D100
BRUNEI
GOVERNMENT
Brunei is a Sultanate. The present Ruler, the twenty-seventh Sultan of the line, is His Highness AHMED TAJUDIN AKHAZUL KHAIRI WADIN IBNI ALMERHUM SULTAN MOHAMED JEMAL-UL-ALAM, who succeeded his father in 1924 at the age of eleven. During his minority the Pengiran Bendahara and the Peniancha, the two chief Ministers of State, acted as joint Regents. In 1931 His Highness the Sultan assumed full sovereignty and the Regency terminated. The supreme authority in the State is vested in the Sultan in Council. The Council at present consisted of nine members, including British Resident, with His Highness the Sultan as President The assent of the Council is required for the enactment of legislation, and all important questions of Policy affecting the administration of the State are referred to it.
The general functions of administration are discharged by the British Resident, whose advice must, by the Treaty of 1906, be asked and acted upon in all questions other than those affecting the Mohammedan religion. The Resident, who is an officer of the Malayan Civil Service, has his headquarters in Brunei Town, and communicates with the High Conimissioner through the intermediary of the Secretary to the High Commissioner in Singapore. He is assisted in the administration by the Assistant Resident, also an officer of the Malayan Civil Service, who is stationed at Kuala Belait.
.:
The State is divided into four administrative districts, namely, Brunei and Muara, Temburong, Tutong and Belait, under the charge of Malay District Officers responsible to the Resident. In addition there are
are State heads in charge of the Public Works, Medical, Agricultural, Forest, Police, Customs, Posts and Telegraphs and Education Departments in the State.
.
For the purposes local government there are at Brunei, Tutong and Belait Sanitary Boards, composed of official and unofficial members appointed by the Resident. These Boards are the authorities responsible for sanitation, conser- vancy, street lighting, rating and municipal matters generally within the areas for which they are appointed.
POPULATION
Race. Quite apart from the diversity of the alien non-Bornean peoples who have made their homes in the State, the indigenous Malaysian population itself presents à peculiar heterogeneity of race. Bruneis (as the Malays proper of the State are called), Kedayans, Tutongs, Dusuns, Belaits, Muruts and Dayaks are all represented. Parenthetically it may be remarked that the practice of denominating communities by the name of the river which they inhabit has tended to obscure ethnological affinities, as also has the use of similar terms with connotations varying in different localities.
+
The
The Bruneis and the Kedayans, to whom tradition ascribes a Javanese origin, are found principally in the Brunei, Muara and Temburong districts, and to lesser degree in the Tutong district. The Tutongs live along the com- paratively populous lower reaches of the Tutong River, from which they take their name. They are probably of the same stock as the Dusuns, who inhabit the hinterland between the upper waters of the Tutong and the Belait Rivers. The Belaits, who are closely related to the Lemetings of the Baram, are con- fined to the lower reaches of the river which gives them their name. Muruts are said to have been much more numerous at one time than they are to day. Disease and the depredations of their neighbours in the past, however, have greatly reduced their numbers and there now remain only sparse com- munities in the Temburong district. The Dayaks, who are more or less recent immigrants, are to be found in scattered settlements throughout the State close to the river banks in the more remote areas. There are also a few foreign Malaysians, such as Javanese and Banjarese.
1
:
The Bruneis are predominantly fishermen, and the Kedayans and Tutongs agriculturists, as also are the Belaits, though in a lesser degree. Until quite recently the Dusuns, Dayaks and Muruts practised shifting cultivation only, but they are now being induced by means of judicious propaganda to adopt. settled methods of cultivation.
•
Page 1530Page 1531