Chapter MALADOO to MALDIVES of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

MALADOO to MALDIVES

MALADOO, s. Chicken maladoo is an article in the Anglo-Indian menu. It looks like a corruption from the French cuisine, but of what? [Maladoo or Manadoo, a lady informs me, is cold meat, such as chicken or mutton, cut into slices, or pounded up and re-cooked in batter. The Port. malhado, ‘beaten-up,’ has been suggested as a possible origin for the word.]

MALAY, n.p. This is in the Malay language an adjective, Malayu; thus orang Malayu, ‘a Malay’; tana [tanah] Malayu, ‘the Malay country’; bahasa [bhasa] Malayu, ‘the Malay language.’

In Javanese the word malayu signifies ‘to run away,’ and the proper name has traditionally been derived from this, in reference to the alleged foundation of Malacca by Javanese fugitives; but we can hardly attach importance to this. It may be worthy at least of consideration whether the name was not of foreign, i.e. of S. Indian origin, and connected with the Malaya of the Peninsula (see under MALABAR). [Mr. Skeat writes: “The tradition given me by Javanese in the Malay States was that the name was applied to Javanese refugees, who peopled the S. of Sumatra. Whatever be the original meaning of the word, it is probable that it started its life-history as a river-name in the S. of Sumatra, and thence became applied to the district through which the river ran, and so to the people who lived there; after which it spread with the Malay dialect until it included not only many allied, but also many foreign, tribes; all Malay-speaking tribes being eventually called Malays without regard to racial origin. A most important passage in this connection is to be found in Leyden’s Tr. of the ‘Malay Annals’ (1821), p. 20, in which direct reference to such a river is made: ‘There is a country in the land of Andalás named Paralembang, which is at present denominated Palembang, the raja of which was denominated Damang Lebar Dawn (chieftain Broad-leaf), who derived his origin from Raja Sulan (Chulan?), whose great-grandson he was. The name of its river Muartatang, into which falls another river named Sungey Malayu, near the source of which is a mountain named the mountain Sagantang Maha Miru.’ Here Palembang is the name of a well-known Sumatran State, often described as the original home of the Malay race. In standard Malay ‘Damang Lebar Dawn’ would be ‘Demang Lebar Daun.’ Raja Chulan is probably some mythical Indian king, the story being evidently derived from Indian traditions. ‘Muartatang’ may be a mistake for Muar Tenang, which is a place one heard of in the Peninsula, though I do not know for certain where it is. ‘Sungey Malayu’ simply means ‘River Malayu.’ ‘Sagantang Maha Miru’ is, I think, a mistake for Sa-guntang Maha Miru, which is the name used in-the Peninsula for the sacred central mountain of the world on which the episode related in the Annals occurred” (see Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 2.]

It is a remarkable circumstance, which has been noted by Crawfurd, that a name which appears on Ptolemy’s Tables as on the coast of the Golden Chersonese, and which must be located somewhere about Maulmain, is [Greek Text] Maleou Kwlon, words which in Javanese (Malayu-Kulon) would signify “Malays of the West.” After this the next (possible) occurrence of the name in literature is in the Geography of Edrisi, who describes Malai as a great island in the eastern seas, or rather as occupying the position of the Lemuria of Mr. Sclater, for (in partial accommodation to the Ptolemaic theory of the Indian Sea) it stretched eastward nearly from the coast of Zinj, i.e. of Eastern Africa, to the vicinity of China. Thus it must be uncertain without further accounts whether it is an adumbration of the great Malay islands (as is on the whole probable) or of the Island of the Malagashes (Madagascar), if it is either. We then come to Marco Polo, and after him there is, we believe, no mention of the Malay name till the Portuguese entered the seas of the Archipelago.

[A.D. 690.—Mr. Skeat notes: “I Tsing speaks of the ‘Molo-yu country,’ i.e. the district W. or N.W. of Palembang in Sumatra.”]

c. 1150.—“The Isle of Malai is very great. … The people devote themselves to very profitable trade; aud there are found here elephants, rhinoceroses, and various aromatics and spices, such as clove, cinnamon, nard … and nutmeg. In the mountains are mines of gold, of excellent quality … the people also have windmills.”—Edrisi, by Jaubert, i. 945.

c. 1273.—A Chinese notice records under this year that tribute was sent from Siam to the Emperor. “The Siamese had long been at war with the Maliyi, or Maliurh, but both nations laid aside their feud and submitted to China.”—Notice by Sir T. Wade, in Bowring’s Siam, i. 72.

c. 1292.—“You come to an Island which forms a kingdom, and is called Malaiur. The people have a king of their own, and a peculiar language. The city is a fine and noble one, and there is a great trade carried on there. All kínds of spicery are to be found there.”—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 8.

c. 1539.—“… as soon as he had delivered to him the letter, it was translated into the Portugal out of the Malayan tongue wherein it was written.”—Pinto, E.T. p. 15.

1548.—“… having made a breach in the wall twelve fathom wide, he assaulted it with 10,000 strangers, Turks, Abyssins,