NOTES ON THE USE OF 'MALAY' AND 'ABANG' IN SARAWAK J.H. Walker The origins of the use of the term 'Malay' and the title 'Abang' in Sarawak have been the subject of mild but persistent speculation in writings about Sarawak history, part of a wider debate about the origins of the Sarawak Malay community and its leadership. Robert Pringle claimed that James Brooke introduced the term Malay to Sarawak from Singapore, where it was applied to all coastal, sea-faring Moslems in the archipelago. In support of this, Pringle noted that in Brunei there are no 'Malays' as such, only 'Malayic' subgroups - Bajaus, Sulus and Bruneis, etcl. Babcock also was certain that Sarawak Malays never called themselves Malays and that Brooke "may have" brought the term from elsewhere.2 This view could be supported by the usage in some other parts of Borneo. Lindblad's study. for example, refers to Banjarese, Pasirese and Kutais, not to Malays.3 Implicit in Pringle's and Babcock's comments is the suggestion that 'Malayness' in Sarawak is somehow a consequence of the expansion of British power and ideas into the region. James Brooke, Malays and Malayness The argument that James Brooke introduced the term Malay to Sarawak is under- mined by the care which Brooke exercised in distinguishing and describing ethnic groups. Although it is true that, initially, Brooke believed that the inhabitants of coastal Borneo, Sulu, the Moluccas "and other islands, may, with certainty be classed as belonging to one nation": he was soon able to distinguish between Malay and other Moslem groups, doing so as a matter of course. By 1840, for example, he recognised that Kadayans, though Moslem, were not Malay.= In 1842 he recorded a group of people he identified as Kadayans, rather than Malays, living near Sematan.6 A month later he distinguished in his diary between Brunei Malays and Kadayans.' Similarly, in 1845, he identified Bajaus, Dusuns, Illanuns, Balangingi and Arabs on the east coast of Borneo, distinguishing all these groups from ma lay^.^ In fact, by 1845, Brooke was adamant that "one of the most fertile sources of confusion is, in classing at one time all the various nations of the archipelago under the general name of Malays, and at another restricting the same term to one people, ..... who issued from the centre of Sumatra, and spread themselves in a few parts of the archipelagon.@ Brooke was not only aware that all Moslems in the archipelago were not necessarily Malays. he even perceived that "the characters of Malay communities differ so much one from the othern.'O If Brooke introduced the term Malay to describe Sarawak's perabangan and the community they led, it was not through ignorance. It is not clear either why Pringle and Babcock believed it unlikely that Sarawak Malays used the term Malay to describe themselves, or, if it is true, why these authors considered it important to note it. As Anthony Milner has explained, precolonial 'Malays' had no experience of political unity: they did not acknowledge any single ruling family or lineage, and they expressed no sense of nationhood.ll They did, however, consciously participate in a distinctively Malay world, sharing a Malay culture defined by similar dress, manners, language, literature and, as Milner demon- strated so cogently, political ideas and values.lz Brunei, Sarawak, Sambas, Pontianak, Sukadana and Mempawa were all part of this world. Brunei, for example, had been