The Nusantara: It is used here to refer to a multifaceted process that began in Southern Asia which contained four sub-empires: Melayu, Tanjungnegara, Hujung Medini and Jawa (Nagarakertagama 14 CE, Pararaton 14 CE and Sejarah Melayu 17 CE). However, Reid (2001) denied the existence of the Malays in the Nusantara before CE and believed that the final migration of the Malay race only originated in the 20th century as he remarked, “The racializing effect of these transformations was manifested in the changes in category Melayu (Malay) that took place in the first few decades of the twentieth century. The people who later came to be classified and to classify themselves as members of Bangsa Melayu (Malay race nation) at the end of this period were the descendants of linguistically and culturally diverse peoples from different parts of insular and peninsular South East Asia, and sometimes even India, Arabia and China who had come to this region centuries ago, often intermarrying with local Malay speaking people.”
Trading activity is evidence to refute the statement above. Much of the evidence prove that before 300 BCE, Malay sailors began to ride the monsoons, the seasonal winds that blow through the continent of Asia in the colder months and onto its shores in the warmer months (Shaffer, 1994). Structurally, the Malay ships used balanced lug sails, which were square in shape and mounted so that they could pivot. This made it possible for sailors to tack against the wind, that is, to sail into the wind by going diagonally against it, first one way and then the other. Due to the way the sails were mounted, they appeared somewhat triangular in shape, and thus the Malays’ balanced lug sail may well be the prototype of the triangular lateen (latin-rig), which can also be used to tack against the wind. The latter was invented by both the Polynesians with the Malays to the East and the Arabs to the West, both of whom had ample opportunities to see the Malay ships in action (Hourani, 1951). They navigated by the wind and the stars, by cloud formations, the colour of the water, and the swell and wave patterns on the ocean’s surface. They could discern the presence of an island some thirty miles from its shores by noting the behaviour of birds, the animal and plant life in the water, and the swell and wave patterns (Hourani, 1951). Given their manner of sailing, their most likely route to Africa and the Red Sea would have been by way of island clusters like the Maldives, the Chagos, the Seychelles and the Comoros (Tylor, 1976). In addition to that, in 3rd century BCE, Chinese records mention the word “Kunlun” sailors (Chinese term for Malay seamen). Some pieces of evidence also suggest that Malay sailors who settled in the Red Sea area then were called Qumr (Arabic term for Malay seamen) (Tylor, 1976). They were sailing north to the southern coasts of China. They may also have been sailing east to India, through the two straits now called Malacca and Sunda. Their presence in East African waters is testified by the people of Madagascar, who still speak a Malayo-Polynesian language.
Malay sailors delivered cinnamon from South China Sea ports to East Africa and the Red Sea (Miller, 1969). Between 2300 BCE and 1760 BCE, cotton was first domesticated in the Indus River valley (Watson, 1983) and by the 2000 BCE, the Indians had begun to develop sophisticated dyeing techniques (Gittinger, 1982). It has been proven that during these early millennia, Indus River valley merchants were known to have lived in Mesopotamia, where they sold cotton textiles (Chandra, 1977). All these are before the existence of the Srivijaya Kingdom in the 7th Century Era of AD. After the fall of the Srivijaya Kingdom in the 13th Century Era of AD, the Malay sailors were still doing sailing and trading as their prime activities. Around 400 CE, Malay sailors could be found in two-thirds of the way around the world, from Easter Island to East Africa. They rode the monsoons without a compass, out of sight of land and often at latitudes below the Equator where the North Pole star cannot be seen.
Furthermore, it appears that the pepper trade developed after the cinnamon trade. The ships left from Sri Lanka and sailed before the monsoon, far from any coasts, through either the Strait of Malacca or the Strait of Sunda into the Java Sea. After waiting in the Java Sea port for the winds to shift, they rode the monsoon to southern China (Hall, 1985). Another important trading was Champa rice, since it came to China from Champa, a Malay kingdom located on what is now the south-eastern coast of Vietnam. Champa rice is a drought-resistant, early ripening variety that made it possible to extend cultivation up well-watered hillsides, thereby doubling the area of rice cultivation in China (Ping-ti,1956). According to Ping-ti (1956), the 11th century Buddhist monk Shu Wenying related an account explaining how Champa rice had arrived in China. According to him, Emperor Cheng-tsung (Zhengzong, 998-1022), being deeply concerned with agriculture, came to know that Champa rice was drought-resistant and that the green lentils of India were famous for their heavy yield and large seeds.
These demonstrate that the existence of Malay people then was real and tangible for human civilization, especially in Southeast Asia. The transmission activities either in sailing or trading occurred before the Century Era. In addition, the hieroglyphs writing of Egypt contains decipherable symbols of Asiatic people involved in war between the Egyptian kingdom and seamen.
REFERENCES
Chandra, M. (1977). Trade and trade routes of ancient India, New Delhi: Abhinav Publications.
Gittinger, M. (1982). Master dyers to the world: Technique and trade in early Indian dyed cotton textiles, Washington, D.C.: Textile Museum.
Hall, K. (1985). Maritime trade and state formation in Southeast Asia, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Hourani, G. (1951). Arab seafaring in the Indian Ocean in ancient and medieval times, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Miller, J. I. (1969). The spice trade of the Roman Empire, 29 B.C. to A.D. 649, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ping-ti, H. (1956). Early-Ripening Rice in Chinese History, Economic History Review 9.
Reid, A. (2001). Understanding Melayu (Malay) as a Source of Diverse Modern Identities. In Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 32, No. 3: 235–254.
Shaffer, L. (1994). Southernization, Journal of World History, Vol. 5, No 1.
Taylor, K. (1976) “Madagascar in the Ancient Malayo-Polynesian Myths”, in Explorations in early Southeast Asian history: The origins of Southeast Asian statecraft, ed. Kenneth Hall and John Whitmore, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies.
Watson, A. (1983). Agricultural innovation in the early Islamic world: The diffusion of crops and farming techniques, 700–1100, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
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