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Foreign iron is now used by the Battak of Sumatra, but deserted iron-works are known to exist in their country, while the Menangkabau still possess smelting furnaces. It seems probable that the whole industry had a common source, and was spread or carried as a unit, but when trade relations made the arduous work of mining and smelting unnecessary, it was quickly given up.
I had many opportunities of communicating with the natives of Rumbo, and they have clearly a peculiar dialect, resembling exactly what you mention of substituting the final o for a, as in the word ambo for amba. In fact, the dialect is called by the Malacca people the language of Menangkabau."
It may, indeed, be urged that this language has gradually crept into the dialects of Java and Menangkabau.
Much learning has been expended upon the origin of Malayan, but it has not been reliably traced beyond the ancient empire of Menangkabau in Sumatra. Mohammedanism undoubtedly brought with it a large introduction of Arabic words, and the language itself is written in the Arabic character. It has been estimated by that most painstaking and learned scholar, Mr.
The Malays of Sungei Ujong and several of the adjacent States are supposed to be tolerably directly descended from those of the parent empire Menangkabau in Sumatra, who conquered and have to a great extent displaced the tribes known as Jakuns, Orang Bukit, Rayet Utan, Samangs, Besisik, Rayet Laut, etc., the remnants of which live mainly in the jungles of the interior, are everywhere apart from the Malays, and are of a much lower grade in the scale of civilization.
In the country of Menangkabau they have from the earliest times manufactured arms for their own use and to supply the northern inhabitants of the island, who are the most warlike, and which trade they continue to this day, smelting, forging, and preparing, by a process of their own, the iron and steel for this purpose, although much is at the same time purchased from Europeans.*
About the year 1613 however he claimed no farther than Padang, and his actual possessions reached only to Barus.* The following instances occur of mention made by writers at different periods of the kingdom of Menangkabau. "Sumatra, a most large and beautiful island; Pedir, the principal city on the northern side, where are also Pacem and Achem. Campar is opposite to Malacca.
Notwithstanding the independent spirit of the Battas, and their contempt of all power that would affect a superiority over their little societies, they have a superstitious veneration for the sultan of Menangkabau, and show blind submission to his relations and emissaries, real or pretended, when such appear among them for the purpose of levying contributions: even when insulted and put in fear of their lives they make no attempt at resistance: they think that their affairs would never prosper; that their padi would be blighted, and their buffaloes die; that they would remain under a kind of spell for offending those sacred messengers.
This theory fits in well with the native account of the distribution of the Malay race, which makes Menangkabau, in Southern Sumatra, the centre whence they spread over the Malayan islands and peninsula. The Professor further points out, that in prehistoric times the Malay and Indonesian stock spread westwards to Madagascar and eastwards to the Philippines and Formosa, Micronesia and Polynesia.
"The glorious uncertainty" of law is nowhere more fully exemplified than on this Peninsula. It is from the Golden Island, the parent Empire of Menangkabau, that the Malays profess to derive both their criminal and civil law, their tribal system, their rules for the division of land by boundary marks, and the manner of government as adapted for sovereigns and their ministers.
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