Origin of Hang Tuah, and the Malay psyche

At 10:51 PM 1/20/04 +0000, Sejarah-Melayu@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 05:26:54 -0800 (PST)
>From: albudi
>Subject: Re: Hi (Hang Tuah dan rakan-rakan)
>
>Dear all,
>
>I am very much interested to know about Hang Tuah and the four other warriors; Jebat, Lekir, Lekiu and Kasturi. As being told by some 'historians' and several researchers that the five maybe from China, sent to Malacca by Emperor Yung Lo of Ming Dynasty.
>
>Hope to know more of this 'fact' and their descendency.
>
>Looking forward to your reply.
>
>Tks.
>

Salams & regards,

Incidentally I was analyzing this matter too. On the origins of the five Melaka warrior Hangs - Tuah, Jebat, Lekir, Lekiu and Kasturi; there has of course been a lot of speculation and controversy. But looking at the widest research work, literature, cultural-linguistic clues and relics available, it still seems highly unlikely that Hang Tuah was from China. There's some possiblity that maybe one or some of his other buddies could have been so, maybe Hang Lekiu, but even that is inconclusive.

Not just the written and oral records, but also linguistically there is no reason to negate Hang Tuah as anything but local. Hang is a more common local name in that period in the Malay World than it is realized now. Even Hang Tuah's father is named as Hang Mahmud. Thus Hang is not automatically Chinese just because it sounds so - in fact Hang is not even a very common Chinese surname. The fanciful and supposedly Chinese "Hang Too Ah" barely has any meaning in the relevant Chinese dialect or record from Ming dynasty times.

In addition, Ming records hardly laud any supposed "Princess Hang Li Po sent to Melaka to marry the Sultan", such that history writers like J. Kennedy don't bother to mention this in their books. Either Hang Li Po's name was wrongly recorded or it was a different story that turned into her present legendary history. Emperor Yung-Lo, himself secretly a Muslim, had sent the Muslim Admiral Cheng Ho (Zheng-He in Pinyin), not "Hang Too Ah" as well.

For examples of other local 'Hang's; there is the history of Hang Nadim in Temasik/Singapura & Riau-Batam-Bintan (Indonesia), or Hang Jaka in nearby Muar-Batu Pahat and Hang Jaras later on in Selangor - none of whom are Chinese.

And just to throw it in, "hang" has been a common northern Malay dialect for "you" since time immemorial - note that Kedah-Langkasuka has an over 2000-year history. The Kedahans have their own oral tradition of how Hang Tuah got his name, but that's another long story!

At least two research sources that my team read identify Hang Tuah as from the local Orang Laut community. These were the native people who worked together with Parameswara's entourage to set up Melaka. The Orang Laut are listed as an Orang Asli group who are related to the Malays in language and customs and had embraced Islam. By the end of the 19th century the Orang Laut had pretty much altogether assimilated with the Malays.

A more important thing is the Malay attitude toward race, then as it is now. I give a personal example. My blood is Chinese, and in fact my grandmother arrived late in South-East Asia - in 1926. She was a distant niece of Prince Chuen and an extended member of the Han and Manchu Dynastic families - you can't get any more Chinese than that. But even when I also still have a Chinese name and I speak Chinese, celebrate Chinese New Year or whatever, I am regarded as Malay by the Malaysian government, by Malays and even Chinese themselves - because I am a Malaysian Muslim and I speak colloquial Malay. Whatever right or wrong, small or great that I do - it is now seen as a Malay's doing it.


On this, I give a saying "Melayu ada di jiwa, bukan di baka", roughly translating as "Malay is a state of mind, not a state of blood". In this sense it is irregardless and a moot point on Hang Tuah's origin. Meaning; even if he were a Chinese and had come off a ship from China and only then went on to serve the Melaka Sultanate as recorded, it don't matter no more, he has already been co-opted and embraced as a Malay.

-najib @ na-jee-