The Malays undoubtedly must be numbered among civilized peoples.
They
live in houses which are more or less tasteful and secluded. They are
well clothed in garments of both native and foreign manufacture; they
are a settled and agricultural people; they are skilful in some of the
arts, specially in the working of gold and the damascening of krises;
the upper classes are to some extent educated; they have a literature,
even though it be an imported one, and they have possessed for
centuries systems of government and codes of land and maritime laws
which, in theory at least, show a considerable degree of enlightenment.
Their religion, laws, customs, and morals are bound up together. They
are strict Mussulmen, but among the uneducated especially they mix up
their own traditions and superstitions with the Koran. The pilgrimage
to Mecca is the universal object of Malay ambition. They practice relic
worship, keep the fast of Ramadhan, wear rosaries of beads, observe the
hours of prayer with their foreheads on the earth, provide for the
"religious welfare" of their villages, circumcise their children, offer
buffaloes in sacrifice at the religious ceremonies connected with
births and marriages, build mosques everywhere, regard Mecca as the
holy city, and the Koran, as expounded by Arab teachers, as the rule of
faith and practice.
Much learning has been expended upon the origin of Malayan, but it has
not been reliably traced beyond the ancient empire of Menangkabau in
Sumatra. Mohammedanism undoubtedly brought with it a large introduction
of Arabic words, and the language itself is written in the Arabic
character. It has been estimated by that most painstaking and learned
scholar, Mr. Crawfurd, that one hundred parts of modern Malayan are
composed of twenty-seven parts of primitive Malayan, fifty of
Polynesian, sixteen of Sanskrit, five of Arabic, and two of
adventitious words, the Arabic predominating in all literature relating
to religion. Malay is the lingua franca of the Straits Settlements, and
in the seaports a number of Portuguese and Dutch words have been
incorporated with it.
The Malays can hardly be said to have an indigenous literature, for it
is almost entirely derived from Persia, Siam, Arabia, and Java. Arabic
is their sacred language. They have, however, a celebrated historic
Malay romance called the Hang Tuah, parts of which are frequently
recited in their villages after sunset prayers by their village
raconteurs, and some Arabic and Hindu romances stand high in popular
favor. Their historians all wrote after the Mohammedan era, and their
histories are said to contain little that is trustworthy; each State
also has a local history preserved with superstitious care and kept
from common eyes, but these contain little but the genealogies of their
chiefs. They have one Malay historical composition, dated 1021 A.H.,
which treats of the founding of the Malay empire of Menangkabau in
Sumatra, and comes down to the founding of the empire of Johore and the
conquest of Malacca by Albuquerque in 1511. This has been thought
worthy of translation by Dr. Leyden.
Their ethical books consist mainly of axioms principally derived from
Arabic and Persian sources. Their religious works are borrowed from the
Arabs. The Koran, of course, stands first, then comes a collection of
prayers, and next a guide to the religious duties required from
Mussulmen. Then there are books containing selections from Arabic
religious works, with learned commentaries upon them by a Malay Hadji.
It is to be noticed that the Malays present a compact front against
Christianity, and have successfully resisted all missionary enterprise.
They have a good deal of poetry, principally of an amorous kind,
characterized, it is said, by great simplicity, natural and pleasing
metaphor, and extremely soft and melodious rhyme. They sing their poems
to certain popular airs, which are committed to memory. Malay music,
though plaintive and less excruciating than Chinese and Japanese, is
very monotonous and dirge-like, and not pleasing to a European ear. The
pentatonic scale is employed. The violin stands first among musical
instruments in their estimation. They have also the guitar, the
flageolet, the aeolian flute, a bamboo in which holes are cut, which
produce musical sounds when acted upon by the wind, and both metallic
and wooden gongs.
They have no written system of common arithmetic, and are totally
unacquainted with its higher branches. Their numerals above one
thousand are borrowed from the Hindus, and their manner of counting is
the same as that of the Ainos of Yezo.
Their theory of medicine is derived from Arabia, and abounds in mystery
and superstition. They regard man as composed of four elements and four
essences, and assimilate his constitution and passions to the twelve
signs of the zodiac, the seven planets, etc., exaggerating the
mysterious sympathy between man and external nature. The successful
practice of the hakim or doctor must be based on the principle of
"preserving the balance of power" among the four elements, which is
chiefly effected by moderation in eating.
They know nothing of astronomy, except of some meagre ideas derived
through the Arabs from the Ptolemaic system, and Mr. Newbold, after
most painstaking research, failed to discover any regular treatise on
astronomy, though Arabic and Hindu tracts on interpretations of dreams,
horoscopes, spells, propitious and unpropitious moments, auguries,
talismans, love philters, medicinal magic and recipes for the
destruction of people at a distance, are numerous. They acknowledge the
solar year, but adopt the lunar, and reckon the months in three
different ways, dividing them, however, into weeks of seven days,
marking them by the return of the Mohammedan Sabbath. They suppose the
world to be an oval body revolving on its axis four times within a
year, with the sun, a circular body of fire, moving round it. The
majority of the people still believe that eclipses are caused by the
sun or moon being devoured by a serpent, and they lament loudly during
their continuance. The popular modes of measuring distance are
ingenious, but, to a stranger at least, misleading.
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