² Department of Statistics, Kuala Lumpur, 1957 Population Census of the Federation of Malaya, Report No. 14, Table 1.3, p. 3.Google Scholar

³ Ibid. based upon Table 2, pp. 53–5.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Silcock, T. H., ‘Approximate Racial Division of National Income’, in Silcock, T. H. and Fisk, E. K. (eds.), The Political Economy of Independent Malaya (Australian National University, Canberra, 1963), p. 279. (Note: $1 Malayan is equivalent to 2s. 4d. sterling).Google Scholar

⁶ E. K. Fisk, ibid. chapters 7 and 8.

⁷ Aziz, Ungku A., ‘Poverty and Rural Development in Malaysia’, Kajian Ekonomi Malaysia, I, 1 (1964), pp. 70–105.Google Scholar

⁸ Aziz, Ungku A, ‘A Critique of Certain Views Held Regarding the Sociological Conditions for Economic Development’, Ekonomi, 2, 1 (1961), p. 7.Google Scholar

⁹ Radical, that is, in Malay terms.

¹⁰ That is, in preparing the soil, planting and harvesting.

¹¹ Buat kerja chara dulu.

¹² This may allow the Malays to wait for a more propitious day according to the spirits.

¹³ Since it is the women who do the transplanting it is their views on this matter that carry most weight.

¹⁴ E.g., planting rice in seed beds on up-country land is an occasion for a picnic.

¹⁵ Relatives, moneylenders, shopkeepers and merchants are the main sources of loans, and padi kuncha (or padi ratus), jual janji, pajak, etc. are the main methods of obtaining them.

¹⁶ This is usually translated as ‘co-operation’, but for the Malays it implies a voluntary and neighbourly association without financial gain.

¹⁷ Two states in north-eastern Malaya where fishing is still primarily a Malay concern.

¹⁸ Firth, Raymond, Malay Fishermen—Their Peasant Economy (London, 1946), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Swift, M. G., ‘The Accumulation of Capital in a Peasant Economy’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 5 (1957).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also ‘Capital, Saving and Credit in a Malay Peasant Economy,’ in Firth, Raymond and Yamey, B. S. (eds.): Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies (London, 1963).Google Scholar

²⁰ Hon-Chan, Chai, The Development of British Malaya 1896–1909 (Oxford University Press, 1964), chapter 7Google Scholar. Also, ‘Hikayat Abdullah’, translated by Hill, M. A. in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Malayan Branch, 28, 3 (1955), pp. 269–74.Google Scholar

²¹ Wilkinson, R. J., ‘Malay Customs and Beliefs’, reprinted in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Malayan Branch, 30, 4 (1957), p. 74.Google Scholar

²² E.g. the various practices connected with the planting, storing and cultivating of rice; the wedding ceremonies; the traditions of fishermen; the ceremonies and traditions at births and circumcisions; village medicine, etc. See R. J. Wilkinson, ibid. and also Skeat, W. W., Malay Magic (London, 1900).Google Scholar

²³ Johns, A. H., ‘Sufism in Indonesia’, Journal of South-east Asian History, 2, 2 (1961), p. 15.Google Scholar

²⁴ Hagen, E. E., On a Theory of Social Change—How Economic Growth Begins (Dorsey Press, Homewood, Ill., 1962), chapters 4–8 inclusive. (This work is of a general nature and does not refer specifically to the Malays.)Google Scholar

²⁵ I.e. God or the spirits.

²⁶ Hagen, E. E., op. cit. p. 65.Google Scholar

²⁷ See, for example, Kesah Pelayaran Abdullah, edited by Ahmad, Kassim (Oxford University Press, 1960).Google Scholar Also Swettenham, Frank, Annual Report for Perak, 1890.Google Scholar However, another disincentive to accumulation may have been, and may still be, the extended family system. Under this, each member has certain obligations to the others one of which is to help relatives financially if wealth has been accumulated.

²⁸ Swift, M. G., Malay Peasant Society in Jelebu, London School of Economics, Monographs on Social Anthropology, 29 (London 1965), p. 31.Google Scholar

²⁹ However, it does seem that another reason for liking government employment is the increase in status which it provides.

³⁰ Swift, M. G., op. cit. p. 31.Google Scholar But this might also be a reflection of the small market and the lack of a more advanced technology.

³¹ Hagen, E. E., op. cit. pp. 72–3.Google Scholar

³² Even the phrase meaning ‘to be converted into Islam’ is, in Malay, masok Melayu, which literally translated, means ‘to enter the Malays’.

³³ Swift, M. G., op. cit. pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

³⁴ van der Kroef, J. M., ‘Racial Messiahs’, in Race: Individual and Collective Behaviour, edited by Thompson, E. T. and Hughes, E. C. (Free Press, Illinois, 1958), pp. 357–64.Google Scholar

³⁵ Such as, for example, the Darul Islam Movement in Indonesia. Perhaps also these kinds of beliefs underpin a political party like the Pan-Malayan Islamic Party. It may also be mentioned that Sir Gerald Templer is accorded what amounts almost to veneration by many of the rural Malays. To them, he was the inspiration behind the more positive attempts to rid Malaya of the Communists in the 1950s, and it was he, in their view, who led them from war and insurrection into peace.

³⁶ However, the Malays to whom I spoke were understandably very vague about the whole concept.

³⁷ Swift, M. G., op. cit. p. 30.Google Scholar

³⁸ Djamour, Judith, Malay Kinship and Marriage in Singapore, London School of Economics, Monographs on Social Anthropology, 21 (1959), p. 35.Google Scholar

³⁹ Swift, M. G., op. cit. p. 30.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Djamour, Judith, op. cit. p. 34.Google Scholar

⁴¹ The place of discussion and consensus in the socio-political system of Indonesia has received official backing and support; in that country, musjawarah (discussion) and mufakat (consensus) have been incorporated in the principles of government. See Fisher, C. A., South-east Asia (London, 2nd edn., 1965), p. 378n.Google Scholar, and also Krisher, B., ‘Sukarno—Headman to a Nation’, Newsweek, 15 02 1965, p. 30.Google Scholar

⁴² E.g. planting more than one crop per year; being willing to move to urban areas (for which they express great dislike) if employment were available; being willing to consolidate their farming plots and/or being willing to run their farms as commercial enterprises rather than as a way of life.

⁴³ Even to the extent of emigrating in the face of extreme discomfort en route and, initially at least, under the threat of punishment by the Chinese authorities if caught.

⁴⁴ For a more eloquently argued account, see Aziz, Ungku A., op. cit. in Kajian Ekonomi Malaysia.Google Scholar However, even though ‘exploitation’ is difficult to define in economic terms, the ‘exploitation’ of the rural Malays has not been a racial clash as some commentators seem to imply, even though most of those who do the ‘exploiting’ are non-Malays and many of those who are ‘exploited’ are Malays. It is more accurate, and far less dangerous, to think of this ‘exploitation’ as being a clash of groups, the one exerting its superior bargaining power on the other. The racial character of the two groups is coincidental to the ‘exploitation’. The Chinese ‘exploit’ other Chinese in just the same way as they are said to ‘exploit’ Malays, and vice versa. In Temiar Jungle, by Slimming, J. (London, 1958), p. 20Google Scholar, it is observed that ‘the Malays are probably more unscrupulous than the Chinese’ in the way ‘they advance payments to unsuspecting aborigines who are kept constantly in their debt’.

⁴⁵ E.g. low incomes, savings, investment, capital and productivity; poor tenancy systems; and underemployment.

⁴⁶ The British administration did help to maintain or even increase the political power of the Malays, and to some extent provided more job opportunities in urban areas. But by virtue of the fact that most Malays lived in rural areas, facilities available to them were much more limited than the facilities in towns. The non Malays and the Malays who lived in the towns were thus in a more favourable position.

⁴⁷ However, it ought to be remembered that the Chinese were willing to move to urban areas in search of employment, or were there initially to establish the urban areas.

⁴⁸ Freedman, M., ‘The Handling of Money: A Note on the Background of the Economic Sophistication of Overseas Chinese’, Man, 59 (1959), pp. 64–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and reprinted in Silcock, T. H. (ed.), Readings in Malayan Economics (Eastern Universities Press, 1961), pp. 38–42.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Swee, Goh Keng, Urban Incomes and Housing (Government Printer, Singapore, 1956), p. 135.Google Scholar This work shows that in Singapore there are, in fact, more Chinese among the lowest income levels than there are Malays, but there are also more among the highest. This may well be true of Malaya as well.