174 A TRANSLATION OF THE KEDDAH ANNALS. 
We now find our author mentioning Malays as forming a part 
of Raja Podisat’s subjects. Thus there must have been a f opula- 
tion consisting of three distinct races, the Girgassis, or aborigines, 
the Colonists, and the Malays The subject of the origin of the 
Malayan race is still beset with difficulties. We are made aware 
by the writings of Sir S. Raffles and others as well as by native 
authorities, that Menangkabau in Sumatra was a very early and 
chief seat of Malayan power. 
The etymology by the Malays of Menangkabau, as quoted by Sir 
S. Raffles ( T ,) of the name Malaya is rather fanciful. A chief named 
Sauria Geding had proceeded on an expedition to Sumatra, Two of 
his people (doubtless with followers) Patisi Batong and KaiTamong- 
ong fled to Menangkabau and in time established a new government. 
As they had been wood cutters, the nation was called Malaya from 
Mala , to bring or fetch, and aya wood. But neither of these 
words are as far I can learn now usei in such a sense by the Ma¬ 
lays, nor are they to be found so applied in Marsden’s Dictionary. 
This last reason however would not alone hold good, because the e 
is a large number of Malayan words not include! in it, and 
some may have become obsolete. But are we to suppose that the 
Malayan race was indigenous to the Peninsula ? Some writers 
have imagined that they came from the north, or from the 
vicinity of Tartary. That various tribes have been successively 
thrust southward from that quarter by the pressure perhaps of 
population, partly admits of proof. The Malayan features cer¬ 
tainly more resemble those of the Indo-Chinese generally con¬ 
sidered, than they do those of any oilier nation. But there is an 
impediment say some to this argument for similarity of origin, in 
the very marked distinction which exists betwixt the structure of 
the Malayan language as it now exists and the whole of the Indo- 
Chinese dialects. The first is polysyllabic, the latter are mono¬ 
syllabic in most instances, and in the rest having the monosyllabic 
structure even while admitting some polysyllables. Marsden 
noticed that one language once prevaded from Madagascar to 
the Archipelago. Does the language of the former now bear any 
affinity to the Malaya ? But this would tend rather to prove that 
the race travelled west They reached the Cape of Good Hope 
too. Sir S. Raffles remarked that the Javanese say that they 
navigated in former times to Madagascar. And it is stated in the 
Ceylonese Mahawanso that Ceylon was invaded by an army of 
Javako or Javanese, The Javanese visit to Madagascar took 
place Mr Crawfurd supposes or says before the Hindoos or Arabs 
leached Java—which would have thus been at least 75 A. D. 
There is a considerable diversity of colour amongst the Malays 
of the present day, owing to intermixture with foreign races. But 
on this point I suspect that the original type not only of the 
( T ) Memoirs p, 435, 
