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IN THE BEGINNING
Its position and other geographical circumstances
made the country a natural meeting place for traders
from the East and the West. The lush tropical
forest and the abundance of life existing in it
and in the surrounding water made Malaysia an
easy place for human communities. At the same
time the thick jungle and mountainous terrain
of the interior inhibited communication, while
the absence of broad, flood proned river valleys
and deltas precluded the development of elaborate
systems of water control such as those upon which
the civilisations of Java and the Southeast Asian
mainland came to be based.
In contrast, Malaysia's development has come
from the sea. Its inhabitants quickly acquired
a skill and reputation as sailors and navigators.
Subsequent trading contacts have been responsible
for the waves of outside influences which have
modified their way of life.
The earliest of the present-day inhabitants of
Malaysia are the Orang Asli of the Peninsula and
people such as the Penan of Sarawak and the Rungus
of Sabah, many of whom still pursue a largely
nomadic way of life. Their presence in the country
probably dates back to over 5,000 years. These
early settlers were probably the pioneers of the
movement of people southwards from China and Tibet
through Mainland Southest Asia and the Malay Peninsula
to the Indonesian Archipelago and beyond. The
next arrivals to the country, the Malays, represented
the second and third wave of this movement.
The first Malay settlers (the Proto-Malays) had
probably established themselves here by 1000 BC.
These movements were followed by other waves of
immigrants (the Deutero-Malays) over the next
few centuries, who came equipped with more advanced
farming techniques and new knowledge of metals.
The Malay peoples also spread out into the islands
of the archipelago, settling down into small self-contained
communities which gave rise to the complex and
variegated ethnic pattern of Malaysia and Indonesia
today. The Malays of Peninsula had their closest
affinities with the Malay of Sumatra, and for
centuries the Straits of Melaka did not form a
boundary between two nations but served as a corridor
linking different parts of the same family.
Until recent times, the Malays and Malay-related
inhabitants of the area remained politically fragmented,
but they shared a common culture. Together with
the Orang Asli they make up the indigenous peoples
of Malaysia today, and are classified as 'sons
of the soil' or Bumiputera. Despite the considerable
differences between the various Bumiputera groups,
they all share certain characteristics which are
the hallmarks of the indigenous culture of Southeast
Asia. These characteristics are rooted in an agrarian-maritime
economy economy and reflected in a village society
where leadership was largely through consensus
and those attitudes were informed by a belief
in an all-pervasive spiritual world. Although
the culture of the Malays in particular came to
be overlaid by Hinduism and then pervaded by Islam,
elements of this basic culture persist.
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