NOTES ON MALAY HISTORY. 151 



that might be. But there exists no river of that name : the 

 name is not a river-name at all but the name of a small 

 stretch of coast-line, and though there is an important cape 

 there it has no river alongside of it. One popular etymology 

 is reported by Mr. D. F. A. Hervey in No. 13 of this Journal, 

 p. 241. But it is as impossible as most popular etymologies 

 usually are and is moreover mixed up with an equally improb- 

 able explanation of the name of the state of Rembau. It is 

 really not worth repeating here, for the 14th century Javanese 

 name explains everything. The modern name Sungai Ujong is 

 evidently a corruption (through the 17th century San-yang 

 Hujong) of the old Sang Hyang Hujung, which means much 

 the same as our " Holyhead. " 



The reference is to the promontory usually called Cape 

 Rachado, from the Portuguese name, which the Malays now- 

 adays style Tanjong Tuan. It is a celebrated kraniat or 

 shrine and has of course its local legend. Nowadays 

 I fancy it is supposed to be the tomb of some orthodox 

 Muharamadan saint or worthy. But in fact it is an old 

 animistic holy place going back to very ancient times and 

 owing its origin to a simple natural phenomenon. The reason 

 for the special sanctification of the spot is incidentally given by 

 Begbie ' (" The Malayan Peninsula," p. 122) and Newbold' (op. 

 cit., vol. ii, p. 38). It is merely that at this cape two strong 

 and opposing currents meet and cause a dangerous eddy or race 

 in which boats are liable to be upset. Hence it has naturally 

 come about that, to use Newbold s phrase, "the Dattu Tanjong 

 Tuan, the elder of Cape Rachado, is a saint of no ordinary 

 celebrity among the sea-faring class of natives." 



That exhausts the names connected with the Peninsula 

 contained in the passage I have extracted from the Nagarakrela- 

 gama. I gather from Professor Kern's abstract that the last 

 two words imply that besides the places specified there were 

 several groups of islands which the poet has not thought it 



(1) The legend has been put on record by Mr. I). F. A. Hervey 

 in "Man" (1904), pp. 26 b' ; but at the moment of writing I am un- 

 able to refer to it for the purpose of seeing whether it throws any 

 additional light on the origin of the name Sungai Ujong. 



R. A. Soc, No. 53. 1909. 



