Malay Peninsula

“ Away in the East, where the Indian Ocean merges into the China Sea, where the sunny waters of the Malacca Straits are being ceaselessly furrowed by giant steamers and merchantmen, lies a land, which though spoken of glibly by every schoolboy, is to-day one of the least explored countries of the globe. The Malay Peninsula is a familiar enough name, and so it ought to be, for it skirts the ocean highway to the Flowery Kingdom and to some of our most valuable island possessions ”

“ The Malay Peninsula—that slender tongue of land which projects into the tepid seas at the extreme south of the Asiatic Continent—is but little more than a name to most dwellers in Europe. But, even in the Peninsula itself, and to the majority of those white men whose whole lives have been passed in the Straits of Malacca, the East Coast and the remote interior, of which I chiefly write, are almost as completely unknown. ”

“ From these two have come all the peoples—other than Negrito or Papuan—found to-day from the Malay Peninsula to the farthest islands of Polynesia. The Malay Archipelago was thus first invaded by the Caucasians, who eventually passed eastward and are to-day represented in the Malay Archipelago only by the Mentawi islanders. They were followed by an immigration of Mongol-Caucasic peoples with a preponderance of Caucasic blood—the Indonesians of some, the pre-Malays of other writers—who are to-day represented in the archipelago by such peoples as the Dyaks of Borneo and the Battas of Sumatra. ”

“ The whole of the Malay Peninsula is one vast forest, through which flow countless streams that form one of the most lavish water-systems in the world. The rivers, though many of them are of imposing appearance and of considerable length, are uniformly shallow, only a few on the west coast being navigable by ships for a distance of some 40 m. from their mouths. In spite of the notable development above referred to, only a very small fraction of the entire area of the states has as yet been touched either by mining or agricultural enterprise. ”

“ Definition and Boundaries.—For reasons which depend mainly on the distribution of animal life, I consider the Malay Archipelago to include the Malay Peninsula as far as Tenasserim and the Nicobar Islands on the west, the Philippines on the north, and the Solomon Islands, beyond New Guinea, on the east. All the great islands included within these limits are connected together by innumerable smaller ones, so that no one of them seems to be distinctly separated from the rest. With but few exceptions all enjoy an uniform and very similar climate, and are covered with a luxuriant forest vegetation. ”

“ It is also well known that the whole of the Malay Peninsula is formed of mountain ranges running parallel to each other with detached mountains and hills of high altitude, forming a complete and intricate barrier on both seaboards. ”

“ On the Malay Peninsula, at the extreme southeast corner of Asia, appear the first members of the Malay race, seemingly a distant branch of the Mongoloid, which spreads over Sumatra, Java, and other islands of the Eastern Archipelago. ”

“ The Malay is the latest immigrant. He is of mixed breed, and the link that holds the Malays together is religion, for they are Mahomedans, whereas the Kayans, Land and Sea-Dayaks, and other tribes, are pagans. To accept their own traditions, the Bruni Malays came from Johore, whereas the Sarawak Malays, like those of the Malay peninsula, came direct from the ancient kingdom of Menangkabau. ”

“ All the civilised Malays of the Malay Peninsula trace their origin to migrations from Sumatra, especially from Menangkabau, the famous kingdom mentioned above, which is said at one time to have been the most powerful on the island ”

“ What may be called the true Malay races, as distinguished from others who have merely a Malay element in their language, present a considerable uniformity of physical and mental characteristics, while there are very great differences of civilization and of language. They consist of four great, and a few minor semi-civilized tribes, and a number of others who may be termed savages. The Malays proper inhabit the Malay peninsula, and almost all the coast regions of Borneo and Sumatra. ”

“ My desire to know something about the inhabitants of the interior of the Malay Peninsula, and to ascertain their position in relation to Anthropology, induced me to undertake this journey into the Peninsula. ”

“ Nor can this furnish matter for regret to any one who knew them as they were and still are in some of the wilder and more remote regions of the Peninsula. One may, perhaps, feel some measure of sentimental sorrow that the natural should here, as elsewhere, be replaced by the artificial; one may recognise with sufficient clearness that the Malay in his natural unregenerate state is more attractive an individual than he is apt to become under the influence of European civilisation ”

“ The conquest or colonization of the Malay Peninsula by the Malays is not, however, properly speaking, matter of history, and the origin of the Malay race and its early history are only matters of more or less reasonable hypothesis. ”

“ To-day the Archipelago lies like a large net in the natural pathway of people fleeing themselves from the supposed birthplace of the primitive Malayan stock, namely, from Java, Sumatra, and the adjacent Malay Peninsula, or, more likely, the larger mainland. It spreads over a large area, and is well fitted by its numerous islands—some 3,100—and its innumerable bays and coastal pockets to catch up and hold a primitive, seafaring people. ”

“ The Malay peninsula is practically another island of somewhat the same shape and general trend as Sumatra, and about one-half the size. Its general relations—and the remark applies to the great Sunda Islands as well—appear to be rather more with Burmah, Tenasserim, and even the Cingalese district, than with Siam. Points of connexion between Ceylon and Sumatra, and Ceylon and Borneo, have already (p. 304) been brought out. ”

“ The distance from Borneo to the southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula is about 350 miles, and it is nearly as far from Sumatra and Java, while it is more than 600 miles from the Siamese Peninsula, opposite to which its long northern coast extends. There is, I believe, nowhere else upon the globe, an island so far from a continent, yet separated from it by so shallow a sea. ”

“ The approach to it is from the northward, and is neither difficult nor dangerous.” After further remarks on the best way of sailing in and anchoring, the notes deal with the more generally interesting facts about the island. It must be remembered that at this time the Malays were giving constant trouble to British ships, by small but very ferocious attacks. “Wood is in the greatest abundance, the whole coast of the Malay [Pg 213] Peninsula in the vicinity of this harbour being a forest, in which any quantity may be had for the trouble of cutting. ”

“ The Malay population of the peninsula, including immigrants from the eastern archipelago, number some 750,000 to 800,000, while the Tamils and other natives of India number about 100,000, the aboriginal natives of the peninsula perhaps 20,000, Europeans and Americans about 6500, and Eurasians about 9000. The colony of the Straits Settlements, and to a lesser extent the towns of the Federated Malay States, carry a considerable heterogenous population, in which most of the races of Asia find their representatives. ”

“ Having determined to visit Mount Ophir, which is situated in the middle of the peninsula about fifty miles east of Malacca, we engaged six Malays to accompany us and carry our baggage. As we meant to stay at least a week at the mountain, we took with us a good supply of rice, a little biscuit, butter and coffee, some dried fish and a little brandy, with blankets, a change of clothes, insect and bird boxes, nets, guns and ammunition. The distance from Ayer-panas was supposed to be about thirty miles. ”

“ Malay or Indian Kingdom. This kingdom comprises India, the Malay Archipelago, and the Andaman Islands. Now, anterior to the Aryan conquest, Yellows and Blacks lived in India. The latter are still found in a pure state in the peninsula of Malacca, and in the Andaman Islands; Malaysia presents a perfect mixture of most different races, from the White to the Negro. The Malays, properly so-called, are much rather a population levelled by the action of Islamism, than a race in the true sense of the word; they present in a high degree the characters of intercrossing. ”

“ The Malay origin of the word indicates the existence of a Malay population in, or in the neighbourhood of, the island; a Malay population as well as a native. And such is the case. Over and above the proper aborigines, we find in Borneo, Chinese from China, Bugis from the Island of Celebes, and (as aforesaid) Malays from the Malayan Peninsula and Sumatra.
It is the aborigines, however, who alone are represented in the group before us—the Dyaks as opposed to the Malays. And the particular Dyak division is not the one with which an Englishman [III-20] is the most familiar. ”

“ The Malays are not the Aborigines of this singular spit of land, and, they are its colonists rather than its conquerors. Their histories, which are chiefly traditional, state that the extremity of the Peninsula was peopled by a Malay emigration from Sumatra about the middle of the twelfth century, and that the descendants of these colonists settled Malacca and other places on the coast about a century later. Tradition refers the peopling of the interior States to another and later migration from Sumatra, with a chief at its head, who, with all his followers, married Aboriginal wives ”

“ This superstition strikingly resembles the European legends of the Wild Huntsman, whose shouts the trembling peasants hear above the storm. It is, no doubt, of Aryan origin, and, coming to the Peninsula from Sumatra, seems to corroborate existing evidence tending to show that it is partly through Sumatra that the Peninsula has received Aryan myths and Indian phraseology. A superstitious prejudice against the use of bamboo in making a step-ladder for a Malay house and against drying clothes outside a house on poles stuck into the framework, exists in full force among the Pêrak Malays. ”

“ Malayans (Proto-Malays) : Lampongs, Rejangs, Battas, Achinese, and Palembangs in Sumatra; Sundanese, Javanese proper, and Madurese in Java; Dayaks in Borneo; Balinese; Sassaks (Lombok) ; Bugis and Mangkassaras in Celebes; Tagalogs, Visayas, Bicols, Ilocanos and Pangasinanes in Philippines; Aborigines of Formosa; Nicobar Islanders; Hovas, Betsimisarakas, and Sakalavas in Madagascar.
Malays Proper (Historical Malays) : Menangkabau (Sumatra) ; Malay Peninsula; Pinang, Singapore, Lingga, Bangka; Borneo Coastlands; Tidor, Ternate; Amboina; Parts of the Sulu Archipelago. ”

“ The following extract relates to one of the largest rivers of the Peninsula, the river Perak, which gives its name to the largest and most important of the Malay States of the West Coast. Perak means silver, though none is mined in the country ”

“ The fisher-folk use many kinds of nets, which they manufacture themselves. Sails, paddles, oars and punting-poles are all in use.
Malay Language and Literature
The Malay language is a member of the Malayan section of the Malayo-Polynesian class of languages, but it is by no means a representative type of the section which has taken its name from it. The area over which it is spoken comprises the peninsula of Malacca with the adjacent islands (the Rhio-Lingga Archipelago) , the greater part of the coast districts of Sumatra and Borneo, the seaports of Java, the Sunda and Banda Islands. ”

“ In barbarous regions of the North men live underground, but these dwellings were suspended in the sunny air amongst plumes of cocoanut and betel; behind them rose the shadowy jungle. There was no cultivated land in sight, for the Malay finds his harvest and his garden in the sea. The smooth sand below high-water mark was a parterre of sponges, green and red, and purple blue, intermixed with coral. Old-fashioned people in Europe cherish certain round masses of limestone, daintily fluted, and put them under a glass case for ornament. ”

“ The Malay spoken at Batavia, and at all the Dutch ports and posts in the islands to the east, differs very much from the high or pure Malay spoken in the Menangkabau country, in the interior of Sumatra, north of Padang, whence the Malays originally came: after passing from island to island, they have spread over all Malaysia, that is, the great archipelago between Asia, Australia, and New Guinea. Perhaps of all languages in the world, the low or common Malay is the one most readily acquired. ”

“ The Malays will hardly live on the land, much less cultivate it or pay taxes, while they can float about in strange little hen-coops of house-boats that fill the river and shores by thousands. Hence the Tamils have come from India to work, and the Chinese to do the small trading; and the Malay rests, or at most goes a-fishing, or sits by the canoe-loads of coral and sponges, balloon-fish and strange sea treasures that are sold at the wharf. ”

“ The rice field, the coconut palm and the river provide the Malay with an easy living, supplemented in the past by the proceeds of occasional piracy. He was not likely to be industrious so long as his property was liable to be seized at any moment by his rulers or their deputies. The Malay, as we find him all over the East India Islands, will hunt, fish, sail a boat or fight with considerable energy and skill, but he takes ordinary life in an easy [85] fashion. He has no desire for the business of money-making and prefers to live in his simple fashion in his own homestead or kampong. ”