The concept of a Malay race (Malay: Bangsa Melayu) was proposed by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), and classified as the brown race.[1] Since Blumenbach, many anthropologists have rejected his theory of five races, citing the enormous complexity of classifying races. The concept of a "Malay race" differs with that of the ethnic Malays centered around Malaysian Malay Peninsula and parts of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
The term Malay race was commonly used in the late 19th century and early 20th century to describe the Austronesian peoples.[2]
Contents |
The earliest records of the word Melayu or Malayu came from Chinese record, that reported a kingdom named Malayu had sent the envoy to Chinese court for the first time in 645 CE, it was recorded in the book T'ang Hui Yao collected by Wang p'u during Tang dynasty[3]. Another Chinese source mentioned about the kingdom of Malayu, two book written by a buddhist monk I-tsing or I Ching (義淨; pinyin Yì Jìng) (634-713)[4], in his journey from China to India in 671 he reported:
| “ | “When the northeastern wind blow, we sail leaving Canton heading south.... After sailing for twenty days, we reach the land of Srivijaya. We stay there for about six months to learn Sabdavidya. The king was very kind to us. He help to sent us to the land of Malayu, where we stayed for two months. Later we continued our journey to Kedah .... Sailing northward from Kedah, we reached the island of naked people (Nicobar) .... From here we sailed westward for half a month and finally we reached Tamralipti (Indian east coast)” | ” |
It was suggested that the term "Melayu" originated from sanskrit word Malaya or Malaiur which means "hill" or "high ground"[5]. Another source dated from later period mentioned the name Bhumi Malayu, written in Padang Roco Inscription dated 1286 CE in Dharmasraya, and later in 1347 CE, Adityawarman edicted his own inscription inscribed on Amoghapasa statue, declaring himself as the ruler of Malayupura[6]. The Majapahit record, Nagarakretagama dated 1365 CE, mentioned about lands of Melayu dominated under Majapahit"[7] From these records the name Malayu seems to be identified with the area around Batanghari river valley from estuarine to hinterland in present day Jambi and parts of West Sumatra province. The people that inhabit Eastern coast of Sumatra and parts of Malay peninsula identified themself as Malay with common language called Malay language. After the arrival of European people in 16th century, they identify the native people that life on both coast of Malacca strait as Malay people. This term extended to neighboring people with similar traits.
Malays were once referred as "Kun-lun people" in various Chinese records. Kunlun was originally referring to a fabled mountain range that was believed to span parts of Tibet and India. It was used by the Chinese as reference to black, wavy-haired barbarians of the mountains and jungles from the remote part of geographically known world. The Viets, Champas and Khmers were called Kunlun people by the Chinese before the term being applied to the Malays or more accurately Austronesians as a whole. In 750, Jianzhen (688-765) noticed the presence of many "Brahmans, Persians and Kunluns in Canton". The Book of Tang reported that "every year, Kunlun merchants come in their ships with valuable goods to trade with the Chinese".[8]
In his 1775 doctoral dissertation titled De generis humani varietate nativa (On the Natural Varieties of Mankind), Blumenbach outlined four main human races by skin color, namely Caucasian (white), Ethiopian (black), Native American (red), and Mongolian (yellow).
By 1795, Blumenbach added another race called 'Malay' which he considered to be a subcategory of both the Ethiopian and Mongoloid races. The Malay race were those of a "brown color, from olive and a clear mahogany to the darkest clove or chestnut brown." Blumenbach expanded the term "Malay" to include the native inhabitants of the Marianas, the Philippines, the Malukus, Sundas, Indochina, as well as Pacific Islands such as Tahitians. He considered a Tahitian skull he had received to be the missing link; showing the transition between the "primary" race, the Caucasians, and the "degenerate" race, the Negroids.
Blumenbach writes:
Malay variety. Tawny-coloured; hair black, soft, curly, thick and plentiful; head moderately narrowed; forehead slightly swelling; nose full, rather wide, as it were diffuse, end thick; mouth large. upper jaw somewhat prominent with the parts of the face when seen in profile, sufficiently prominent and distinct from each other. This last variety includes the islanders of the Pacific Ocean, together with the inhabitants of the Marianne, the Philippine, the Molucca and the Sunda Islands, and of the Malayan peninsula. I wish to call it the Malay, because the majority of the men of this variety, especially those who inhabit the Indian islands close to the Malacca peninsula, as well as the Sandwich, the Society, and the Friendly Islanders, and also the Malambi of Madagascar down to the inhabitants of Easter Island, use the Malay idiom.[9]
The view of Malays held by Thomas Stamford Raffles had a significant influence on English-speakers, lasting to the present day. He is probably the most important voice who promoted the idea of a ‘Malay’ race or nation, not limited to the Malay ethnic group, but embracing the peoples of a large but unspecified part of the South East Asian archipelago. Raffles formed a vision of Malays as a language-based 'nation', in line with the views of the English Romantic movement at the time, and in 1809 sent a literary essay on the topic to the Asiatic Society. After he mounted an expedition to the former Minangkabau seat of royalty in Pagaruyung, he declared that it was the ‘the source of that power, the origin of that nation, so extensively scattered over the Eastern Archipelago’. In his later writings he moved the Malays from a nation to a race.[10]
In Malaysia, the early colonial censuses listed separate ethnic groups, such as "Malays, Boyanese, Achinese, Javanese, Bugis, Manilamen (Filipino) and Siamese". The 1891 census merged these ethnic groups into the three racial categories used in modern Malaysia – Chinese, ‘Tamils and other natives of India’, and ‘Malays and other Natives of the Archipelago’. This was based upon the European view at the time that race was a biologically based scientific category. For the 1901 census, the government advised the word "race" should replace "nationality" wherever it occurs.[10]
After a period of generations being classified in these groups, individual identity formed around the concept of bangsa Melayu (Malay race). For younger generations of people, they saw it as providing a unity and solidarity against the colonial powers, and non-Malay immigrants. The Malaysian nation was later formed with the bangsa Melayu having the central and defining position within the country.[10]
In the Philippines, many Filipinos consider the term "Malay" to refer to the indigenous population of the country as well as the indigenous population of neighboring countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. This misconception is due in part to American anthropologists H. Otley Beyer who proposed that the Filipinos were actually Malays who migrated from Malaysia and Indonesia. This idea was in turn propagated by Filipino historians and is still taught in many schools. However, the prevalent consensus among contemporary anthropologists, archaeologists, and linguists actually proposes the reverse; namely that the ancestors of the Austronesian peoples of the Sunda Islands, Madagascar, and Polynesia had originally migrated south from the Philippines during the prehistoric period from an origin in Taiwan.
In the United States, the racial classification "Malay race" was introduced in the early twentieth century into the anti-miscegenation laws of a number of western US states. Anti-miscegenation laws were state laws that prohibited marriage between European Americans and African Americans and in some states also other non-whites. After an influx of Filipino immigrants, these existing laws were amended in a number of western states to prohibit marriage between Caucasians and Filipinos, who were designated as members of the Malay race, and a number of Southern states committed to racial segregation followed suit. Eventually 9 states (Arizona, California, Georgia, Maryland, Nevada, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming) explicitly prohibited marriage between Caucasians and Asians.[11] In California, there was some confusion over whether pre-existing state laws prohibiting marriage between whites and "Mongolians" also prohibited marriage between whites and Filipinos. A 1933 Supreme Court of California case Roldan v. Los Angeles County concluded that such marriages were legal as Filipinos were members of the "Malay race" and were not enumerated in the list of races for whom marriage with whites was illegal. The California legislature soon after amended the laws to extend the prohibition against interracial marriage to whites and Filipinos.[12][13]
Many anti-miscegenation laws were gradually repealed after the Second World War, starting with California in 1948. In 1967, all remaining bans against interracial marriage were judged to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia and therefore repealed.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||