Malay

2008-04-20T21:11:00.001-07:00

Malay race

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This article is about the Malay race. For the Malay
ethnic group, see

Malays (ethnic group). For other uses, see

Malay.

The concept of a Malay race (Malay:
Bangsa Melayu) was proposed by the German
scientist

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840).^[1]
Since Blumenbach, many anthropologists have rejected his
theory of five races, citing the enormous

complexity of classifying races. However, the term
Malay is still often used in this context, and it
is the basis for Malay identity within the

Malaysian nation.

[hide]

1
Origins

2
Colonial influences

3
Malaysian context

4
Philippine context

5
United States context

6
See also

7
References

[edit]
Origins

In his 1775 doctoral

dissertation titled De generis humani varietate
nativa (On the Natural Varieties of Mankind),
Blumenbach outlined four main human races by skin color,
namely

Caucasian (white),

Ethiopian (black),

Native American (red), and

Mongolian (yellow).

By 1795, Blumenbach added another race called 'Malay'
which he considered to be a subcategory of both the
Ethiopian and Mongoloid races. The Malay race were those
of a "brown color, from olive and a clear mahogany to
the darkest clove or chestnut brown." Blumenbach
expanded the term "Malay" to include the inhabitants of
the

Marianas, the

Philippines, the

Malukus,

Sundas, as well as

Pacific Islands such as

Tahitians. He considered a Tahitian skull he had
received to be the missing link; showing the transition
between the "primary" race, the Caucasians, and the
"degenerate" race, the Negroids.

Blumenbach writes:

Malay variety. Tawny-coloured; hair black, soft,
curly, thick and plentiful; head moderately
narrowed; forehead slightly swelling; nose full,
rather wide, as it were diffuse, end thick; mouth
large. upper jaw somewhat prominent with the parts
of the face when seen in profile, sufficiently
prominent and distinct from each other. This last
variety includes the islanders of the Pacific Ocean,
together with the inhabitants of the Marianne, the
Philippine, the Molucca and the Sunda Islands, and
of the Malayan peninsula. I wish to call it the
Malay, because the majority of the men of this
variety, especially those who inhabit the Indian
islands close to the Malacca peninsula, as well as
the Sandwich, the Society, and the Friendly
Islanders, and also the Malambi of Madagascar down
to the inhabitants of Easter Island, use the Malay
idiom.^[2]

[edit]
Colonial influences

The view of Malays held by

Thomas Stamford Raffles had a significant influence
on English-speakers, lasting to the present day. He is
probably the most important voice who promoted the idea
of a ‘Malay’ race or nation, not limited to the

Malay ethnic group, but embracing the peoples of a
large but unspecified part of the South East Asian
archipelago. Raffles formed a vision of Malays as a
language-based 'nation', in line with the views of the
English Romantic movement at the time, and in 1809 sent
a literary essay on the topic to the Asiatic Society.
After he mounted an expedition to the former

Minangkabau seat of royalty in

Pagaruyung, he declared that it was the ‘the source
of that power, the origin of that nation, so extensively
scattered over the Eastern Archipelago’. In his later
writings he moved the Malays from a nation to a race.^[3]

[edit]
Malaysian context

Main articles:

Malaysian Malay and

Article 160 of the Constitution of Malaysia

In Malaysia, the early colonial censuses listed
separate

ethnic groups, such as "Malays, Boyanese, Achinese,
Javanese, Bugis, Manilamen and Siamese". The 1891 census
merged these ethnic groups into the three racial
categories used in modern Malaysia – Chinese, ‘Tamils
and other natives of India’, and ‘Malays and other
Natives of the Archipelago’. This was based upon the
European view at the time that race was a biologically
based scientific category. For the 1901 census, the
government advised the word "race" should replace
"nationality" wherever it occurs.^[3]

After a period of generations being classified in
these groups, individual identity formed around the
concept of bangsa Melayu (Malay race). For
younger generations of people, they saw it as providing
a unity and solidarity against the colonial powers, and
non-Malay immigrants. The Malaysian nation was later
formed with the bangsa Melayu having the central
and defining position within the country.^[3]

[edit]
Philippine context

In the

Philippines, many

Filipinos consider the term "Malay" to refer to the
indigenous population of the country as well as the
population of neighboring countries like Indonesia and
Malaysia. This misconception is due in part to American
anthropologists

H. Otley Beyer who proposed that the Filipinos were
actually Malays who migrated from Malaysia and
Indonesia. This idea was in turn propagated by Filipino
historians and is still taught in schools. However, the
prevalent consensus among contemporary anthropologists,
archaeologists, and linguists actually proposes the
reverse; namely that the

Austronesian people of Malaysia and Indonesia
originally migrated south from the Philippines during
the prehistoric period.

[edit]
United States context

In the

United States, the racial classifcation "Malay race"
was introduced in the early twentieth century into the

anti-miscegenation laws of a number of western US
states. Anti-miscegenation laws were

state laws that prohibited marriage between whites
and

African-Americans and in some states also other

non-whites. After an influx of Filipino immigrants,
these existing laws were amended in a number of western
states to prohibit marriage between whites and
Filipinos, who were designated as members of the Malay
race, and a number of Southern states committed to

racial segregation followed suit. Eventually 9
states (Arizona, California, Georgia, Maryland, Nevada,
South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming) explicitly
prohibited marriage between whites and Filipinos.^[4]

Many anti-miscegenation laws were gradually repealed
after the Second World War, starting with California in
1948. In 1967, all remaining bans against interracial
marriage were judged to be

unconstitutional by the

United States Supreme Court in

Loving v. Virginia and therefore repealed.

Source From Wikipedia.

Malay

Malay

Malay race

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Origins

[edit] Colonial influences

[edit] Malaysian context

[edit] Philippine context

[edit] United States context

[edit]
Origins

[edit]
Colonial influences

[edit]
Malaysian context

[edit]
Philippine context

[edit]
United States context