Article

Notes on some Malayan place-names

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Notes on some Malayan place-names

J.V. Mills, a Malayan Civil Service officer, published this compact etymological study in 1932, offering identifications and linguistic analyses for seven Malayan place-names drawn from Chinese, Portuguese, Malay, and English sources. The article’s overarching thesis is that many seemingly obscure or contradictory toponyms in the Strait of Malacca region can be resolved through careful comparison of multilingual navigational texts and local oral tradition.

Summary

Mills addresses a persistent problem in Malayan historical geography: the same physical feature often appears under different names in Chinese, Portuguese, Malay, and English sources, and these names frequently resist straightforward identification. His method is to cross-reference early navigational accounts—Chinese sailing directions, Portuguese chronicles, and British maritime directories—with local Malay names and legends to propose specific identifications. The article is not a systematic survey but a collection of discrete notes, each tackling one place-name or small group of related names.

The most substantial arguments concern the identification of features in the Singapore Strait and the approaches to Malacca. Mills proposes that the Chinese name Hsi-li (attested in Wang Ta-Yuan’s 1350 Tao i Chih lo) represents a Cantonese transliteration of the Malay selat (“strait”), pointing to Keppel Harbour as the site plundered by Siamese raiders. For the approach to Malacca, he identifies the Chinese Ki-pei (“cotton island”) with Parcellar Hill, tracing the name ultimately to Malay kapas or Hindustani kapas, and Ka-wang (“island of the false king”) with Cape Rachado, arguing the latter is a conflation of the Malay tanjong tuan with an older Chinese designation for “the false five islands” (i.e., pre-1409 Malacca).

The remaining notes are shorter. Mills identifies Resende’s “Bulla” (c. 1638) with Bulang Bay on Batam, confirmed by Horsburgh’s 1843 India Directory; links the legend of the chained boy to the rocks of Batu Berantai near Singapore; and records two cases of administrative renaming—Kuala Kubu’s station named in Amoy Hokkien rather than Cantonese, and the village of Bunyi forcibly changed to Suara by the Federated Malay States railway in 1919 to avoid confusion with Bangi.

Key Findings

  • Resende’s “Bulla” (Sloane MS. No. 197, British Museum, c. 1638) is identified as Bulang Bay on the north coast of Batam, a trading port used by southern Malay merchants to avoid Malacca’s abuses (p. 17).
  • The Chinese Hsi-li (Wang Ta-Yuan, 1350) is proposed as a Cantonese rendering of Malay selat, locating the Siamese-plundered site in Keppel Harbour, the same selat that gave rise to the Chinese name Shek Lat for Singapore (pp. 17–18).
  • Ki-pei (“cotton island”) in Huang Sheng ts’eng’s 1520 Hsi Yang Chao kung tien lu is identified with Parcellar Hill, the name deriving from Malay kapas / Hindustani kapas; the designation “island” reflects a period when the hill was fully surrounded by water (p. 19).
  • Ka-wang (“island of the false king”) is identified with Cape Rachado, the name being a conflation of Malay tanjong tuan (“the lord’s cape”) with the old Chinese “false five islands” (i.e., pre-1409 Malacca) (p. 20).
  • The FMS railway administration renamed the village of Bunyi to Suara in 1919 to eliminate documentary confusion with Bangi, despite the name being etymologically incorrect (p. 20).
  • Eredia’s “Pulau Ular” (Snake Island) near the western end of the Johore Strait is confirmed as Pulau Merambong by Horsburgh’s reference to “Pulo Marambon, called also Isle Cobra” (p. 20).

Conclusion

Mills demonstrates that a disciplined comparison of multilingual primary sources—Chinese sailing charts, Portuguese chronicles, British maritime directories, and Malay oral tradition—can resolve long-standing ambiguities in the toponymy of the Strait of Malacca. His definitive takeaway is that many apparent contradictions in the historical record are artefacts of transliteration practices and administrative convenience rather than genuine geographical disagreement, and that the physical landscape itself (insular features later connected to the mainland, prominent capes, submerged rock formations) often preserves the logic of older names.

Context

  • Primary archival sources include the Sloane MS. No. 197 at the British Museum (Resende’s Malacca account), the Wu-pei-pi-shu chart (c. 1400), and published translations in T’oung Pao (1915) and the Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (1886).
  • The article contributes to the early twentieth-century programme of Malayan historical geography by applying philological methods to navigational toponyms, a line of inquiry Mills had begun in his 1930 article in JRAMB Vol. VIII, Pt. I.

References