The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

I446 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap.impassable barriers ; and as wide oceans and great contrasts oftemperature are the most complete barriers to the dispersal ofall terrestrial forms of life, the primary di\'isions of the earthshould in the main serve for all terrestrial organisms. Howevervarious may be the effects of climate, however unequal themeans of distribution, these will never altogether obliterate theradical effects of long-continued isolation ; and it is my firmconviction, that when the botany and the entomology of NewGuinea and the surrounding islands become as well known asare their mammals and birds, these departments of nature willalso plainly indicate the radical distinctions of the Indo-Malayanand Austro-Malayan regions of the great Malay ArchiiDelago.CHAPTER XL.THE RACES OF MAN IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.I PROPOSE to conclude this account of my Eastern travels witha short statement of my views as to the races of man which inhabitthe various parts of the Archipelago, their chief physicaland mental characteristics, their affinities with each other andwith surrounding tribes, their migrations, and their probableorigin.Two very strongly contrasted races inhabit the Archipelago—the Malays, occupying almost exclusively the larger westernhalf of it, and the Papuans, whose headquarters are New Guineaand several of the adjacent islands. Between these in localityare found tribes who are also intermediate in their chiefcharacteristics, and it is sometimes a nice point to determinewhether they belong to one or the other race, or have beenformed by a mixture of the two.The Malay is undoubtedly the most important of tliese tworaces, as it is the one which is the most civilized, which has comemost into contact with Europeans, and which alone has anyplace in histoiy. What may be called the true Malay races, asdistinguished from others who have merely a Malay element intheir language, present a considerable uniformity of physicaland mental characteristics, while there are very great differencesof civilization and of language. They consist of fourgreat, and a few minor semi-civilized tribes, and a number ofothers wlio may be termed savages. The Malays proper inhabitthe Malay peninsula, and almost all the coast regions of Borneoand Sumatra. They all speak the Malay language, or dialectsof it ; they write in the Arabic character, and are Mahometansin religion. The Javanese inhabit Java, part of Sumatra,Madura, Bali, and part of Lombock. They speak the Javaneseand Kawi languages, which they write in a native character.They are now Mahometans in Java, but Brahmins in Bali and,