Rumah Banda Hilir (6)

I have sat down to draw the interior of the house and added photos where they were taken (guessed and based on memory). I have tried to add icons to enliven the sketches of the interior and spaces. This is all from my past. The house has been demolished and there is nothing else to go by to draw these pictures.

Anjung (front guest space, mainly for males after prayers)

Front inner living-room for formal guests

Master bedroom where I slept with my parents till age 4-5

Brick multipurpose space for drying clothes, kids to play, preparing for festivities, etc. Goods are also placed here before they are sorted and separated into smaller tin cans for storage.

Rear living-room where relatives gathered to help out with festivities, etc. Doubled up as sleeping space when they were too many relatives in the house.

Rumah Banda Hilir (5)

262-T Rumah Banda Hilir still excites me. I have sat down to draw the interior architectural plan of the house. This house was probably of Minangkabau exterior and interior layout.

Entrance viewed from across the main road, circa 1963.

House viewed from the main entrance, circa 1963.

This is how I have the house in my mind. This map shows the location of the house wrt the other known structures in Banda Hilir when I lived there.

Interior floor plan of the house from the time I was born up till before the toilet was made. We used the jamban outside the house. It was some distance from the main house. The pong was terrible, coming from the excreta in the pail beneath the stall (squatting type). It was like living on top of a cesspit. There were 2 bedrooms, a master bedroom in the newer section and a smaller bedroom in the older (ancient) back section of the house.

Interior floor plan after a toilet was made inside the house. Life was much better with a toilet inside the house. I slept with my parents in the master bedroom till I was past 4 years old. I slept in my eldest brother's big blue cot which was as big as a single bed.

Rumah Banda Hilir (4)

Deaths at Rumah Banda Hilir

Many people have died at Rumah Banda Hilir. I'm working out the possible namelist of people who died in that house.


From Bapak:
When Bapak and I visited Rumah Banda Hilir, Bapak had told me that 8 people had died in Rumah Banda Hilir. Bapak was not sure if they were 8 generations. He named a few of them but I cannot recall the names he mentioned. However, below is a possible list that I can construct for now until someone can provide a more definite list.

Possible names of those who died at Rumah Banda Hilir
(8 people)

1. Mohd Yusope bin Haji Mohd Sharif (11 Feb 1896 - 4 Jan 1954)

He was Bapak's father who was called Walid by his children. According to Bapak, Walid died on 4 January 1954. According to Nenek Inchek, Walid died 26 days before Bapak returned from England.

Bapak and Walid had corresponded when Bapak was studying at Kirkby, England. Some of their letters were interesting. Will upload later, insyaAllah.

Walid is buried at the ancestral graves at Tanah Perkuburan Masjid Semabok, Bukit Semabok, Semabok in Melaka. His tombstone is a large one and there should be an empty grave plot beside his grave as his wife (Nenek Inchek) was not buried beside him but in Gombak area. The two other graves in front are also related (that's as far as I can remember Bapak told me).

I visited Tanah Perkuburan Masjid Semabok on 4 June 2016. I could not see Tok Walid's gravestones as the adjacent brick wall had collapsed onto his grave.

2. Haji Mohd Sharif bin Ismail 

He was Bapak's paternal grandfather whom Bapak called Datuk Mohd Sharif.
He died at age 38. No date of death is known. No date of birth is known.
He died at sea with 2 others c.1912.

Bapak showed me where Datuk Mohd Sharif is buried at Tanah Perkuburan Masjid Semabok when I was a small girl. I followed him from rumah Pak Ji Usop. We walked through the long grasses. I remember walking through a brick enclosure and coming to his grave.

As I recall from my visit with Bapak when I was small, tok moyang Hj Mohd Sharif had a big gravestone (batu nisannya amat besar) at his footside. It was under a tree - like a papaya tree with big leaves.

Kak Bibah and Abang Moin informed that his grave is at the left of the mimbar. So if I stand inside the masjid and face Qiblat, his grave is on the left.

I visited Tanah Perkuburan Masjid Semabok on 4 June 2016. The graveyard is sited on a steep hill slope with sharp red laterite bricks. There were some trees. I saw  only 2 'smaller' gravestones of my tok moyang. The retaining wall is extant but collapsed at several places, even onto his son's grave. The nameplate is destroyed and illegible (can't read anything engraved on his tombstone).

3. Patma Bee bt Mohamad (isteri Haji Mohd Sharif)

Her grave is beside her husband's grave at Tanah Perkuburan Masjid Semabok. No further information at her grave. Bapak said she was fair (puith macam Cina). Bapak said she was from Tengkera. I think she was brought from Penang to Tengkera, Malacca.
She and 2 others died at sea (Straits of Malacca) c.1912.

4. Ismail bin Mohd Saleh

I think this Ismail was a Malay from the Indonesian lineage.
This name is not in Wasiat Haji Md Sharif - he could have died before the Wasiat was written.
He could have died before 1906.
His father was named in Haji Mohd Sharif's Wasiat (Will).
The location of his grave is unknown. He was probably buried at Jalan Panjang graveyard.

5. Inche Nyonia bt Haji Sahabudin (wife of Ismail)

She is the wife of Ismail bin Mohd Saleh. Bapak said she was from Tengkera, Malacca.
She was in Haji Md Sharif's Wasiat.

6. Mohd Saleh bin Khatib Usuf

No info on him at this time.
He is the son of a khatib (a learned man or a man who gave sermons in the masjid).
He was named in Wasiat Hj Md Sharif.
The location of his grave is unknown. Probably at Jalan Panjang graveyard.

7. Khatib Usuf 

No info on him at this time.
He was a learned man. His name bears the term khatib.
The location of his grave is unknown. Probably at Jalan Panjang graveyard.
He was probably Indonesian.

8. Dato' Shahbuddin bin Haji Mohd Amin (asal Cirebon, Tanah Jawa)

Abang Moin said his daughter married to Ismail.

As far as the family tree goes, and from the Wasiat that Bapak gave me to keep, Ismail married to Inche Nyonia bt Sahabudin, and Inche Nyonia was from Tengkera, Malacca.

Bapak said there is Makam Shahbuddin in Tengkera, but I have not been able to locate it.

However, I visited Kubor Jalan Panjang on 4 June 2016, and there is a Makam Dato' Shahbuddin bin Haji Mohd Amin, founder of Masjid Banda Hilir in 1820. His makam is at the edge of the graveyard near the bamboo trees at Kubor Jalan Panjang. The shrine is painted yellow and with a high perimeter wall. The metal plate bears his name.

If he build Masjid Banda Hilir, he must have a house on the grounds or nearby the masjid. So it is possible that he built the first and oldest portion of Rumah Banda Hilir - the rear portion. He probably made the older rear part of Rumah Banda Hilir. Would the rear portion last that long? I don't know. He could have died in the older house before the more recent house was built in 1897/1900.

And the brick well and kitchen area far below? I don't know and I have no idea. The brick and well portion far down below looked out of place, like it didn't belong there and didn't come from our civilisation. I think it came from a foregin civilisation, most probably the Portuguese. Most likely they were Portuguese because the stairs were so steep and the staircase very narrow and very high. The well was well-built but it didn't resemble any of the wells built by the Malays which I have seen. So these might be the only Portuguese structures of the Banda Hilir house.

The wooden part of the front house had Malay Minangkabau structure for its exterior roofs and walls but I think it had Dutch double-doors and louvres for the window in the front anjung.

The 2 brick staircases and the small green window in the toilet were definitely Chinese features. The staircases were always painted chalk-white which is interesting because Chinese have tiled staircase and whitewashed houses is a feature of the southern European abodes - Italian, Spanish, Greek or Portuguese.

I really think that Rumah Banda Hilir had all the homestead features of her conquerors - Portuguese whitewashed walls (casa blanca), Chinese porcelain windows and staircases, Dutch double-doors and louvres, and Minangkabau roofs, walls and attic. The roof tiles were from Malacca, but it is unknwon which factory made them. Overall, tt was a good home of my ascendants who were Javanese Muslims, Minangkabau Muslims and Arab Muslims.

Rumah Banda Hilir (3)

Address: 262-T Banda Hilir

In ancient maps, Banda Hilir was written as Banda Ilir.

From Bapak:
We don't know when exactly the house was built, probably in 1900s. The house belonged to datok Mohd Sharif. He willed: "Wasiat 'Rumah Abu' (rumah wakaf) untuk keturunannya, with no conditions attached."

However, when Haji Mohd Sharif died, Haji Abdul Rahim (anak Haji Nordin) said, "last person alive longest, Banda Hilir house becomes his property."

Rumah Banda Hilir was built in 2 stages:-
1. The hind quarters was built first
2. The front house was built later

There was a well in a lower annex to the big house, attached to the rear quarters.

There was also a small nipah hut (bangsal nipah) measuring approximately 6 feet x 9 feet which was where Mohd Yusope (Walid) and his wife (Aishah bt Mohd Amin/Nenek Inche) lived. The couple did not sleep in the main house; they slept in the small hut.

Bapak stayed at rumah Banda Hilir in 1942, during World War II (WWII).

The house had 3 parts:
1. The hind quarters
2. The front house
3. A middle brick portion which was later cemented.



Front facade of house, nearest Masjid Banda Hilir (now Masjid An-Nur whose roof edge/eave can be seen at top right corner of this photo)

Middle brick portion that joins the rear quarters to the front house. The rear portion is facing the seated children. The front house is behind the children. The bathroom is to the left in this photo. The entrance to this brick portion is a whitewashed wooden double Dutch door to the right in this photo. This brick portion has always been painted white while the 2 quarters have always been painted with black castor oil and appears black.

Rumah Banda Hilir (2)

Some photos to show what Rumah Banda Hilir looked like. It was built by my great-grandfather, Hj Mohd Sharif, circa 1896-1899. It had 3 sections - front, middle and rear. It was pretty when I lived there after I was born, from 1958 to 1963. When I returned to visit the house after I got married in 1983, the house was dilapidated and falling apart. The house was demolished in 2007. When I revisited the third time in 2016, the house was gone and a new extension of Masjid Banda Hilir (Masjid An-Nur) had taken over the site of Rumah Banda Hilir. I was shocked beyond belief!

Rumah Banda Hilir (front facade) in 1963. The house featured a wooden Minangkabau front facade with a white brick staircase, called 'tangga Melaka' (Malacca staircase). 



Rumah Banda Hilir. Inside the rear section in 1963.

Rumah Banda Hilir, 1983 onwards. The rear section at left was falling apart and overgrown with rose bushes. The front section with earthen roof tiles (genting batu) at right was still intact.

Rumah Banda Hilir, 1983 onwards. The front section was still intact. This photo shows a side profile of the front right section (anjung), with a typical white-washed brick Malacca stairs (tangga Melaka) at right.

Differently-styled roofs of Rumah Banda Hilir (front section). The roof on the left was more elaborate and looked like that of Rumah Minangkabau of West Sumatra, with 2 airholes for the attic (loteng). The roof on the right was the less elaborate roof of the anjung - visitor's entrance and holding area.

Middle section of Rumah Banda Hilir with white brick walls, Chinese-styled white staircase (tangga Melaka) and white-washed wooden Dutch door. This middle section was always whitewashed and had always been painted white. The middle section separated and also joined the front section to the rear section. Behind the Dutch door was a large brick (cement) floor which served as a clothes drying area (tempat sidai baju). The middle section had a large bathroom with an adjoining pool (kolam) and a small green Chinese porcelain window was added in the 1960s (I could tip-toe to view Masjid Banda Hilir while bathing). The pool was half in the bathroom and half outside the bathroom - the part of the pool outside was always covered. The middle section had no roof except over half the bathroom and fully covered the kitchen wash area. The building at right is the front section of the house (nearest and facing Masjid Banda Hilir). Some red croton plants were planted around the entire periphery of the house.

Rumah Banda Hilir (1)

Rumah Banda Hilir was an old house adjoining Masjid Banda Hilir, where I had lived after I was born. According to Bapak, the hind (rear) portion of Rumah Banda Hilir was built first, and then the front portion. And that was why the rear portion looked more worn out, more dilapidated and older than the front portion. Bapak said the entire house did not use nails or screws. The rear portion used thatched roof (bumbung atap) while the front portion used small red-orange brick roof tiles as used in most town houses during that era. The entire house was on stilts, and there were large stone bases to hold the stilts. The stone bricks are the same ones used to make the Portuguese fort, A Famosa.

History has it that when the Portuguese attacked and conquered Malacca on 15 August 1511, they destroyed the mosques there and used the stones for making A Famosa. Thus, the same stones can be found in Rumah Banda Hilir and A Famosa.

The stones could have come from the distant hills. Some archaeological research needs to be done to locate the source of the stones/rocks to make A Famosa. Carbon-dating and rock-dating will be needed to know how old these stones/rocks are and where they came from (what period and source).

The only archaeologist I know is Bapak's relative, Professor Zuraina Majid, the youngest sister of Datuk Paduka Ruby Majid. I met her twice, once during my wedding in Penang and another when she was in the interview panel (I didn't know she was going to be in the panel anyway). I have to trace and see where she is today.

Long time ago, Bapak said that one of Datuk Alang's daughters did Architecture and had used Rumah Banda Hilir for her project. I could have been in secondary school when I heard this from Bapak. However, when I asked Mak Cik Jamilah (isteri Pak Cik Hassan), she said there is no such daughter doing Architecture nor has worked on Rumah Banda Hilir for her project. So I don't know what is real or unreal but that was what happened. All I know, Rumah Banda Hilir was studied by someone but I have no clue who studied that house. Maybe I can ask UiTM to look through its collection of students' projects and find out more details about Rumah Banda Hilir.