32 
formed part of the mainland. The national traditions of a 
dispersion from Menangkibau or Palembang, in South 
Sumatra^ must, accordingly, be understood to refer to later 
movements, and more especially to the diffusion of the 
civilised Malay peoples, who first acquired a really natiorial 
development in Sumatra in comparatively recent times. 
Valent'S'N long ago pointed out that the name is specially 
applied tn Sumatra to the great Sungei-pagu-Maliyu tribe, 
of the Sungei-p^Agu auriferous district^ and it seems, on the 
whole, most probable that it was originally the name of some 
local tribe there, which rose to pre-eminence. 
From this point, they spread to the Peninsula, to Borneo, 
Sulu, and other parts of Malaya, apparently after their con- 
version to Islam, although there is reason to believe that 
other waves of migration must have reached Further India, 
and especially Camboja, if not from the same region, at all 
events from Java, at. much eariler dates. The impulse to 
these eariier movements must be attributed to the introduction 
of Indian culture through the Hindu and Buddhist missionaries, 
perhaps two or three centuries before the Christian era. 
During still more remote prehistoric times, various sections of. 
the Malay and Indonesian stocks were diffused westwards to 
Madagascar, where the Hovas, of undoubted Malay descent, 
still hold the political supremacy ; and eastwards to the 
Philippines, Formosa, and the interior of Hainan. This 
astonishing expansion of the Malayan people throughout the 
Oceanic area is sufficiently attested by ihe diffusion of a 
common Malayo-Polynesian speech from Madagascar to 
Eastern Island, and from Hawaii to New Zealand. 
These are the views now generally accepted. They were 
