Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/83

Rh the one be clearer than the other, they are both of the same tint, the thick lips, the form of the nose, the acute facial angle, the fashion of saluting with the nose, and various other customs and superstitions common to them, seem also to prove that the invading people did not come together united as a torrent, but by little and little and in fractions, that it was of light color — that instead of teaching the language they brought they learned that which they found — that they were all or the greater part males, and taking the black or native women gave birth to those Mestigos or Mulattoes who in the Philippine islands are called Indians, in the Celebes are called Buguis, and who are known by Geographers by the general name of Malay race, whence also the Malay language.

This lighter colored people that came to mix themselves with the black, must have had the hair very strong and lank, because the Malays have it so.

There are traditions and legends in Java that their forefathers came from Borneo, the inhabitants of Borneo say theirs came from Malaya. The Philippians it is believed are derived from Borneo, and so of the other islands each has its history and refers to another. There are authors who have formed a theory, that they have all received their populations from one centre, and some have even ventured to name it, and say it is Borneo.

Leaving aside the difficulty of conceiving how one single island has produced so many different populations, and how those colonies have managed to cross the seas and gain places very remote, to many of which they could not direct themselves without astronomical knowledge and instruments, since they found islands not distant from America, to which it would be almost impossible to arrive without taking the altitude, there yet remains that of explaining the origin of those same Malays of Borneo. This is, if we may take as the basis of conjecture that the Malays are derived from a people of lighter race mixed with the Papuan Negroes, a fact almost indubitable, leaving it to say what people it was that came to Borneo.

The Padre Martinez Zuniaga has sought to prove that there was a connection between the languages of America and the Malayan, and that considering the geographical situations and the course of the winds it was much more easy for the first inhabitants to come from that continent to Asia than to make the contrary voyage. A modern Voyager who has written upon Oceania denies this assertion, and in an authoritative manner says that it is a great error without explaining how it is so. What is certain is that there are