MALAY. The Malay race are found in the Malay Peninsula, and in the western islands of the Archipelago. In the Maldives the people speak the Malay language, and the Ilova of Madagascar arc said to bear in their features some resemblance to the Malaya.
Pesehel says (p. 355) that when Roderigues, Mauritius, and Bourbon were discovered by Europeans and still unpeopled, Madagascar was peopled by Malays; and Crawfurd says (Grammar and Dictionary, i. p. 148) very clear tracts of a Malayan tongue are found in the languages of the island of Madagascar, an island some 3000 miles distant from the nearest part of the Malayan Archipelago, and only 240 miles from the eastern shore of Africa. l'esehel adds that the similarity of words of the Malagasy or Madagascar language with Malay words had been observed by Sir Joseph Banks and by Ilervas the philologist ; and Wilhelm von Humbolt's researches into the Kawi language have shown that Madagascar was peopled by Malays.
In 1847, Mr. Spencer St. John estimated the population of the Malay Peninsula and Eastern Archipelago at 18,436,622, as under :— Malay Peninsula, 562,482 Sumbawa, . . 200,000 Sumatra and adjacent Florio, 278,000 islands, . . 4,9134,770 Solor, Adenatti, Java and Lombatti, . . 157,000 islands, . . 10,060,580 Sumba, . . . 425,000 Bali, 900 000 Timor, . . . 630,000 Lombok, . . . 250,000 The latest estimate by Behrn and Wagner gives the population at 63,969,000:— Independent Malacca, . . . 300,000 Straits Settlements, . . . . 390,000 Sunda Islands and Moluccas, . 28,867,000 Philippines, . . . . 6,300,000 Netherland India and N. Guinea and Papuan Islands, . . . 27,962,000 British North Borneo, . . . 150,000 In that region are two distinct races. There are men of brown or copper complexion, and lank hair, who are the most advanced inhabitants of the Archipelago. There is another race who, from their resemblance to Africans, have been called Negroes and Negritos. The Malays apply to those of the latter race best known to them, the people of New Guinea, the epithet of I'uwa-puwa or Pa-puwa, which is an adjective meaning frizzly or crisping, and is equally applied by them to any object partaking of this quality. The term
Negro, from the Latin Niger, is also employed to designate the black-skinned races, of whom mention is now made. But from the Andaman Islands eastward to the races in the Pacific, of tho people generally classed as Negroes there are at least 12 varieties, differing from each other in physical appearance, some being pigmies under five feet, and others large and powerful men of near six feet. Keeping this marked difference in remembrance, to the Malay type, and to the Papuan type respectively, all the people of the various islands can be grouped. The Asiatic races include the Indo-Malay, and all have a continental origin ; while the Pacific races, hi: eluding, all. to the east - the Malay (except perhaps.a some, in . the 'Northern Pacific), are derived not from any:existing continent, but from lands that now exist or have recently existed in the Pacific Ocean.. On drawing a line to separate the•Malay'and Papuan races, it almost coincides with that which divides the zoological regions, but juts somewhat eastward of it, as the maritime enterprise and higher civilisation of the Malays have enabled them to overrun from the west a portion . of the • adjacent region on the east, to supplant the original inhabitants, and to spread much of their language, their domestic animals, and their customs far over the Pacific into islands where they have but slightly or not at all modified the physical or moral characteristics of the people.
Peschel classes the. Malay people •amongst the Mongoloid laces. He believes with Moritz Wagner that the shape of the 'skull, the form and colour eif the face, as well as the whole physical con stitution of the •Malay race, is so nearly allied to the Mongolian that in similar apparel the two races are hardly distinguishable.