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-

Well, this is it! My first blog. So much to do, much to share. The inhabitants of this planet need a lotta stuff, but first of all - More thinking, less dunking. More building, less banging. More vigilance, not violence. Il dio ci aiuta!Si comincia nel nome di Dio...

The Legend of Mu, and how the Malay people and Atlantis got their names

At 08:20 PM 3/22/01 , ak wrote: ...
"Melayu" is a word that existed long before the Europeans 'discovered' our wonderful little paradise... but its meaning in Javanese is not flattering either...

Nadge's feedback:
I'd suggest that it is neither flattering nor unflattering, but factual and there's an interesting web of info behind this meaning of "melayu". In fact, in the oral tradition of our ancestors I was told this long ago by my Javanese paternal relatives back in Yogyakarta (Jogjakarta, Indonesia), and I subscribe to this view.

Here's why - I will tell it to you as it was told to me – in Malay:

Dalam bahasa Jawa, malahan juga dalam banyak dialek lain di Nusantara (contohnya Bahasa Batak-Mendailing dll.) istilah "melayu" bermaksud "lari"! Umpamanya semasa kecil dulu, kita anak-anak yang hanya berbahasa Jawa lalu bermain kejar-kejar seringkali menjerit "melayu! melayu!" yang bermaksud "lari! lari!"!

Nah, gimana wujudnya nama bangsa "Melayu" yang membawa erti sama dengan maksud "lari"? Harus juga diingat bahawa hampir semua kumpulan etnis di kepulauan Asia Tenggara termasuk di Filipina juga mengaku diri mereka sebangsa "rumpun Melayu" walaupun dari segi komunitas lokal berbeda-beda ada Melayu Malaysia, Melayu Riau, Jakun, Minang, Bugis, Jawa, Dayak dll. - karena ada suatu lagenda yang dikongsi bersama tentang asal-usul mereka.

Menurut lagenda oral turun-temurun yang wujud di banyak tempat di Asia Tenggara & Pasifik dari Aceh hingga ke Hawaii, beribu tahun silam terdapat suatu benua kuno yang bernama “Mu”. Penduduknya mempunyai kehidupan bermasyarakat yang amat maju dan selesa dengan pelbagai ilmu hingga dikatakan boleh terbang!

Tapi lama-kelamaan setelah hidup dalam kemewahan, mereka menjadi leka, tidak bersyukur, jatuh akhlak moral dan bergaduh sesama sendiri, atau juga ada sebab yang lain... Tapi akhirnya, Tuhan (yang mereka panggil "Sang Kekal") amat murka dan melandakan gempa bumi dan letusan gunungan berapi yang maha dahsyat beserta hujan lebat toh malapetaka banjir besar-besaran terjadi. Segala-galanya tenggelam ke dalam laut.

Penduduknya ramai yang mati, hanya yang muda-muda yang kuat dan bisa lari ke tanah-tanah tinggi saja yang terselamat, atau menaiki perahu untuk lari ke tempat jauh. Semuanya terpisah bertempiaran ke berbagai haluan, lalu tersadai di puncak-puncak dataran tinggi yang membentuk kepulauan Nusantara di Asia Tenggara kini.

Semasa turun bala itu, anak-anak benua "Mu" itu menjerit "melayu! melayu" yang bermaksud "lari" dalam bahasa mereka. Dan olehkarena dahsyat dan sengsaranya kejadian itu terpaku di sanubari para anak Mu yang terselamat, maka mereka semua memanggil diri mereka rumpun "Orang Melayu", iaitu "Orang yang lari".

Kita yang tersadai di Asia Tenggara akhirnya dianugerah dengan Islam dan nama Tuhan Sang "Kekal" kini kita tahu sebagai Allah swt. Yang Maha Esa. Tentang saudara-saudara kuno kita yang lari melintas Lautan Teduh (nama Melayu untuk lautan yang aman, teduh atau passive yakni Pasifik / Pacific Ocean -Ed.), kita tidak tahu apa terjadi pada mereka, hingga kita katakan mereka hilang tenggelam ditelan dek "Lautan Telan" (= “atelan” = Atlantik).

Tapi hari ini kita tahu, mereka itu tiba di satu benua besar lain lalu terus hidup dan memakai nama tidak jauh dari kita iaitu Maya, dan Tuhan mereka masih kekal bernama "Kekalkan".

Saudara-saudara anak serumpun kita itu mempunyai lagenda yang sama seperti kita, iaitu bahawa mereka itu anak yang lari dari satu bencana benua lama, dan moyang mereka ditelan dan “telus” ke dalam laut. Dari lagenda lain, nama benua Mu yang hilang itu diingati dari "anak telan telus" sebagai "Atlantis"...

Check these facts: (1) Up to as late as 9,000 years ago much of today's Malay Archipelago was above water and basically was a land bridge to Australia. (2) This story ties in with the legend of the catastrophic "Great Flood(s)" mentioned in most religious texts and cultural traditions of the world. (3) The Mayans and many native Indians of the Americas today resemble Malays too, and a major god of the Mayans is Kuculcan (pronounced 'Kukul-kan')... still close sounding to Sang Kekal(kan) meaning “the Great One who is Permanent and Maintains Permanence” in Malay.

The Malay, the Maya and other related peoples are the Children of the Lost Continent of Mu, also known as Atlantis, which was located in the Southeast Asia Pacific region before the Flood.

This also explains why Southeast Asia's Malay civilization appears to be materially 'young' - no ancient cities, monuments, written texts etc. as it was all sunk and lost, while the young survivors who had to quickly “melayu” or run had to leave behind everything as they escaped to the new lands i.e. the once-were highlands of Mu that are now the islands of the Malay Archipelago.

But how come their Maya cousins of the Americas have great cities of stone pyramids and written glyph records? Ah! There's a most interesting reason for that, which ties in with an even older and sinister legend. But that's for me to tell at another time...

-nadge-
Anak of Mu / Atlantis