts of the Peninsula. For the ready way in which they gave their help, the Society's best thanks are due.

The ensign of the Straits Settlements is constructed as those of all British Colonies from the Blue Ensign, by the addition of the Colonial emblem in the fly. The same Colonial emblem wreathed in oak leaves in the centre of the Union Jack makes the Governor's flag. The device of the emblem is three crowns embayed on white in a lozenge the ground of which is red, the crowns representing the three Settlements.

The Chief Secretary of the Federated Malay States has a Jack corresponding to the Governor's in which a kris is the emblem.

Very recently all the Malay States used flags as emblems which were of one colour; but as it became known in them that the self-coloured flags at sea and elsewhere had special significances for the purpose of signalling, the desirability of using something more distinctive was realised and a change has been made in every State except Tringganu. Tringganu still retains its plain white flag.

Pahang, its neighbour, used a plain black flag, until, as symbolical of the Union of the ruler with his people, white was associated with the black—first a narrow white band along the inner edge then an upper white half. This final design was fixed by the State Council on the 28th of December, 1903. As far as can be ascertained the flag of Kelantan was plain white up to the time when the State came under British Protection. Being white, it would not be distinctive as regards Tringganu. After the State had come under protection, a figure of a tiger was added in mid-flag coloured in the case of the State flag a very dark blue, and in His Highness the Sultan's own flag yellow, the ground remaining white as before. Similarly the Perak flags used to be self-coloured, but now the three colours, formerly employed, are combined into the one flag. In Kedah up to six years ago self-coloured flags were used. The Sultan used a plain yellow one, the Malay emblem of Royalty, the State flag was a plain red one and the late Raja Muda's a plain black. When the Sultan and his suite went to Europe for the corronation of their Majesties King George V. and Queen Mary, the Malays were chagrined to find that none of their old flags could be flown as they were the nautical symbols for quarantine, gunpowder and piracy, and then the device called by the Malays the "Kedah Crown" as superimposed on the old grounds of the Sultan's, and the State's flags; and the President of the State Council was given a green flag instead of the old black one.

The crescent of Muhamedanism appears in the Kedah flag; and the crescent and star in those of Selangor and Johore. The Selangor State flag is yellow and red in quarters with a yellow crescent and star in canton. It was devised in the reign of Sultan Abdul Samad: and the yellow and red quarterings are symbolic of flesh and blood; for, as the body is of flesh and blood so is the State a combination of necessary parts.

The Johore flag is white with the crescent and star red in canton on blue.

The Negri Sembilan flag is yellow with red and black diagonal in canton: red for the Government, yellow for the Raja, and black for the Undang or States' rulers. "Negri Sembilan" means "Nine States."

The device of the Kelantan flag reads:—

كراجأن كلنتن

(language characters)

Keraja'an Kelantan.

Nasrom minallah-hi wafat-hung karibun wabasshirel mo'minin.

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