[533] It is interesting to note that by the aid of the Lampong alphabet, South Sumatra, John Mathew reads the word Daibattah in the legend on the head-dress of a gigantic figure seen by Sir George Grey on the roof of a cave on the Glenelg river, North-west Australia ("The Cave Paintings of Australia," etc., in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1894, p. 44 sq.). He quotes from Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus the statement that "the Battas of Sumatra believe in the existence of one supreme being, whom they name Debati Hasi Asi. Since completing the work of creation they suppose him to have remained perfectly quiescent, having wholly committed the government to his three sons, who do not govern in person, but by vakeels or proxies." Here is possibly another confirmation of the view that early Malayan migrations or expeditions, some even to Australia, took place in pre-Muhammadan times, long before the rise and diffusion of the Orang-Maláyu in the Archipelago.
[534] Memoir of the Life etc. of Sir T. S. Raffles, by his widow, 1830.
[535] "Anthropologie des Atjehs," in Rev. Med., Batavia, XXX. 6, 1890.
[536] See C. Snouck Hurgronje, The Achenese, 1906.
[537] Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections, British Museum, 1910, p. 245.
[538] This opinion is still held by many competent authorities. Cf. J. Deniker, The Races of Man, 1900, p. 469 ff.
[539] "His remarks would scarcely apply to any other island off the East African coast, his descriptions of the rivers, crocodiles, land-tortoises, canoes, sea-turtles, and wicker-work weirs for catching fish, apply exactly to Madagascar of the present day, but to none of the other islands" (Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1896, p. 47).
[540] Loc. cit. p. 77. Thus, to take the days of the week, we have:—Malagasy alahady, alatsinainy; old Arab. (Himyar.) al-áhadu, al-itsnáni; modern Arab. el-áhad, el-etnén (Sunday, Monday), where the Mal. forms are obviously derived not from the present, but from the ancient Arabic. From all this it seems reasonable to infer that the early Semitic influences in Madagascar may be due to the same Sabaean or Minaean peoples of South Arabia, to whom the Zimbabwe monuments in the auriferous region south of the Zambesi were accredited by Theodore Bent.
[541] Those who may still doubt should consult M. Aristide Marre, Les Affinités de la Langue Malgache, Leyden, 1884; Last's above quoted Paper in the Journ. Anthr. Inst. and R. H. Codrington's Melanesian Languages, Oxford, 1885.
[542] Malay mata-ari; Bajau mata-lon; Menado mata-roū; Salayer mato-allo, all meaning literally "day's eye" (mata, mato = Malagasy maso = eye; ari, allo, etc. = day, with normal interchange of r and l).