Origins of the 'Malays' - Final Conclusion (Pt 2)

Meanwhile, the Dravidics ventured eastward again. They took the same path taken by their ancestors, married the local Mongoloids and settled in the mountainous regions of Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The Tamils called these ‘medium-brown’ people ‘Malai’, which translates to ‘hill people’. It is no surprise that when the Dravidics arrived at Lembah Bujang in Malaya in the second century, they would have insisted on calling the Malayan Austronesians ‘Malai’ as well.

You see, set against the backdrop of Lembah Bujang is a mountain called Gunung Jerai, and just behind it, the Titiwangsa mountain range. It is smaller but not unlike the Great Himalayas of India.

Back to the hill tribes of Indochine. More familiar names would be the Karen (pronounced Kayen), Karenni (pronounced Kayeni), Mon, Mon Khmer, Khmer Mon, Hmong, Huong, Chin, Lat, Shan, Tai, and so on so forth. Physical anthropology will immediately show that these are relatively identical people, a result of Dravidic and Mongoloid cross-breeding.

It is now time to recall the coffee and milk mix illustration by which I began this narrative. Whichever skew the present day tribe has, their skin colour and telling facial features would immediately indicate whether the individual was more Dravidic or Mongoloid.

Interestingly, the Mon Khmer, the Khmer Mon, the Mon and the Thais are identical people. Separated only by years of pledging allegiance to different royalties and distinct languages.

However, their writing gives it away. All Indochine forms of writing come from Sanskrit origins (but then again, so is Arabic). The Vietnamese however, since being occupied by China for over one thousand years, thus, were forced to use Chinese characters of the Imperial Mandarin court, until the French took over in the 19th Century.

Then, the Vietnamese adopted the modern day romanised form of writing. Phonetically, however, they still sound very similar to their Cambodian, Thai and Burmese cousins. There is a heavy overlap of grammatical words.

The two linguistic groups of Southeast Asia would be the Astro-Asiatic and the Austronesian. But that is simply because one group traveled via Taiwan, and thus had a more Mongoloid linguistic infusion, while the other group traveled over land via Indochine and retained a different set of linguistic traits.

Khmer legend speaks specifically that the Khmer people started when a local princes married a tall, dark, handsome ‘stranger’ from India. This legend has been confirmed with the benefit of DNA testing.

Scientists today believe that the Austronesians of today are a direct cross-breed of the Dravidic Indians and the Mongoloids. However, it is also important to note, that since the Austronesians moved into the Australo Melanesian territories, they had also inter-bred with these ‘ex-Africans’.

The people of Bali look distinctly different from the Javanese, with the new inclusion of African-like physical traits like larger lower-lips and so on. So too, would the Jakun, and the Temiah tribe in Malaysia with their African facial features and short frizzy hair.

Interestingly, the tribes of Sabah and Sarawak, continue to look remarkably similar to their Burmese cousins. Almost like identical twins, the Kayan, of the upper Baram River near Mulu, share the exact same physical features and identical tribal name with the Karen. Coincidence? Probably not.

You see, Borneo was known to have been visited by Cham trading vessels and warships ever since the Champa kingdom was established. Chinese ships were also known to have landed at the Niah caves to partake in the legendary bird’s nest trade nearly three thousand years ago.

This establishes the mobility possibilities of the Karen (Burma) and the Kayan (Sarawak). And only because of the numerous and continuous Indochine wars that the Kayen, retreated into the Vietnamese and Laos jungles.

You will still see some of them living around the Dalat highlands. But today, the majority would have moved well into Laos and Cambodian territory and the mountainous regions northwest of Hanoi because of multiple wars.

One peculiarity of the Cham people from the Champa kingdom, (from which most Kelantanese swear to originate from), is their distinctive looks: a mesh of the Cambodians (and people from the Chao Doc border town in Vietnam) and the central Vietnamese Cham.

The central Cham look much more Dravidic and Austronesian, whereas the Chau Doc and Cambodain Cham are much fairer. The clue lies in the fact that the Champa kingdom was on a continuous retreat, being viciously attacked by the northern Vietnamese.

The Cham retreated southward and westward into the hills, over a duration of 1,300 years. Those retreating into the hills had, over time, inter-bred with the hill tribes of Laos and Burma. Thus, with the interjection of Tibetan blood, they tend to be fairer, and look more Mongoloid than their darker skinned Austronesian cousins in central Vietnam.

These Cham-Tibetan people slowly moved southward, and ended up in Kampong Cham, Kampong Chnnang and Chau Doc respectively. It is no rocket science then, to say that the Cambodian and Chau Doc Cham have just as much affinity with the Dalai Lama as they do with the Majapahit royalty of Java. Why?

The Kingdom of Champa was also at war with Java. Not to mention that the Cham were also at war with the kingdom of Angkor. It was not a religious war, because all of them were either Hindu or Buddhist at some point or another, but more a territorial war, which ended up in slavery, rape, and death.

Cross-breeding thus continuously occurred over time, all throughout the thousand-odd years when all these three kingdoms waged war against each other. So, we inevitably observe extreme similarities between this long-drawn three-cornered war.

Po Klong Rame (a Cham ‘God-King’) was said to have had four wives. One was Javanese, the second was Vietnamese, and the other two were Hindu Cham and Cham Bani.

From My Son (pronounced ‘mee sern’) in Vietnam, to Borrobudor in Java, and Angkor in Cambodia, there was literally no peace during the one thousand years of continuos bloodshed. The end effect is, that people from these three kingdoms started to inter-breed on a massive scale. Thus, the relative homogeneity of the three said kingdoms.

The Campa kingdom was also having trade lines with Aceh, via Pattani. With Kelantan just slightly to the south, we can easily understand how some Cham would have settled in present day Kelantan, if nothing else, to escape the continuos wars in the Champa kingdom.

In short, it would be relatively safe to deduce that the Austronesians are a thorough mix of Mongoloid, Dravidic and African (Australo Melanesian) blood. This would be toward the end of the classical Angkorian period.

During the birth of Jesus Christ, came another influx of Arab and Persian blood. Initially, the Arabs arrived as pirates, and pillaged their way right up to Peking. They then retreated and settled in Celebes, only to inter-breed with a band of fleeing Mongols who were ostracised from their land. The end result are the Bugis people.

And from them, came the Suluks in southern Mindanao. Both the Bugis and the Suluks were known to be ruthless pirates until recent times. Fortunately, the later waves of Arab arrivals were much less violent as they were mostly traders who came in peace.

The Bugis were such fearsome seamen, that Parameswara did not hesitate to use them as the core navy of his ‘Royal Sampan Armada’.

MICHAEL CHICK is pursuing his Masters in history at the National University of Singapore.