II. The Malayic Stock
Is by far the most important group of peoples with whom we have to do in the area we are now studying. Many ethnologists, indeed, set it up as a distinct race, the “Malayan” or “Brown” race, and claim for it an importance not less than any of the darker varieties of the species. It bears, however, the marks of an origin too recent, and presents Asian analogies too clearly, for it to be regarded otherwise than as a branch of the Asian race, descended like it from some ancestral tribe in that great continent. Its dispersion has been extraordinary. Its members are found almost continuously on the land areas from Madagascar to Easter Island, a distance nearly two-thirds of the circumference of the globe; everywhere they speak dialects with such affinities that we must assume for all one parent stem, and their separation must have taken place not so very long ago to have permitted such a monoglottic trait as this.
The stock is divided at present into two groups, the western or Malayan peoples, and the eastern or Polynesian peoples. There has been some discussion about the original identity of these, but we may consider it now proved by both physical, linguistic and traditional evidence.[161] The original home of the parent stem has also excited some controversy, but this too may be taken as settled. There is no reasonable doubt but that the Malays came from the southeastern regions of Asia, from the peninsula of Farther India, and thence spread south, east and west over the whole of the island world. Their first occupation of Sumatra and Java has been estimated to have occurred not later than 1000 B. C., and probably was a thousand years earlier, or about the time that the Aryans entered Northern India.
The relationship of the Malayic with the other Asian stocks has not yet been made out. Physically they stand near to the Sinitic peoples of small stature and roundish heads of southeastern Asia.[162] The oldest form of their language, however, was not monosyllabic and tonic, but was dissyllabic. Structurally, it was largely of the “isolating” type, the relations of the members of the proposition being expressed by loose words, as is still the case in some of the Polynesian dialects. This is scarcely recognizable in the developed Malayan and Tagala idioms where there is a richly varied structure by suffixes, prefixes and infixes; but the building up of these grammatical resources can be traced back from the simple original tongue, or Ursprache, I have mentioned.[163] We cannot be far wrong, therefore, in associating in some remote past the ancestral Malays, with their isolating, dissyllabic speech, yellowish-brown complexion, short skulls and small stature, with the Indo-Chinese group of the Sinitic branch of the Asian race.
1. The Western or Malayan Group.
The purest type of the true Malays is seen in Malacca, Sumatra and Java. They are of medium or slightly under size, the complexion from olive to brown. The hair is black, straight and lank, and the beard is scanty. The eyes are black, often slightly oblique, the nose straight and rather prominent, the mouth large, and the chin well developed. The skull is short (brachycephalic), and the muscular force less than the European average.
This type is found among the Malayans of Malacca and Sumatra, the Javanese, the Madurese and Tagalas. It has changed slightly by foreign intermixture among the Battaks of Sumatra, the Dayaks of Borneo, the Alfures and the Bugis. But the supposition that these are so remote that they cannot properly be classed with the Malays is an exaggeration of some recent ethnographers, and is not approved by the best authorities.[164] The chief differences are that the Battak type is larger and stronger than the average Malay, the skull is more oval, the hair finer in texture and lighter in color.
In character the Malays are energetic, quick of perception, genial in demeanor, but unscrupulous, cruel and revengeful. Veracity is unknown, and the love of gain is far stronger than any other passion or affection. This thirst for gold made the Malay the daring navigator he early became. As merchant, pirate or explorer, and generally as all three in one, he pushed his crafts far and wide over the tropical seas through twelve thousand miles of extent.
On the extreme west he reached and colonized Madagascar. The Hovas there, undoubtedly of Malay blood, number about 800,000 in a population of five and a half millions, the remainder being Negroids of various degrees of fusion. In spite of this disproportion, the Hovas are the recognized masters of the island. Their language stands in closest relation to that of the Battaks of Sumatra. In physical appearance they have a striking likeness to the Polynesians, so close, indeed, that the one may readily be mistaken for the other.[165]
On the great islands near the Malaccan peninsula there are tribes in different stages of culture. Those on the highest plane are the Javanese, whose ancient language, the Kavi, is preserved in their sacred books. The Battaks of Northern Sumatra are an agricultural people, who have not accepted Islam, and belong to the old stock of the Asian immigrants. They are still to some extent cannibals, a convict condemned to death being eaten by the community. The Dayaks of Borneo are not less truculent, being cannibals and famous “head hunters”—that is, their highest trophy of war and proof of manhood is to bring home the head of a slain enemy. Some of them are agriculturists, others sea robbers. Their dwellings are of the communal character, and their religion an idolatry, the figures of the gods being carved in wood.
The Macassars of the Celebes and the Tagalas of the Philippines are Malays of milder habits, and possess commercial importance and literary culture. In these islanders there is a mixed class called Alfures, who have attracted some attention as differing from the prevalent type, but they are of no ethnographic importance.
The Malays probably established various colonies in Southern India. The natives at Travancore and the Sinhalese of Ceylon bear a strongly Malayan aspect. But the latter speak a dialect largely Aryac, and the Veddahs in the interior of the island have a much lower cephalic index than the Malay (about 72), and their language is derived about one-half from Aryac and the rest from Dravidian (Tamil) sources.[166]
2. The Eastern or Polynesian Group.
Some ethnographers would make the Polynesians and Micronesians a different race from the Malays; but the farthest that one can go in this direction is to admit that they reveal some strain of another blood. This is evident in their physical appearance. They are uncommonly tall, symmetrical and handsome, a stature over six feet not being unusual among them. Their features are regular, their color a light brown. Their hair is black, smooth and glossy, sometimes with a curl or crisp in it, which betrays a touch of Papuan blood. All the Polynesian languages have some affinities to the Malayan, and the Polynesian traditions unanimously refer to the west for the home of their ancestors. We are able, indeed, by carefully analyzing these traditions, to trace with considerable accuracy both the route they followed to the Oceanic isles and the respective dates when they settled them.
Thus, the first station of their ancestors on leaving the western group, was the small island of Buru or Boru, between Celebes and New Guinea. Here they encountered the Papuas, some of whom still dwell in the interior, while the coast people are fair.[167] Leaving Boru, they passed to the north of New Guinea, colonizing the Caroline and Solomon Islands, but the vanguard pressing forward to take possession of Savai in the Samoan group and Tonga to its south. These two islands formed a second centre of distribution over the western Pacific. The Maoris of New Zealand moved from Tonga—“holy Tonga” as they call it in their songs—about six hundred years ago. The Society islanders migrated from Savai, and they in turn sent forth the population of the Marquesas, the Sandwich Islands and Easter Island.
The separation of the Polynesians from the western Malays must have taken place about the beginning of our era. This length of time permits the best adjustment of their several traditions, and is not so long as to render it difficult to explain the similarity of their dialects and usages.[168]
The disposition of the Polynesian is an improvement on that of the Malay. He is more to be trusted, and is more affable. In culture he is backward. Pottery is scarcely known, agriculture is not carried on, cannibalism was nigh universal, polygamy was prevalent, and the relation of the sexes was exceedingly loose, especially among the unmarried. The islanders, as may be expected, are singularly skilful navigators and build excellent canoes. They do not hesitate to undertake voyages of five or six hundred miles, and are such excellent swimmers that if the boat capsizes they are in no danger of drowning. Their weapons were the lance, the sling and club, but they were not acquainted with the bow and arrow.
Their religion, until the introduction of Christianity, was a frank polytheism. The deeds of the gods are related in long chants, which also contain many historic references.[169] The word “taboo” comes from Polynesia, and means “sacred,” “holy.” All objects which the priests declared “taboo” were considered to be consecrated to the supernatural powers, and to touch them was to incur sure death. They were accustomed to set apart enclosures which were “taboo,” and served as temples, and the images of the gods, in wood or stone, rudely carved, were there erected.
Although their houses were generally of brush and leaves, on several of the islands they constructed stone edifices. Such are found upon the Caroline islands, on sacred Tonga, on Pitcairn, and on Easter island, the last mentioned have excited particular attention, and have given rise to various foolish theories about a previous race of high culture, and about relationship to the civilized American nations of Peru and Central America. It is enough to say that nothing on Easter island is peculiar to its culture. There are stone platforms with rude stone images on them thirty or forty feet high; there are the foundations of stone houses; there are remains of a primitive ideographic writing. All these occur also on the other islands I have named, and the natives of Rapa-nui, as the island is called by the Tahitians, have nothing in their language or arts to distinguish them from other Polynesians. The pre-historic colossal structures on Ponape, Lalla and others of the Caroline group, are of basalt, and testify to a creditable ambition and skill on the part of the builders; but careful investigations prove that they are “without any doubt” to be attributed to the ancestors of the present inhabitants.[170]