Mr. Wallace believes that the Malay and .the Papuan races have no traceable affinity to each other ; that the Asiatic races include the Malays, and all have a coniinenial origin ; while the people of the Celebes and Pacific races in the islands on its east are derived from lands which now exist or have recently existed in the Pacific Ocean. He allots the EasternArchipelago amongst two races, and shows their islands thus :— several wild tribes in the interior speak the Malay language, and have the same physical form as the Malays, although not • calling themselves by this name, and their language contains many words that are npt Malaya Nearly the whole of the' coast of Borneo is occupied by, Malays, who are supposed to • have first emigrated to that island about the date of the reign . of , the. Saxon king. Athelstan. , The annals of several ancient Malay states point to Palembang as the original land of the Malays. They afford various indications of a close connec tion between it and Java, and mention Java invasions and settlements long anterior to the modern conquest of Palembang by Majaphit, From their concurrent tenor, it appears that the royal dynasties of Menangkabau, Malacca, and other states, traced their descent from Palembang.. It' may be inferred that it was in Palembang that the Malay race and language received their earliest and deepest impressions from Hindu and Java influences, and that the Indian monarchical form of government was first engrafted on the native Sumatran institutions, which are of a mixed patriarchal and oligarchical form.
Mr. Crawfurd has regarded the Malays as sisting of four great tribes and a few minor semi civilised tribes ; and a number of others who may be termed savages. The four great tribes are : The true Malay races, the Malay proper, who inhabit the Malay Peninsula,, and almost all the coast regions of Sumatra and Borneo. They all speak the Malay language, or dialects of it ; they use the Arabic characters in writing, and they are all Muhammadans in religion.
, The Javanese, who inhabit Java, part of Sumatra, Madura, Bali, and part of Lombok. They speak, the Javanese and Kawi languages, which they write in a' native character. They are of the • Muhammadan religion in Java, but Bali and' Lombok is Brahmanical.
The Bugis are the inhabitants of the greater part of Celebes, and, there seems to be an allied people in Sumbawa. They speak the Bugis and Macassar languages with dialects, and write these in two different native characters. They are all Muhammadans. . b The Tagala of the Philippine Islands are the fourth great Malay race ; many of them profess Christianity ; their native language is Tagala, but they speak Spanish.
Moluccan Malays, who inhabit chiefly Ternate, Tidore, Batchian, and Amboyna, may be a fifth division. ihey are Muhammadans, but they speak a variety of curious languages, which seem compounded of Bugis and Javanese, with the languages of the savage tribes of the Moluccas.
The Savage Malays are the Battak and other wild tribes of Sumatra, the Dyak of Borneo, the 'Jakini of the Malay Peninsula,' the aborigines of Northern Celebes, of the Sulu Island, and of part of Bourn. •
Peschel and Friedrich Muller have proposed other classifications, but neither of have resided 'among the races under notice.
The Malay tongue • is now, was, when Europeans first visited the Archipelago, the common. language of intercourse between the native nations among, themselves,' and 'between these and foreigners. It is in the, .Archipelago' what French is in Western. Europe, Italian, in.
The cradle of the Malay race was •the plains of Menangkabau, in the interior of Sumatra, from whence they emigrated and pushed their con quests, or formed settlements to their present extensive limits. They -formed colonies in the Malay Peninsula and in' Borneo, the former probably, and the latter certainly; occupied before their arrival by rude tribes of the same race of men, who could offer no effectual resistance. In the remoter islands, or in occupied by powerful and' civilised nations, the Malays appear only as settlers and not colonists, as in Java and the principal islands of the Philippine Archipelago. .4•The ;Malay Peninsula, balled Tannah Malaya, or Land' of the Malays, 'with the exception of a few diminutive Negro mountaineers, is. occupied by Malays 'or by mei' of "the . same race, for . the Eastern, Arabia' in Western Asia, and Hindi in Ilindustan. All nations who hold intercourse of business with strangers must understand it and all strangers must acquire it. This is the case in Sumatra, where other languages are also vernacular, in Java, in Celebes, in the Moluccas, in Tiinur, and in the Philippine group. Mr. Crawfurd attributes the spread of this 'language to tho enterprising or roving character of the people, whose native tongue it is, as also its own softness of sound and simplicity of structure and consequent facility of acquirement.
The Malay family approximates closely to the ruder or more purely Mongolian type of Ultra India, and the identity in person and character is accompanied by a close agreement in habits, customs, institutions, and arts, so as to place beyond .doubt that the lank-haired populations of the islands have been received from the Gan geticand Ultra-Indian races. The influx of this population closed the long era of Papuan pre dominance, and gave rise to the new or modified forms of language which now prevail. The rude maritime tribes who frequent the coasts and islands of the Malay Peninsula, and amongst whom several distinct tribes arc distinguishable by their physical characters, speak a language mainly Malay, but with differences in pronun ciation: The Malay race, as a whole, very closely resembles, the East Asian populations from Siam to Manchuria. The Malays are frequently quite &amens in appearance, but the normal and least mixed Malays are more Binua and also more Siamese than the Western Burmans.