Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/345

Rh M A L M A L 323 zealously co-operated with the Siamese in their persistent efforts to subdue the Malays of the neighbouring states. 1 All the rest of the peninsula, from about 7 N. to Cape Romania, may be regarded as essentially &quot; Malay land,&quot; as it is in fact called by the people themselves. But whether the Malays are here indigenous, or intruders from Sumatra, is a question still warmly discussed by ethnologists. Those, however, who support the latter view by appealing to the undoubted historic migrations of civilized Malays from Menangkabo or Palembang in the 12th century, or even to still earlier arrivals from Java, do not understand the point at issue. For the peninsula is occupied, not only by these civilized Orang Malayu of cultured speech, Mohammedans and mostly no doubt originally from Sunritrn, but also by the Orang Benua, that is, &quot; men of the soil,&quot; or aborigines, of Malay stock and of rude Malay speech, nature worshippers, and settled here from prehistoric times. Similar uncultured Malay tribes, such as the Orang Kubu of Palembang, are no doubt also found in Sumatra. But it is unlikely that any of these people ever crossed the shallow intervening Straits of Malacca, which were probably dry land when the race was gradually diffused over the common area. Whether the migration proceeded eastwards or westwards is therefore a point which cannot be determined pending the settlement of the further and broader question of the origin and dispersion of the Mal.iy rice itself. If the Malays are a branch of the Mong;&amp;gt;l stock, as many hold, then the Orang Benua must have passed through the peninsula southwards to the archipelago at a time when most of it still formed part of the Asiatic mainland. But if they originated in the archipelago itself, as others maintain, then the stream of migration must have been reversed. In any casa the Orang Benua are not the only aborigines in the peninsula. For the most recent research has fully confirmed the somewhat vague statements of earlier writers regarding the presence in this region of a Negroid element differing fundamentally from the Malay type, and apparently to be affiliated to the Negrito of the Andaman Islands and Philippines. &quot; Purely anthropological observations and considerations lead me to accept the supposition of a 4 Melanesian element (a remnant of the original race), which through intermixture with the Malays is being more and more supplanted In the mountains of Pahang and Kelantan as far as Sengora and Ligor, I hava discovered a Melanesian 2 population. This people undoubt edly belongs to the Melanesian stock &quot; (Miklucho Maclay in Ethnologische Excursion in Jokor). 3 The Malay and Negrito aborigines are collectively known to the civilized Malays as Semang and Sakei 4 respectively, although much confusion seems to have arisen in the use of these terms, nor is this surprising, seeing that the two races themselves, who have been in contact for ages, have become largely intermingled and assimilated in customs, and even in speech. The original Negrito dialects, which Maclay has compared with those of the Philippines, are everywhere yielding to the Malay, which is spoken throughout the peninsula with little dialectic variety as far 1 The horrors attending the reduction of Kedah in 1821 were caused chiefly by the ferocity of the Samsams of Ligor in the Siamese service. 2 This writer applies the term &quot; Melanesian&quot; to all the dark races of the Oceanic area, and not merely to the natives of the Melanesian Archipelago. 3 See also the Field, April 23, 1878 ; Journal of the Straits Branch of the Roy. As. Soc. for 1878-81, ^assz m, ; and the paper of Mr Daly, who says, &quot; The true Orang Sakei is a Negrito, and reminds one of the Papuans of New Guinea, whom I have seen in Torres Straits,&quot; p. 409. 4 The aborigines of the neighbouring island of Billiton are also collectively known as Sakah (Annales de I Extreme Orient, 1879, p. 130). as 6 and 7 N., where it is replaced by Siamese. The aborigines, who are said not to number altogether more than some 10,000, are divided into a great many tribes, of which the bes,t known are the Jakuns, widespread in the south, the Udai, Basisi, Sabimba, Mintira (Mantra), and Hala. All are in a very low state of culture, holding aloof from the settled populations, living entirely on the chase, and pursuing the game with poisoned arrows. It is note worthy that even the more or less civilized Malays, especially of Rambau and other inland states, still hold to the tribal organization, the very names of many of their tribes, such as the Anak Achi (&quot;children of Achln&quot;) and Sri Lummah Menangkabau, betraying their comparatively recent migration from Sumatra. Other ethnical elements in the peninsula are the Bugls from Celebes, formerly powerful on the west coast; the &quot;Moors&quot; (Arabs), now mostly absorbed by the civilized Malays ; the Klings 5 from India, chiefly traders in the seaports ; the Topas (Topazio), half-caste Portuguese Christians, still numerous especially in Malacca territory, a few Europeans, Battas, and African slaves ; and, lastly, the Chinese, by far the most numerous of all, who are gradually converting the Malay peninsula into a second China. They have already monopolized the mining and agricultural industries, as well as the retail trade and local shipping. Although vaguely known to the ancients as the Aurea Chersonesns, and even by them already described as a &quot;Regio Latronmn,&quot; or piratical land, the Malay peninsula possesses no historic traditions earlier than the 13th century. According to the native writers the lirst settlement was made at Singa-pura, or the &quot;Lion City,&quot; about 1250 by emigrants from the banks of a river Malayu in Sumatra. Expelled from Singapore by the Javanese king Majapahit, the colonists founded the city of Malacca on the south-west coast of the mainland in 1253. From this point the cultured and Mohammedan Malays of Sumatra are supposed to have rapidly spread over the whole peninsula, where they had already established a number of petty piratical states, when the Portuguese under Albuquerque reached Malaysia and reduced Malacca in 1511. Being thus, so to say, taken on the flank by the Europeans, while their progress northwards was barred by the Siamese continually pressing forward from Indo-C hina, the Malays of the peninsula, ever prone to piracy and lawlessness, have remained in a more or less unsettled state almost down to the present time. The Portuguese held Malacca for one hundred and thirty years, when they were supplanted in 1641 by the Dutch, who yielded in 1795 to the English, and finally in 1824 surrendered all their possessions on the mainland to Great Britain in exchange for Bencoolen in Java. Penang and Singapore had already been occupied by the British, who, by the suppression of piracy and the old monopolies, the proclamation of free trade principles, the example of a wise administration and treaties with the surrounding states, have gradually laid a solid foundation for the future prosperity of this distracted land. (A. H. K. ) MALAYS (Orang Malayu, &quot; Malay Men &quot;), the domin ant people in Malacca and the Eastern Archipelago (hence often called Malaysia), where they are diversely inter mingled with other races, and where they have represented the local cultured element for over two thousand years. The Malays proper, that is, those who call themselves by this name, 6 who speak the standard Malay language, and who possess a common sentiment of racial unity, are found in compact masses chiefly in the Malay peninsula as far north as 8 or 9 N. lat., in the adjacent islands of Penang, Bintang, Lingen, &c., and in Sumatra, of which they occupy fully one half, mainly in the south, along the east coast, and on parts of the west coast. In these lands 5 The term Kling, a corrupt form of Telinga (Telugn), is applied throughout Malaysia to all the natives of India settled in that region. 6 The origin of this word has given rise to much controversy. Its derivation from the Javanese ma-layu, to run or flee, must he rejected as grammatically impossible, for this is a true verbal form, whereas the national name is strictly adjectival, hence always accom panied by a noun. Valentyn points out (Beschryvinge van Sumatra, p. 13) that the name is specially applied in Sumatra to the great Sungei-pagii-Malayu tribe of the Sungei-pagu auriferous district, and it seems on the whole most probable that it was originally the name of some local tribe, which rose to pre-eminence.